The State of Basketball in Cleveland

“The Shot”. May 7, 1989. Michael Jordan drains a game 5 clincher over Craig Ehlo, the defining basketball anguish of Cleveland. I was born the next day.

“The Decision”. July 8, 2010. LeBron James tries to single-handedly kill Cleveland by announcing he will join Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh as part of the Miami Heat.

In less than two weeks, LeBron James will take the floor with a new set of teammates in a new home arena. It will be the culmination of The Summer of LeBron, a media spectacle of narcissism and celebrity never before seen, and Mr. James’ talents will officially hit South Beach. Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh and a cornucopia of Toni Kukoc-Derek Fisher wannabes will take the court with the self-proclaimed “King” as they embark on history. Somewhere in the stadium, Pat Riley will rub his hands together greedily, watching the shiniest toy he’s ever had to play with, a 6’9”, 260 lb freak of nature that falls somewhere between a berserker Bo Jackson and Julius Erving, which came fully equipped with the last two MVP trophies and a renewed hunger given the backlash “The Decision” brought on his image.

 

Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem and Mario Chalmers' summer reading: "How To Ride the Wave By Not Fucking Everything Up" by Toni Kukoc. In stores now.

 

1,243 miles away, there will be another sight to behold. New coach Byron Scott will be amongst 20,000+ Hiroshima ”The Decision” victims as he tries to lead a team that has been singularly focused on one individual for 7 years defeat another NBA team with Antawn Jamison and Mo Williams as their best players. The 2010-2011 Cleveland Cavaliers will debut, and the fans will cheer, and, basketball Gods willing, they might even win the game. But the war has already been lost.

 

Actual picture of Cleveland, 7/10/10. No, that's not Lake Erie, asshole...

 

LeBron came, gift-wrapped, The Chosen One for a desolate city, in 2003. Seven years later, he left, in dramatic fashion, announcing his intentions on national television. We had him, had 7 inspired seasons of hope, joy and ultimately, heartbreak. Somehow, someway, LeBron left Cleveland in worse shape than he found it, vacating his throne for greener (and warmer) pastures.

In the NBA, if you don’t have elite players, you cannot hope to win championships. In the last 30 years, only one team has won the NBA championship without an MVP-caliber player, the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons. Besides the exception, the NBA since 1979 has been dominated by: Kobe’s Lakers (99-02, 09-10), Allen/Pierce/Garnett’s Ubuntu Celtics (08), Shaq/Wade’s Heat (06), Duncan’s Spurs (99, 03, 05, 07, ?), Jordan’s Bulls (91-93, 96-98), Olajuwon’s Rockets (93-95), Isiah’s Bad Boys (88-90), and the Bird-Magic rivalry (79-88). And besides the champions, there are all the Barkley, Malone, and Nash’s of the world, left in the ringless cold for all eternity.

 

Also, not winning an NBA championship may result in shitty parenting. Consult your doctor.

 

In effect, I’m telling you Cleveland is screwed for the foreseeable future. Even if they get lucky with all the lottery picks the Cavs are bound to land in the next few years, they will need either a) a scoring-athletic talent equal to or exceeding LeBron James-Kevin Durant, or b) the next great big man, a la Dwight Howard, to even be able to contend on any significant level. If they don’t bag a whale of Kobenian value, all Cleveland can do is spend the next 12 or so years weeping as LeBron’s titles add up.

Yet the fans will still cheer, and Cleveland will still exist, even if our sports teams only deliver a series of disappointments more gut-wrenching than teen pregnancy and more consistent than a child-support check. There’s always next year, and there’s always next beer, and I will be there. 21 years young, this summer took a lot of the youthful hope and innocence sports affords away from me. I am wizened, and am also no longer sure I will see a championship for my city, but I believe for the sake of believing. Some people follow in false prophets, blindly on faith. Such is my relationship with the sporting landscape. Maybe it’s not real, maybe there will never be fulfillment, but it gives us a reason to believe.