Coming On A Little Strong

The City of Cleveland has gone from being a joke, to sad to disgustingly pathetic. Apparently the City has all the intelligence and dignity of a love struck teenager girl.

A while back, Akron held a "We Love LeBron Day" to heap some more love on hometown hero LeBron James. This was after numerous stunts concocted on individual levels to try and convince The Chosen One to stay.

Now Cleveland has launched a "More Than a Player" campaign to try and get him to stay. This includes the absolutely tactless method of using kids to stage flash mobs to sing songs of praise to LeBron, much the same way that Indians used to sing songs of praise to keep the sun rising and the corn growing. Sadly, these kids/props were being exploited to sing Bonnie Tylers "More Than a Hero" at a shopping mall in Cleveland. full story

Despite the abject stupidity of trying to convince one of the worlds most famous men to stay in one of America's most beleaguered cities by singing some lame songs, what exactly does this mind set say about Cleveland?

It says that life there sucks pretty bad. I haven't done a full statistical analysis of this ad binge but most of the participants seem to black. Apparently electing a black President hasn't raised the bar of expectations in Cleveland the way it seems to have in other places. The citizens of Cleveland seem to be less empowered than they have ever been and that's saying something. They are essentially begging for a sliver of positive affirmation. Just something positive to hang their hats on. Even if LeBron stays, will any of these people actually feel good about it for more than a day? This guy hasn't even won anything. Kobe may have raped a chambermaid but at least he's got one for the thumb.

The saddest part is how completely the people of Cleveland have mistaken this relationship. They seem to think that they are like a family trying to convince the son to go into the family business. Love and community wins out. Not so my friend. LeBron is LeBron, the biggest athletic prize on earth. To use my high school girl analogy, he's the star quarterback. I'm afraid Cleveland thinks it's the hot cheerleader. In reality, Cleveland is the slightly cankly, Wiccan type who dresses in all black and smokes on the corner all day watching the true beauties (New York, Chicago, Miami) get all the attention from said star quarterback. Sad and angry by day, no doubt cutters by night.

And what if he does stay? I suppose all of these people will assume that their displays of adoration will have worked. Why not? Try telling the Indians that their dances were meaningless in the ultimate outcome and they'll show you a sunrise everyday as proof of their righteousness. Simply put, if LeBron stays it will simply be a calculation that he can achieve his stated goals of being the worlds largest brand by playing the hometown hero more easily than he can play the savior in one of those other cities. Instead of wasting time choreographing dance routines to bad 80's songs for a millionaire who doesn't care, why don't you choreograph a little community action to clean up some of that urban blight? Maybe coordinate some studying and job placement so these kids might have a fighting chance at success in life.

Cleveland is a hell hole. Stop wasting time, money and effort on LeBron until you can get all these other things straightened out. Once your kids are all educated, fed and drug/ghetto free, then feel free to put pen to paper and write some ballads for whoever you want. Until then, it's just a sad display by a corroding city that desperately needs a hug.

The Peasants Revolt

Wow, it seems nobody told the Celtics that this was the year King James cemented his grasp on the Best Player in the History of Mankind title. After tonight's beatdown it's questionable if BronBron is even better than Kobe.

The destruction tonight, in Cleveland no less, was so complete that some conclusions can be drawn:

Shaq - As I previously surmised, Shaq is old, fat and slows what should be the fastest team in the league down to a slow crawl.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas - Why even bring him back? He has been anchored to the bench and when he does get in, he's even slower than Shaq. When they are both in the game together, good lord.

Antawn Jamison - Classic front runner. Came up small in big moments in Washington, coming up real small in Cleveland. 9-6-1 in a home game 5 where the star is sucking up the joint? Yikes. This situation is exactly why they brought him in.

Mo Williams, Delonte West, Anthony Parker, JaMario Moon - Near impossible to win a title if any of these guys is being counted on to be the third best player on the team. They can't shoot or defend consistently. You'd think Mo Williams would be out of a job the way Orlando worked him over last year but here we go again.

Anderson Varejao -Does what he does, can't complain.

J.J. Hickson - Why isn't this guy playing more? Super athletic SF could destroy Boston. Need to clear minutes for Antawn I guess.

LeBron James - Nothing short of devastating. 15-6-7, many of those 15 from the stripe. Aside from a monster game 2 against Orlando last year, James is consistently losing in these moments. Sure his supporting cast sucks but isn't the best supposed to make them better? Right now he's a whole lotta Nique and not much Jordon, Kobe.

Even if the Cavs do rally to knock off a pretty weak Celtics team, they've shown no ability to handle creative guards or active big men. Joakim Noah and most of the Celtics are working the middle over at will and Rondo is going crazy despite the noticeable handicap of not being able to shoot. I think Howard/Jameer, Kobe/Pau or Nash/Amare could all go nuts against this Cavs team. LeBron is going to have to average 30+ just to keep them in it.

Doesn't seem up to it at the moment.

Cavs Look to Deal for Shaq

ESPN (the World Wide Leader or WWL) has been reporting off and on that the Cleveland Cavaliers have been in talks to acquire Shaq from the Phoenix Suns over the weekend in a deal for Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic.

In a related story, Cleveland is also hoping to use the mid-level exception to sign a time machine.

First of all, how low is Shaq's trade value about now? I assume the corpse of Ben Wallace has an expiring contract, which is a good reason to get him now but Pavlovic is just about as worthless as the synthetic balls David Stern tried to force on the league a few years ago. Seriously, if Pav couldn't be productive playing with the best player in the league/one of the best all time, how exactly is he going to play with an aging Steve Nash and Amare Stoudamire, who isn't fond of life without the ball. Strange.

It makes even less sense for Cleveland. Watching the display against Orlando in the conference finals, the last thought to cross my mind was that all the Cavs needed to get over the hump was a 350 pound center with all the range and hops of an oil rig.
How exactly is King James supposed to execute all his majestic drives to the rack if he keeps slamming into the Diesel whenever he gets within 6 feet of the hoop?

Cleveland is a young, running team. All Lebron's posse needs to do is hit open jumpers when Lebron takes it to the hole and kicks it out. While this seems to be a tough task for Mo Williams, Boobie Gibson, Szczerbiak and Pavs, adding Shaq won't help that. On the defensive end, Varejao and Ilgauskas can handle the boards and the occasional put-back or wide open 15-foot jumper. No need for Shaq on that end.
All Cleveland needs to do to be a contender is the following:

1. Tape Mo Williams mouth shut and threaten to send him back to Jersey if he doesn't keep focused
2. Shut down Wally's World -- permanently

and most importantly
3. Find a free agent who can shoot it from deep, create his own shot and is somewhat battle tested.

This means you Hedo Turkgolu.

It might take going over the luxury threshold to get the Turk but Cleveland would be the hands down favorite for the title.

The Cavs saw first hand how big a difference maker he can be.