Wait 'til Next Year, Again (and Again and Again)

As the Cleveland Cavaliers were putting the finishing touches on another bad loss to the Boston Celtics, a loss that left them still in search of a championship, about the only positive thought worth mustering was the fact that the loss provided the perfect bookend to what has to be about the most miserable 12 months in Cleveland sports history.

The only worry now is whether it’s really the end or only the middle of an extended period of darkness. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves for the moment.

Starting with the loss to the Orlando Magic last season, there has been almost nothing positive to root for in Cleveland sports. There have been little victories here and there, temporary respites really from the crushing reality of what it really means to be a Cleveland fan. But on a macro basis, it’s hard to imagine how things could get much worse.

The Cavs had a difficult series with Orlando last year in which its flaws were exposed. At that moment there was no certainty that Cleveland could find a way to close that gap only hope that the best and most passionate owner in Cleveland, Dan Gilbert, would somehow find a way to close that gap.

In the midst of the Cavs’ troubles that ended a season far too early once again, the Indians were embarking on their own brand of misery. It was only a matter of time before Cliff Lee, the reigning Cy Young award winner, would be traded and everyone knew it. Heck, the same thing happened the season before with CC Sabathia. Fans here are conditioned to the team’s sagging economics. The team finished 65-97, only one game better than the Baltimore Orioles.

But beyond just the trade of Lee, it wasn't as if the Indians gave their fans much of a reason to believe that this team would be any better any time soon. The players the Indians received in exchange for Lee were the usual prospects. Fans knew then as they know now that if they're lucky one of these prospects will eventually get good enough to trade for a new set of prospects so that the sad cycle can continue.

Grady Sizemore pulled up a bit lame in spring training last year and never seemed to get healthy. His season was just another downer on what has been a regression-laden career and eventually he shut it down in September. The only question anyone really had in all of that was why the Indians waited so long. They weren't going anywhere anyway.

Travis Hafner couldn't recover enough from his shoulder injury or the mental goblins that have inhabited him since his 2006 season ended. When he did play it all it did was remind you that he used to be someone special. Oh yea, it also reminded you that the Indians were on the hook for millions to him, choking off any chance at financial flexibility that a struggling under-capitalized team like this needs.

Then, of course, there was Eric Wedge. The now-former manager was his usual puzzling self, getting off to another slow start in April, sticking to long with and making excuses for players like Jhonny Peralta, afraid to ruffle the feathers of any of his players. Wedge was always to empathetic with the struggles of his players and quick with excuses about the team's problems. General manager Mark Shapiro finally had enough of what had turned into a one-note song and mercifully pulled the plug on his tenure, as if it would matter.

Indeed it didn't much matter. For reasons still never fully explained, Shapiro thought it would be a good idea to hire Manny Acta who had washed out earlier in the season with the even more awful Washington Nationals. It was a nice metaphor, actually. Instead of reaching up for someone with a history of success the Indians once again reached down for failure on the if/come. The next person that can explain cogently explain the difference between the Indians this season under Acta and last season under Wedge will be the first.

As the Indians season faded into the background of late summer, the Browns arose not like a Phoenix from the ashes but more like the groundhog in February. At least the season marked another new beginning for a team that hasn’t gotten any of its previous beginnings right. It didn’t get off on the right foot from the outset.

After deciding a hard re-start of its systems were once again in order, owner Randy Lerner rushed into hiring Eric Mangini, a failure in New York, because Mangini met Lerner's most important criteria: previous NFL head coaching experience.

After Mangini conducted a draft that was mostly bizarre, trading around the first round like he was Monty Hall on a bender, he eventually assembled a team of very average draft choices and spare parts that the Jets, his former team, were more than willing to let go.

This was only a prelude, however, to what was easily the worst quarterback competition in the history of organized football. Mangini painfully tried to structure it so that each quarterback had exactly the same number of opportunities as if he were a parent trying hard not to look like he favored one kid over another. In the end all he did was ensure that neither player would be ready for the season, something he spectacularly accomplished, by the way.

The season itself was a nightmare of historic proportions. It featured equal parts anarchy and insurrection as Mangini proved that when it comes to running a franchise he was in way too far over his head. Anxious to put his mark on every aspect of the franchise, all Mangini did was prove that he suffered greatly from little man's syndrome. He quickly made an outcast of his handpicked boss. But on the positive side he played the role of Captain Bligh well as seemingly dozens of his players were standing in line to play Fletcher Christian.

Lerner had finally seen enough and decided to search for what he termed a credible leader of the franchise. He landed on Mike Holmgren, thus creating the most positive thing to happen to Cleveland football in 10 years.

The team then ended on a positive note winning its last four games in the most improbably of fashion. It did it by repeatedly pounding the ball with Jerome Harrison, a running back that Mangini had marginalized early in the season. But when that season ended there still wasn't a fan that believed this was a team capable of competing for a spot in the playoffs anytime soon. In a breath of fresh air honesty, Holmgren essentially agreed.

But we had the Cavs to look forward to, or at least we thought we did. Gilbert and general manager Danny Ferry seemed to do just about everything right. They plugged a major hole in the middle by signing an aging but still marginally effective Shaquille O’Neal. They orchestrated trades in a way that brought even more pieces at almost no cost.

What was apparent but mostly ignored throughout the season was that this team seemed to lack any real chemistry. It’s focal point, as always, was LeBron James and the pecking order was established from there on down. O’Neal complied and openly seemed to be thrilled not to be the spotlight. And yet there was no real hunger with this team. It knew it was good and often won just by showing up.

An inkling of what was to come played out over the last 10 days or so of the regular season as the Cavs, content with having sewed up the league’s best record, rested and went through the motions on their way to losing out. It was equal parts arrogance and indifference, the two most glaring characteristics of their disjointed and down right weird series with the Celtics.

No one will ever be able to pinpoint one root cause to the Cavs’ failures. But if you’re in search of a theme, start with the arrogance that seemed to overtake this team. For a team that had never won anything, it sure acted as if it had. All of the wasted possessions, turnovers and poor shooting were the markers of a team that really hadn’t been taking care of its business for just more than one series.

It’s interesting to wonder whether, 12 months from now, we’ll be looking at things and remembering now as a time when things looked positively radiant by comparison. Perhaps, but there’s no need to wallow.

Sure the Indians aren’t going to get any better, but you knew that going in. The fundamentals of that organization are just wrong. The Browns, on the other hand, finally have a clear direction run by real honest to goodness professionals with a track record. It may not lead to the playoffs next season, but they are clearly on a path that every one can discern.

The Cavs are at a crossroads. Until the question surrounding James’ future gets answered, it will remain in organizational limbo. Right now the uncertainty gripping this franchise makes everything look bleak.

Whose to say though that faith won’t be rewarded? Who says James is even leaving? He hasn’t. Sure, Cleveland fans have been down this road before with the Indians and pick the free agent. But the Cavs’ situation is far different. They can offer the most money. They have an owner who has proven that he won’t spare any expense in the quest. We live in an age where a mogul like James’ physical location is mostly irrelevant. Rather than just assume he’ll leave, what’s to say that he won’t become the team’s biggest salesman and help it bring in a key free agent or two to make this team even better?

See, this is really what it means to be a Cleveland fan. You may be numb after all the tough losses during all these tough years, but we’ve always had the ability to find some semblance of a silver lining. We’ve hung in there this long. In the grand scheme of things, what’s another decade or two? We can do that standing on our heads.

Watching the Air Escape

Barely two minutes into the second quarter of Tuesday's night's game against the Boston Celtics, the Cleveland Cavaliers held a 29-21 lead. Eight minutes later the Cavs still had 29 points put the Celtics now had 37. It was that brutal, sloppy mess of a stretch that effectively sealed the fate of a the Cavs, a group of better players butting heads against a better team.

With just about everyone now writing the Cavs epitaph for a season that once held such promise and is now collapsing around them like a house of cards, it also will be that eight minute stretch that will define what went wrong overall.

It started innocently enough. After Mo Williams made a jump shot with 9:53 remaining in the quarter to push the lead to 29-21, the Celtics called time out. It was coach Doc Rivers' best coaching moment of the season. Out of that time out, Paul Pierce attempted a layup that was blocked by Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Ray Allen grabbed the rebound and the put back brought the Celtics to within 6.

Williams them missed a jump shot on the Cavs next possession. There was 9:14 remaining. It would be nearly a minute before they could get off another shot, a Shaquille O'Neal half-hearted hook shot that was rebounded by Kevin Garnett. It would be two more minutes before the Cavs could get off their next shot, a Williams miss. Three possessions later LeBron James missed a 3-pointer. Four possessions later Antwan Jamison missed a layup. James finally broke the ice 5 more possessions later by making two free throws.

In between all that silliness, there were turnovers galore and ridiculous fouls. The Cavs were literally imploding in front of a worldwide audience and there was nothing that seemingly could be done about it.

James, inexplicably, was passive throughout. Content to distribute the ball in what can only be described as a botched attempt to control the flow of the game, James sucked the life out of both himself and his teammates with perhaps one of the most passive performances of his career, especially considering what was at stake.

Tuesday night's loss was like watching air slowing escape from an overinflated balloon. It may not have been the most important game of the season, that would be this Thursday's, but it was the second most important anyway. And yet the Cavs were flat and listless as if they were playing their fourth game in five nights on the road in Sacramento. They looked like any Ohio State Buckeyes team playing Michigan while coached by John Cooper.

Meanwhile in his post game press conference James calmly explained that he wasn't worried. The team's back was against the wall, sure, but there was still room to breath. It's probably good that he wasn't in full panic mode, but the fans certainly were. Maybe that's because he knows what his future holds and the fans don't.

It was hard to read James in that interview. On the one hand his calmness in the midst of what most fans would consider a shit-storm is exactly the right trait you'd want a leader to have at exactly that moment. And yet you couldn't help but also read into it an indifference, almost an aloofness that has seemed to represent his on-court demeanor during these past two games, both embarrassing losses.

During a halftime interview on Friday evening, after James had put together an otherwordly first half to essentially send the Celtics to an early loss, James talked about how he understands full well that his teammates feed off his energy and approach. And yet these past two games, and especially Tuesday night, James acted as if he was just another bit part, standing around like the rest of his teammates waiting for someone else to take the controls of this runaway train. No one did.

Maybe James is just tired. Maybe all of the time and effort he puts into his game has left him tired and weary. Maybe the weight of the decisions he faces about his future are wearing on him more than he can even admit to himself. Maybe it's just a Celtics team playing the best defense of their lives. Whatever it is, though, James is clearly not the same person most fans are used to seeing.

There's little spark and command at the moment. He's become just another Austin Powers in search of his mojo but in no particular hurry to find it.

Then it occurred to me that perhaps what James is finally beginning to understand is what most fans of Cleveland sports already believe: you can't win a championship in this town. The Cavs under owner Dan Gilbert and general manager Danny Ferry have spared no expense in loading this team with more firepower than any other team in the league. And yet the Cavs now find themselves regressing. The better the players the worse the results.

It wouldn't be unreasonable for James to have concluded that it just isn't going to happen in this town, ever. That's what the fans were thinking anyway as they watched their latest best chance at an elusive championship slip through their fingers once again.

Last season the Cavs lost a tough series in the Eastern Conference finals against the Orlando Magic mainly because they didn't match up well against the Magic. The Cavs addressed that in the off season with the acquisition of O'Neal. Now they find themselves on the verge of being eliminated in the Eastern Conference semi-finals not by a team that presents particularly difficult match ups but by a team that executes better and is far more focused.

Perhaps that's what's both so frustrating and revealing about this moment in time. The Cavs know they are a very talented group. But like the brilliant kid in class who ends up with “Cs” on his report card, they seem to take it all for granted. Meanwhile the less brilliant among them are working harder and paying attention to all the little things necessary to be successful.

The Cavs are being outplayed by the Celtics in every meaningful category. The Celtics are committing less turnovers, dishing out more assists, grabbing far more offensive rebounds and committing less turnovers. More importantly, though, almost across the board, from field goal percentage to rebounds to blocked shots, the Celtics have performed better in the playoffs than the regular seasons. Except for free throw percentage and block shots, the Cavs have regressed from their regular season averages.

It's not even so much a question of blame so much as it is a question of responsibility. This Cavs team is made up of veterans who should have a complete appreciation for the pressure of the playoffs and all the bump and grind that goes with them. Yet when it matters most, these same players, including James have actually turned it down a notch as if they were worried that the pot on the stove would boil over and cause a mess.

If Tuesday night turns out to be James' last game in a Cavs uniform, which I still doubt, it will represent the biggest failure in his professional life, perhaps his entire basketball life. This city, this region counted on the Chosen One to finally deliver a championship that so many around here so desperately need and he didn't deliver, not even close.

If James does leave, I have no doubt that there will be championships in his future. He'll use this failure as the catalyst to the next phase of a career that will remain brilliant. But as usual it won't be n a hometown uniform. That's the way it works around here. Art Modell, as despicable of a Cleveland sports figure as ever existed, managed to win a championship once he left town. Almost any good player that once played for the Indians seems to have done likewise once they left. Now we're left to ponder for the next few months anyway whether that's our fate once again.

There is still a way for James to salvage something out of this wreck. Sometime before game six he could drop it casually into his next interview that no matter what happens he will be in Cleveland next year and for years to come. It would take the pressure off both James and his teammates. It would re-energize both the team and the fans at exactly the right moment. In short, it would be a brilliant move. But this is Cleveland and that's why it won't happen. Those kinds of things never do.

Lingering Items--Unfinished Business Edition

I’ve written several times about my disdain for the now-retiring Donald Fehr, the head of the major league baseball players’ union. That stems from his myopic view of his charge and the fact that he sold out the long-term health effects that steroids have for the near term riches demanded by the players he led.

I stand by all of it, and more. But I do owe Fehr an apology. I have said many times that he doesn’t give a damn about the good of the game, but I was wrong. How else to explain his retirement but that it is the ultimate gift to the good of the game?

Unquestionably, Fehr had a job to do and heading a union, any union, is one of the nation’s most thankless jobs. Most of your members are decent, hard working sorts who want nothing more than to do their jobs, get their paychecks and then go home to their families. It’s the subversive element, unfortunately, to whom guys like Fehr had to dedicate an inordinate amount of time. That can be draining.

But trying to keep the Milton Bradleys of the world in line is only part of the job. He, like Commissioner Bud Selig, is charged with being a caretaker of the game. Any union leader who doesn’t recognize that the health of the employer is the lynchpin to the riches the employees enjoy is part of the problem, not the solution. Not to get all political with anyone on this topic, but all the years of union greed in, pick the industry, coupled with weak and indifferent management just worried about today eventually comes back to haunt. Look at the auto industry.

It’s true, of course, that a greedy union leader needs a weak and compliant company executive on the other side to foster that greed. In Selig, Fehr had just the right stooge. It allowed Fehr to grow his power base and enhance his own status and that of the union. But it came at the price of the game’s soul. The steroids era of baseball is the blood on the hands of Fehr (and Selig) that he can never wash off.

Over the course of the next 20 or 30 years all of Fehr’s evil and cynical view of baseball will no longer permeate the game on a day-to-day basis. It will be relegated to the history books, written about in the same way the Black Sox scandal already is. But that won’t diminish the damage that could have been avoided by a more conscientious leader. Fehr, truthfully, was neither.

So here’s to Fehr, who can’t retire quickly enough. And with his departure some of the good of the game is on its way to being restored. The rest will have to wait Selig’s inevitable retirement.

**

The vultures are certainly circling around Cleveland Indians manager Eric Wedge these days. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who can make a compelling case to keep him. Considering that Wedge really isn’t a polarizing figure, surely someone should be coming to his defense.

It hasn’t happened.

The depth of the disappointment with the Indians’ season to date is one of the reasons. So too is the manner in which this team loses each night. Usually, it’s the bullpen. Usually it’s a blown save. And this was a reputed strength going into the season?

And that, folks, is the nub of the issue. Indians fans are disappointed precisely because they thought the team was more a slightly used but very useful luxury car than a clunker with the odometer rolled back. There are many culprits to blame for the misguided mindset of the fans entering into the season, but the usual suspects are again the usual suspects.

One of general manager Mark Shapiro’s strength is his unbridled optimism. He can convince himself that the sun shines at midnight and the smell emanating from the septic tank is roses. He wears easily with the local and national media, precisely because he’s so specific when he’s so upbeat. The national media in turn, which means those that follow baseball from the comfort of a desk in New York, buy into the hook and conclude, without much further review, that much was accomplished and thus much should be achieved. Most of the local media is just as compliant. Well, much wasn’t accomplished and less has been achieved.

Those who follow this team with their heads and not their hearts weren’t impressed with Shapiro’s offseason. Sure, he didn’t stand pat with a team that appeared to be on the upswing, itself a major improvement over previous seasons. But the kinds of moves he made were the same kinds of moves he always makes: fliers. Shapiro is Fred Sanford without the beard. Always with an eye on a bargain, Shapiro has unrelenting faith that in every junk pile lays an unpolished gem. This is how he fills out the roster each season while waiting for Wedge to develop the talent that’s been drafted.

Wherever you come out on the Wedge issue in a vacuum, just know that Shapiro’s acquisition model is either seriously flawed or poorly executed, maybe a little of both. For it to really work, you have to have a really good eye for bargains and you have to have someone who can develop the talent he’s been handed.

Developing talent is far more art than science and finding unpolished gems happens about as often as you find a Van Gogh at a flea market. Shapiro has more than proven that his trips to the bargain bin usually yield junk. And in Wedge, Shapiro has one of the worst gem polishers in the league. As I sit here and write this I can’t think of one piece of raw talent that’s realized his potential under Wedge.

As the Dolans contemplate what to do about Wedge, it’s time for them, too, to better hold Shapiro accountable for the mess he helps create each season. Wedge is seriously flawed as a manager and his days are surely numbered. Shapiro, on the other hand, is a more complex issue. He’s like a lot of the young players he drafts, talented but unfocused. Without some serious re-tooling in his thinking and approach, however, the firing Wedge won’t accomplish much by itself. If this season has proven anything, it’s that the problems with this team aren’t surface level.

**

It’s nice to know that Shaquille O’Neal is excited to be coming to Cleveland. It demonstrates more than anything else that it isn’t the city that’s the problem, it’s the teams. But the fact that fans were worried about how O’Neal would react speaks volumes about this town’s collective inferiority complex.

It is helpful that O’Neal is excited about being here. He’s one of the bigger ass pains in the league when he isn’t happy. A pouting O’Neal is a worthless O’Neal.

Overall, though, the reaction to the trade has been somewhat mixed. No one seems to have come out and panned it but there are many that are indifferent to it, mainly because of O’Neal’s age. There are some that find the pairing of O’Neal with LeBron James as unusual if only because the Cavs are working hard to retain James and O’Neal is one of the league’s great vagabonds. Early in his career O’Neil opted out of his contract in Orlando as soon as he could and, by doing so, arguably became more of a global icon for all the years he spent in Los Angeles. The fear is that he’ll take James down that same path.

I’m not sure I see that as much of a risk. James follows his own path. Whether O’Neal is on the same team with him or not, James is well aware of his history. The chance that James will be influenced by O’Neal in that regard seems remote.

General Manager Danny Ferry, in his press conference announcing the trade, acted as if he was Phil Ivey at the World Poker Championships going all in because he had just been dealt two aces. To some I’m sure Ferry came across somewhat as a person trying to make a big splash one final time before James leaves town with O’Neal after next season.

My read on it was a little different, but perhaps it’s just my version of Shapiro-think. I see Ferry as sending a message, like John Hart in the early ‘90s, that when this team is finally ready he’s going to go out and get those final pieces. This next season, it’s O’Neal. In subsequent years, it will be the O’Neal equivalent. More than anything else, Ferry is trying to position himself as the kind of general manager that isn’t afraid to make a leap.

Professional golfer and NBC golf commentator Johnny Miller is fond of saying that it takes great courage to shoot a low score. Too many golfers, once they get a few under par, spend the rest of the round protecting that score rather than risking it all to get even lower. That’s where Ferry finds himself at the moment. He’s assembled a very good team. Tweaking around the edges is probably the way to protect what he has. It will certainly guarantee him a good score. But it takes real courage to make bold strokes to get the team from good to great and win the whole damn thing.

It’s been a long time since any team in Cleveland has had someone willing to think big. Credit Ferry and, while you’re at it, credit owner Dan Gilbert, a bold thinker in his own right.

**

With the death of Michael Jackson, you can’t help but think how much great music didn’t get made once he became totally unhinged. Which leads to this week’s question to ponder: How many inquiries do you think former Browns receiver Michael Jackson’s family got yesterday asking whether it was he who died?

The King and His Court

My daughter cringed at the television Monday night as Jim Donovan was reporting that the Cleveland Cavaliers’ interest in acquiring Shaquille O’Neal from the Phoenix Suns. She wasn’t the only one.

While she really couldn’t offer up a solid reason why she had such an adverse reaction, my guess is that it has more to do with his acting and rapping career than his basketball skills. Maybe she just doesn’t want another player on the team that can’t make a free throw.

Whatever it might have been, one thing is certain. O’Neal is a polarizing figure. Not Charles Barkley polarizing, mind you, but polarizing nonetheless. O’Neal represents either the last piece of the puzzle or a distraction this team doesn’t need. Personally, my only question is how does LeBron James feel about it?

If James is for grabbing O’Neal, assuming it’s not at the expense of Moe Williams or Delonte West, then so am I. More importantly, so will be Dan Gilbert, Danny Ferry and Mike Brown. When you currently have the game’s best player under a tenuous one-year contract, the front office paradigm inevitably shifts.

You’d have to be incredibly naïve to think that the Cavs won’t follow James’ lead on this one. His official title is “player” but it might as well be “all powerful Oz.” Nothing will happen to the make up of this team unless it comes with James’ seal of approval.

This, of course, puts the team in a pretty tight little jam, a jam that gets tighter the longer James waits to commit to the Cavs for more than another year. Rightly, the quest of the official management troika has to be to surround James with the players he wants to make a run at next year’s title. James is a basketball savant with a singularly rare ability. Brown and Ferry have good basketball instincts, but nothing in either’s background suggests a James-like understanding of the game. James has court awareness that extends well beyond the reach of mere mortals. If he thinks the answer is O’Neal, then James has earned the benefit of that doubt.

The problem, though, is that it is the franchise that could find itself left holding the bag for a lot of salary and players it wouldn’t otherwise want on a James-less team. In other words, the Cavs could easily and quickly become the New York Knicks if it doesn’t work out and James is done in Cleveland after next season.

Putting aside those particularly difficult issues for the moment and no matter which camp you may find yourself in with respect to O’Neal, you have to admit that having him in Cleveland would keep things interesting. O’Neal’s best days may be behind him, but his star power is intact. Outside of Kobe Bryant, O’Neal represents about the only other player in the NBA right now that could fairly share the celebrity spotlight with James.

For James, that’s probably a good thing. Though he never seems to get tired of it, it would probably benefit James for someone else with some gravitas to step forward and take the pressure off him of always having to be the face of the franchise. O’Neal isn’t always the most compelling interview, particularly after games, but he’s willing to venture off the cliché-ridden path just often enough to keep the media breathing down his neck every step of the way. Every moment with O’Neal is one less distraction for James.

O’Neal had one of his better seasons in recent memory last year, averaging nearly 18 points a game and 8 rebounds. But late in games he’s still a liability because he is such a gawd-awful free throw shooter. He’s also 37 and has 17 seasons behind him and a decent injury history. With his size and weight, there are only so many more trips up and down the court his knees can take. He’s moody, too, in a Randy Moss sort of way, and sometimes exhibits the same work ethic as Moss. He’s not without risk. But if the cost is relatively reasonable, as in Ben Wallace/Sasha Pavolic reasonable, then the risks are manageable.

If O’Neal does end up in Cleveland it also sets up an interesting “legacy” issue for James. For reasons that I still don’t quite understand, the theme of this year’s NBA Finals was whether Bryant could win a title without O’Neal. The implication was that Bryant wasn’t good enough on his own to do it.

Here’s a newsflash. Bryant wasn’t good enough on his own to win the NBA title. Either is James. Either was Michael Jordan. The league might be built around superstars, but the rest of the players aren’t window dressing. The reason it took Bryant so long to win a title after O’Neal left Los Angeles was because he had a sub-par supporting cast. As it got better, so did the Lakers’ chances of winning the title. The same thing will play out with James.

Still, if O’Neal comes to Cleveland and the Cavs do win the title next year, some will saddle James with the same set of unfair baggage that has dogged Bryant for these many years. Then James will have to prove himself all over again once O’Neal leaves town, at least in the eyes of certain media members too lazy to do anything but draw surface level conclusions about far more complex issues.

It seems rather doubtful that James would let any of these kinds of backdrop issues affect his thinking about whether or not O’Neal in a Cavs uniform makes sense. But James has a healthy ego so anything’s possible. In that case, the Cavs will have to turn elsewhere and turn they will.

The larger issue that the Cavs really are addressing in the courtship of O’Neal or, if not him, then what amounts to a younger, if slightly less effective O’Neal, is how to deal with Dwight Howard. Apparently Howard will be a fixture for years to come in Orlando even though he has a similar contract situation as James. The difference is that Howard has been far clearer in his desire to remain in Orlando. Knowing that, the Cavs have to build a team that can match up with any of the contenders in the Eastern Conference, and Orlando looks to be one for awhile or forever find themselves where the Mark Price/Brad Daughtery/Larry Nance Cavs found themselves—one player short.

The NBA is a league of match ups. The Lakers may have been on a mission after losing out to the Celtics a year ago, but in truth they matched up far better with the Magic than did the Cavs. Howard wasn’t ineffective against the Lakers, just merely mortal. The Lakers had enough of an answer for him to make their quest for this year’s title more of a stroll than a struggle.

The Cavs have to get to that same place as well. If that’s with O’Neal, so be it. If it’s someone else, that’s fine, too, just as long as they do. Whatever James want, because that, perhaps more than anything else right now, is what will keep him in Cleveland. Without the King, in the near term there is no court.

The Pass

If the Cavaliers are unable to get past the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, Cleveland sports fans add a new phrase to their lexicon, “the pass” as in the pass from LeBron James to a wide-open Donyell Marshall at the end of Game One Monday night. Until Thursday rolls around and Game Two is underway, “the pass” is likely to take on a life of its own, the length of which will greatly depend on the level of disappointment that results from this series.

To recap, as if that was even necessary, the Cavs were down by two with 12 seconds left. James had the ball in his hands and was driving toward the hoop. As the Pistons defense collapsed around him, Marshall was left all alone in the corner with seemingly enough time to order dinner and do a Sudoku puzzle. Rather than put the ball to the hoop against, among others, Rasheed Wallace, who already had about 48 blocks in the game, James instead passed the ball to Marshall. It was one of those moments. Detroit players and fans were holding their breath. The ball was moving in slow motion. As it clanged against the back of the rim and careened from the hoop and the outstretched arms of Sasha Pavlovic, Detroit players and fans could breathe again. Game One was in the books.

The debate on the message boards and talk radio, locally and nationally, are almost singularly focused on that final pass. The position that is now building momentum is that James is, in essence, a coward and not worthy of superstar status. The thinking goes that neither Michael Jordan nor Kobe Bryant would have made that pass and that someone who wants to be known as the King or the Chosen One can only earn those nicknames by taking the shot and finishing the game. It’s how legends are made.

Let’s dispense with the most obvious points first. For the third straight playoff game, the Cavs disappeared in the third quarter. Whatever Head Coach Mike Brown is telling the troops at halftime isn’t working. The team lacks intensity and a game that was in their control was just as suddenly out of their control. There is also the little thing, again, of poor shooting, particularly at the foul line. The Cavs were 11-17, which put them in a huge hole considering the closeness of the game.

But even when these points are disregarded, the rhetoric doesn’t quite hold together. Despite their reputations, Jordan and to a lesser extent Bryant did work hard to get their teammates involved in the game, both during the regular season and in the playoffs. For his career, Bryant averages 4.5 assists per game for the regular season as well as the playoffs. Jordan averaged 5.7 assists during the regular season and 5.7 during the playoffs. Just on that, alone, there is no way to know what either would have done under the same circumstances although one suspects that if the Pistons had left, say, Steve Kerr that open under the same circumstances, the ball would have found its way to him.

In the case of James, he’s always been a different type of player than either of those two anyway. Since high school, he’s had the reputation of someone who is just as content to pass up in favor of a teammate with a better shot as to take the shot himself. That has continued in the pros, which is apparent from the simple fact that he has averaged 6.4 assists per game during the regular season and 8.2 assists per game during the playoffs. But his playoff assists average is hardly the astounding figure it appears to be. While any number of his teammates has stepped up during various playoff games, no one has done it consistently. That has resulted in opposing teams designing a game plan around letting anyone but James beat them. That puts the pressure on those teammates, and, by extension, General Manager Danny Ferry, to make sure that they are the kind of players who can and will make that shot. That just isn’t the case. Not yet, anyway. James hasn’t even had the benefit of a wingman like Steve Kerr, let alone players the caliber of Scottie Pippen or Shaquille O’Neal.

On the surface, that might seem to argue in favor of James taking that shot, but the truth is it underscores why it will always be difficult for James to take that shot. The less players there are to scare the other team, the more players that team can put on James, particularly at crunch time. And until those players step up and assume their roles on a consistent basis, there simply is no reason for opposing teams to do anything different then what they currently are doing to stop the Cavs.

Second, conveniently forgotten in this mix is the fact that James did virtually the same thing last year in the deciding playoff game against the Washington Wizards. With 14 seconds left and the Cavs down by one, Larry Hughes inbounded the pass to James who immediately and expectedly drew the double team. With the clock winding down, James found a wide open (sound familiar?) Damon Jones who hit the jumper with just four seconds left, sending the Cavs to the conference semifinals.

The difference? Jones hit the shot that Marshall didn’t. There was little if any complaining then by anyone that James was a coward or was afraid to take a shot with the game and the series on the line. The recollection is that James proved, once again, to be the consummate team player by finding an open man instead of forcing up a final shot.

But consider the fan reactions that might have been under either of two alternative scenarios. If James takes the shot and misses, fans would have been subjected to countless replays on ESPN and its various iterations, all of which would have drawn a huge circle around the wide-open Marshall, the same guy that scorched the New Jersey Nets the other night from the three-point line. If Marshall had hit the shot, fans would be falling all over themselves to compliment James for once again making the right decision and having enough courage to pass to Marshall with the game on the line.

In other words, it matters little how it all actually played out, except for the fact that, ultimately, the Cavs find themselves down one game against a very good and very experienced Detroit Pistons team.

There is recognition that underlying many of the comments today about James and “the pass” is the frustration of fans that a Cleveland team once again came up short. But misdirecting that frustration and the one person who single handedly rescued this franchise from the scrap heap is not the answer. It starts and ends, ultimately, with the recognition that playoffs are generally won by the better team. The Cavs, for all their accomplishments thus far, are still a very flawed team and until Ferry can find a way to eliminate more of those flaws, the deeper rungs of the playoffs will continue to be a struggle.