Cavs Show Their Weak Side

There’s something about this basketball team that annoys the shit out of me, and its losses like the one they suffered last night that do it. Before I get into that, let me just say that the team is way better off than it used to be. For the longest time, the Cavs wallowed in mediocrity, and were non-existent in the NBA outside of the city of Cleveland. Even some people in the city of Cleveland didn’t give two shits about these guys as their attendance in the dungeon of Gund Arena was among the poorest in the league. However, thanks to LeBron James, the Cavs are finally a team with an identity and can pack their own arena as they play decent basketball. We’re much better off than we used to be and I’m really happy to have LeBron.

Putting the good things about the Cavs aside, it’s every Cleveland fan’s desire to have one of our three teams finally win a championship, and be a damn good team in the process. Right now, the Indians are the closest to achieving that feat. Despite not having a superstar like LeBron James, the Indians have a first class organization that has a lot of good players on a team that I actually feel good about. The Cavs, on the other hand, look like they are going to finally get back to the playoffs this year, but honestly…I’m not sure whether they’ll even get out of the first round. After investing all the money they were allowed to invest on improving this team around LeBron, there are a couple of disturbing flaws I see with this team that may make it hard for them to compete on a playoff stage:

Lack of Toughness/Resolve - Look at last night’s game against the Orlando Magic. The NBA can be a tough league as teams can beat you on any given night, but it’s the way the Cavs lose some of their games that get me so fired up. The Cavs rolled over for the Magic and it was really painful to watch. While the Cavs haven’t really been blown out like this all season, the fact that the Cavs laid down like they did really annoys the crap out of me. What stands out the most about this is the lack of toughness they posses. A really good team, would fight their ass off in this type of game and at least make it interesting. They had a 10 point lead going into the 2nd quarter, and let the Magic come back and take control of the game for good. Around the halfway point in the 2nd quarter, the Cavs managed only a few buckets. That’s ridiculous. This team also put its tail between its legs when they lost two in a row to mega-power Detroit recently. I wasn’t so broken up about losing two games back-to-back to the best team in the NBA, but it was how the team sort of laid back and let Detroit have their way with them after Rasheed Wallace bludgeoned Zydrunas Ilgauskas in the first game. Detroit got physical with us, and we wilted.

Streakiness – The NBA like most sports revolves around momentum. The Cavs certainly feed off of it. The Cavs have endured numerous win streaks and numerous losing streaks during the season. While it looks like the Cavs will avoid a complete melt-down like they suffered last year. It still appears that the team isn’t quite consistent enough to turn things around if they go into a playoff series cold. I could see getting swept if we’re not playing well.

Player Investments – The Cavs are at the soft cap limit, and this team is nowhere near being one of the elite teams in the NBA. That will make things difficult for Danny Ferry over the next few years as he’s still going to have to move some components on and off this roster to find the right mix. Right now, point guard is still weak, and Damon Jones and Eric Snow, are making way too much money for the way they are playing. A big boatload of money is reserved for Z and LeBron. Plus, the most glaring contract issue right now is the contract we gave to oft-injured Larry Hughes. If he could stay healthy, Hughes could probably earn his money, and help with some of the above mentioned problems, but he doesn’t stay healthy, and I’m worried to see what kind of freak injury happens to him next.

I just hope the Cavs can put these issues behind them at some point. The Cavs are a decent team and have the 3rd best record in the Eastern Conference, due to a couple win streaks that they put together when they were on their ‘A’ game (one 8 game winning streak near the beginning of the season helped them the most). These issues are annoying, but the team has still managed to put themselves 9 games over .500 at this point in the season. You could argue that I’m nitpicking too much, but I think this team could be even better than what they are right now if they can be more consistent and develop some more toughness and resolve on the court.