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In Cleveland, hope dies last

Archive for the tag “Cleveland Cavaliers”

14 Nov 2013

From the editor’s notebook …

Just what the heck is going on with the Cleveland Cavaliers?

A 3-6 record … losers of six in a row on the road … owners of the second-worst point differential in the NBA … 27th in points per game … a starting back court of Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters that is shooting a combined 39 percent from the field … a No. 1 overall pick in Anthony Bennett who has made four field goals total in eight games … it all makes our head hurt.

So, is it time to start worrying?

We will go with … sort of.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians, Liverpool and tagged Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians, Liverpool | Leave a comment

31 Oct 2013

What does the NBA season have in store for the Cavs?

The Cleveland Cavaliers opened the 2013-14 NBA season with a home court victory over the Brooklyn Nets.

Will the win be the first of many, propelling the Cavs back into the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference?

Or was it just a rare win that will give false hope to a season that is destined to see the team battle for the No. 1 overall draft pick once again?

We join some of the best at brightest at The Cleveland Fan to try and figure out what the upcoming season has in store for the Wine and Gold.

(Photo courtesy of The Plain Dealer)

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers and tagged Cleveland Cavaliers | Leave a comment

11 Aug 2013

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From the editor’s notebook …

A look at a few items that warrant attention but not necessarily a full post …

Are the Indians done for the year?

Is it OK to call the season over for the Cleveland Indians? Is Sunday’s comeback win the start of another streak? Or was the win just a reprieve until until the inevitable becomes reality?

We need answers after the Tribe rallied from five runs down on Sunday to beat the Los Angeles Angels and salvage one win on the seven-game homestand.

The Indians opened the week just three games out of first place in the A.L. Central and holding the second Wild Card spot. After being swept by the Tigers in the biggest series since 2007, and losing two-of-three to the Angels, the Indians head off to Minnesota seven games behind Detroit and four games back in the Wild Card.

11 Jul 2013

Cavs willing to take a chance on Andrew Bynum

The Cleveland Cavaliers took the bait on Wednesday, agreeing to a two-year contract with free agent center Andrew Bynum.

So what are the Cavs receiving from an oft-injured player who missed all of the 2012-13 season and brings career averages of 11.7 points and 7.8 rebounds per game?

For starters, Bynum is probably a better player than his career stats would indicate. He has trended upward since his rookie year, when he averaged just 1.6 points and 1.7 rebounds a game, culminating in 2011-12, when he had career highs with 18.7 points and 11.8 rebounds per game. Bynum put up those numbers under coach Mike Brown, who was with the Los Angeles Lakers that season and is now back in Cleveland as Cavs coach.

So, statistically at least, Bynum’s career is trending in a good direction.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers and tagged Andrew Bynum, Cleveland Cavaliers | Leave a comment

09 Jul 2013

Is Andrew Bynum really the answer for the Cavs?

If the Cleveland Cavaliers believe that Andrew Bynum is the answer, then it may be time for them to start rethinking the question.

The Cavs hosted the free agent center on Monday and reportedly offered Bynum a two-year, $24-million contract with the team holding an option on the second year.

During his career Bynum has played in just 61 percent of his team’s games, hasn’t played a full season since 2006-07 and didn’t play at all last year due to a lingering knee injury.

The Cavs pursuit of Bynum has been labeled as a “low risk, high reward” signing.

But that still leaves one question needs to be answered:

Is the reward really worth the risk?

We try to figure it out at The Cleveland Fan.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers and tagged Andrew Bynum, Cleveland Cavaliers | Leave a comment

07 Jul 2013

From the editor’s notebook …

A look at a few items that warrant attention but not necessarily a full post …

The Indians still have some fight in them

They made it a lot harder than it had to be, but the Cleveland Indians finally hit back against Detroit on Sunday.

After losing the opening two games of the series in rather unpleasant fashion, the Tribe bounced back on Sunday to beat the Tigers, 9-6, thanks to Michael Brantley’s two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning. Brantley had two home runs and five RBI on the day, the fifth anniversary of the C.C. Sabathia trade that brought Brantley to Cleveland.

The win was just the Tribe’s sixth against Detroit in their last 20 games dating back to last season and it was made harder by the Tribe’s increasingly ineffective bullpen.

28 Jun 2013

3 Comments

Once again, Chris Grant kept everyone guessing

Every time the experts think they have the answers, Cleveland Cavaliers general manager Chris Grant changes the questions.

Grant did it again Thursday night, selecting UNLV forward Anthony Bennett with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft. Grant followed up the Bennett pick by selecting forward Sergey Karagev out of Russia with the No. 19 pick in the first round.

“With our scouting department, our evaluators during the season, the first time we saw Anthony, I think all of us walked out of the gym just amazed with his ability and talent,” Grant said on Friday during a press conference. “And the more we got to know him and learn what kind of person he was and that he was an incredibly hard worker and he was going to do whatever it takes to be the best he could be, it became a very easy decision for us.”

Almost as surprising as the Bennett pick is the reaction from the national media, which, for a change, has been positive about what is taking place in Cleveland.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers and tagged Anthony Bennett, Cleveland Cavaliers, Sergey Karagev

26 Jun 2013

With the first pick in the NBA Draft the Cavs select …

The NBA Draft is Thursday and the Cleveland Cavaliers find themselves sitting in a pretty good position.

Holding the top pick in the draft for the fifth time in franchise history – and the second time in the past three years – the Cavs completely control what they want to do when Commission David Stern opens the draft at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn at 7 p.m. (The team also holds picks No. 19, 31 and 33).

Stay put and add another young player to a nucleus of Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters, Tristan Thompson and Tyler Zeller? The Cavs can do that. Make a trade with some of the assets they have spent three years (and 166 losses) compiling so they can be in contention for the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference? They can do that, too.

We think we know what we would like to see the Cavs do with the first pick (more on that in a bit), and we’re fairly certain that Cavs general manager Chris Grant has made up his mind what he wants to do. Of course, what they actually will do remains in question as rumors continue to swirl around the team.

So let’s try to figure this all out as best we can. Our 2013 NBA Draft preview starts … now at The Cleveland Fan.

(Photo by Getty Images)

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, NBA draft and tagged Cleveland Cavaliers, NBA Draft | Leave a comment

15 Jun 2013

How bad are things right now in Cleveland sports?

How bad is it right now to be a Cleveland sports fan?

It’s bad, obviously, as to paraphrase one of Coughlin’s Laws, “everything in Cleveland sports ends badly, otherwise it wouldn’t be Cleveland.”

But just how bad is it compared to other historically bad times in Cleveland sports? (And, yes, we get that comparing poor eras is a very Cleveland thing to do.)

In a town where we know a lot about losing, it’s hard to think that right now is as bad as it has ever been, especially when you consider that the late 1970s through early 1980s seemed to be just as bad, if not worse, than the current streak we are witnessing from the Big 3 teams in town.

So how do the two eras compare?

To find out, head over to The Cleveland Fan.

(Photo by The Plain Dealer)

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland sports and tagged Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland sports | Leave a comment

30 May 2013

Are there any players Cleveland fans would not root for?

When the New York Yankees traded for Roger Clemens in 1999, Yankee fans were faced with a dilemma:

How do you root for a player that you despised when they played for a rival team?

Mike Lupica, writing in The New York Daily News, came up with the perfect phrase for Yankee fans to justify embracing Clemens through his steroid-aided years in the Bronx – Clemens was a player who was now “our guy, their jerk.”

We were reminded of that last week when the Cleveland Indians were in Boston playing the Red Sox. During Thursday night’s game, David Ortiz hit a no-doubt home run off of Zach McCallister and stood at home plate admiring his work (as batters are wont to do). That led friend of the program Brian McPeek to criticize Ortiz with this tweet.

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