Even when basketball's next great player lands in their lap . . .

[HughBeaumont]

Cleveland somehow, AS USUAL, manages to pull out every stop imaginable to fuck it RIGHT up. If you were a GM and had a prize like LeBron James land in your lap, wouldn't you . . . I don't know, do every single thing in your power NOT to screw it up? Little things like letting Carlos Boozer get away and getting shiz-NIT in return? Passing up on Jameer Nelson and Sebastian Telfair (because you sort of NEED a reliable back-up/starting point) for someone who's played a whopping 8 games all season and who, thanks to this injury, most likely peaked in college? Trading future draft picks for some stiff named Jiri Welsch, who shoots worse than I do? Grabbing free agents like Lucious Harris, who, of course, left his ability to shoot threes in Jersey (who will be getting swept in Miami in the playoffs, in the Cavs place, thanks to great management moves)? Relying on a 7'3" klutz who's 29 on paper but is stuck with a 46-year-old body and 54-year-old reflexes? Loading your team with small forwards who rely more on guile and athleticism than talent, and as a result, brick wide-open shots? Firing your coach mid-season who actually managed to somehow win 31 games with an overall undertalented and underachieving roster?

Other than attaining Drew Gooden and Anderson Varaejo, has Jim Paxson done ANYthing right on his own?

Somehow, I'm just thinking it simply isn't meant to BE with this city. Always the bridesmaids, never the bride.

This city doesn't allow you to root for them. You can't. 3/4 of their team's lethargic and aggravating performances have to do with flat out lousy management, whether through disappointing draft picks, bungled deals, bad acquisitions or downright STUPID trades (Ron Harper for Fanny Derry comes to mind). The other 1/4 can be attributed to bad luck; whether a star comes here and all of a sudden isn't any more, or whether we get a killer player and then he suffers a season-ending/career stifling injury.

Barring Paxson's firing (it HAS to happen; often you wonder how someone can be this retarded on purpose) and a whiz-bang off-season where EVERYthing you do has to be correct and logical, from the right GM, to the right coach, to the right free agents (since we have no picks), this is going to inevitably seem like yet another dark and sad chapter in the tragedy that is Cleveland sports. And it didn't have to be. That's what's sad.

[4_TN_TITANS]

1. Whatta Rant......

I've got a feeling I'm going to be doing some of that myself when NFL season comes around. With all the recent changes and releases, the Titans don't have a chance to even go .500 for the next two years.

What would we do without our sports to keep us occupied - discuss politics?
:P :P :P

They're still our teams and we'll take the good with the bad.

[The_Counsel]

2. Man...

All you have to do is replace "Cleveland Cavs" with "New York Knicks" and triple the front office stupidity/misery and you might... MIGHT be halfway to what us Knicks fans have had to endure the last few seasons.

Now that the Knicks have FINALLY realized they need to get rid of Allan Houston, they CAN'T because his salary's too big. Now they have to hope he retires at age 33. How sad is that...? :cry:

[HughBeaumont]

3. True, but . . .

at least you're from a state/city that wins titles in SOMEthing once every five years or so. It's been 41 YEARS since Cleveland has won a title in ANYthing. I used the Cavs as an example because this is the one time we actually had the Gods smile on us and had a genuine, can't-miss prospect land in our yard . . . and damn it if they're not going out of their WAY to mess this up. It just makes you look up at the sky and in an Al Bundy voice, say "Not even this, huh? Was Oprah right? Are you just a bitter fat old woman???"

If LeBron leaves after his contract is up, it will just add to the many chapters of upper management stupidity that Cleveland has been plagued with. We're so starved for a winner, but for some reason, there's always always ALWAYS one or two things that forever seem to stop it from happening. Most of it is directly related to retarded management.

Art Modell, Jim Paxson, Ted Stepien, Trader Lane, Wayne Embry, Carmen Policy, Mark Shapiro . . . I mean, where the hell and WHY the hell do WE have to get these bozos? It's clear Paxson has absolutely NO idea how the NBA works or any clue about talent evaluation.

[jakefrep]

5. Shapiro's an idiot?

I think he's done a decent job with the limited resources on hand.

[HughBeaumont]

7. That has yet to be determined, but gutting the team doesn't help -

Granted, "little ball" is the only way to compete against bank vault teams such as the Red Sox and Yankees in salary-capless baseball. But because those two teams are in one division, the Tribe has no choice but to win theirs, which they aren't going to be doing anytime soon as long as the Twins are around. We simply don't have the luck and chemistry that the Marlins always seem to have, so we need pitching. Our bullpen is still an issue, as is consistent hitting.

[The_Counsel]

6. I Guess Misery Loves Company...

"True, but... at least you're from a state/city that wins titles in SOMEthing once every five years or so."

I don't know about all that. Subtract the Yankees (who are among my LEAST favorite NY teams) and you'd have to go back 11 years to find the last NY world champion in anything. (Sorry, I just don't count the New Jersey Devils as a New York team... :P) The Knicks? Their last championship was over 35 years ago, which may as well be translated to "never in my lifetime." You know it's sad when you either have to ask your GRANDFATHER how it felt to root the home team to a championship, simply because you're tired of READING about it in history books...

But don't take that to mean I don't have sympathy for you. The Indians should have won the '97 World Series if not for Jose "I'm a Closer That Can't Close Games" Mesa. The '86 Browns could have won the Super Bowl if not for Elway's Drive...

...wait a minute. Strike that. The Browns weren't beating my Giants that year. :evilgrin:

But I'm sayin', tho. I hope the Cavs can win both of these games they have left. I'd like nothing more than to see Jason Kidd HOME for the playoffs this year...

[HughBeaumont]

8. I seriously don't see that happening.

Granted, Jason Kidd is one of the biggest punks in the league, but the Nets are flying too high with Carter and they're blowing teams out. The "Caves" are lost. No chemistry, no ball movement, matador defense and they're relying too much on one man to do everything, which is why you won't be seeing many of them next year.

The '97 Series is STILL a sore spot for me. Talk about one of the most wholesale bullpen collapses in history - that team was tailor-MADE for us to beat.

[The_Counsel]

9. That's Too Bad...

I watched a game the Knicks played in Cleveland in January. Unfortunately, so did the rest of the country, as it was a Saturday Game of the Week on ABC. The Knicks were getting their asses royally kicked by LeBron and company. In fact, so thorough was the whoopin' I don't think LeBron played more than five minutes in the second half. Your guys just KILLED my guys. I remember thinking back then that the Cavs actually had a chance to steal the #1 seed from Miami...

...fast forward to late March, and I'm listening to an ESPN analyst saying the Cavs are "still struggling to make the playoffs." I'm like: "HUH?! Dem boys ain't clinched a playoff spot YET?! What the hell are they DOIN'?!"

Choking, apparently.

What's chafing my ass about all this is WHO'S benefitting from this collapse. Heck, they could let Charlotte or New Orleans have the #8 seed and I wouldn't have cared. Toronto? Sure, they can have it too. But NEW JERSEY getting that spot would just piss me off. It doesn't even help knowing they'd only get blown four-oh in the first round against Shaq, Dwayne and the Gang. I'd still be mad that the Nets even got in.

Eff that. The Cavs have GOT to do something. Can't they make a one-week trade for Kobe or something...? :P

[jakefrep]

10. You New Yorkers aren't afflicted....

...with the enormous inferiority complex (and the absurd expectations/demands that creates) that some Cleveland fans have about their teams.

[HughBeaumont]

11. When Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Toronto, Minnesota, Anaheim

and the goddamned expansion Flah-duh Marlins can field winners (in Flah-Duh's case, two WS champs in 12 years of existence) without giant amounts of dollars or being major market areas, I don't think it's unreasonable or absurd to think Cleveland is capable of doing the same.

We have the so-called "best fans in the world" (we must, if MNBA Stadium is regularly filled almost to capacity to see a bad Div III college team disguised as the Browns stench up the field) and we get rewarded with very mediocre to flat-out sorry teams. Someone PLEASE explain that one to me because I'm just not getting it. :wtf:

[democracyindanger]

4. Silas didn't play rookies anyway

Jackson's low/no-PT was more a function of coaching decisions than injury.

And I thought Boozer kinda screwed Cleveland.

As for Telfair, I'm a Blazer fan, and I'm not sold yet. If he doesn't grow up fast and soon, he's gonna end up on a playground near you.

[The_Counsel]

12. Ah Well... They Win Their Last Two And STILL Stay Home...

Things like that just kill me. They do everything they can to put themselves in ninth place (actually tied for eighth), and NOW they want to start winning?? They should have just e-mailed the last two games if it was gonna be all that...

Now they can look to any ONE bad loss that, pretty much, torpedoed their season. Like one of the THREE losses to Jersey. Win one of those, and you get the #8 seed outright. And how in the HELL did they lose three of four to the Knicks? New York is my team and all, but I don't mind saying they sucked and truly deserved their lottery status...

Now it's Jersey in the first round against a Miami team that probably wont have Shaq for Game One at least, and possibly Game Two. The same Miami team that's never converted a #1 seed into a first round series win after two tries. The same Jersey team that's arguably the hottest in the Eastern Conference right now. I look at this Nets squad and can't help but see the '99 Knicks squad. That team was the only #8 in NBA history to go to the Finals.

AAAARRRGH!!