I'm no NBA fan...at all. Going to college with thousands of Clevelanders meant that I was forced to sit through tens of Cavs games. We'd watch the Cavs stroll through the Indiana Pacers or the Memphis Grizzlies or the Toronto Raptors. Let me share a secret with you, I don't get the appeal of the NBA's brand of basketball.
There are few moments where you feel intense excitement while the game drudges along, counting points until you reach 100. NBA Basketball as a standalone sport rarely provides climactic moments. It's like a team is perpetually down by ten. If Lebron goes coast-to-coast in the second quarter and dunks on someone's face then it is a great athletic play that will get people standing, but it's still only worth 1/50 of the team's scoring. Constant scoring and the ease with which it happens denigrates the importance of small individual highlights. NBA regular season games are basically like watching a race between two tug boats. You don't need to see the first three quarters of the race and if one team is getting blown out, then you don't need to see the last one either.
All that said, I was enthralled by the lead-up to the Cavaliers-Heat matchup simply because I wanted to see how Cleveland reacted in-arena. There's two cities that could really pull off this kind of vindictive revenge in the right way and one of them is Cleveland. The other is Philadelphia. They are the grudge holding pros. JD Drew still can't play in Philly without getting the middle finger salute. Eric Lindros is 6 years retired and they still won't let him back in. They're the champs, but Cleveland is a close second.
I'm conflicted as to cheer for. On one hand, I've spent the better part of 6 years silently and openly (depending on what room I was in) rooting against the Cleveland Cavaliers. They're an Ohio team and they're Ohio's only NBA team, but I can't bring myself to get on Cleveland's side. I wanted to be a Cavs fan, it looked like a ton of fun during my college years, but psychologically I would've been lying to myself. I couldn't do it and I boiled the issue down to one thing and It's pretty simple. My problem with the Cavs and their fans is that they so shamelessly hopped on the Cavaliers bandwagon when Lebron showed up and in so doing pretended as if they were there all along.
Stay with me, Clevelanders. That all said, there's no denying that what Lebron James did to Cleveland was one of the worst things a pro athlete could do to a city.
I honestly felt bad for them because he did something to a group of people that is literally unprecedented in sports. Cleveland happened to get the one guy with a big enough ego who at the same time is a big enough dick to destroy his home town city while completely aware of their rough sporting history. Yeah, that's not a big deal, a-hole.
Pictured: Cleveland Sports
and now
The Douche-Bag.
Honestly, I feel for you guys, though you have won a playoff game more recently than 1995 so...
Lebron strung the Cleveland fans along for years. He dropped lines like, "I'm not going to stop until I get Cleveland a championship" and then went to an Indians-Yankees playoff game in a Yankees hat. He played a game day after day with secret meetings with teams around the league. Worst of all, he used a one hour prime-time television event to embarrass the city and ultimately decided to leave. What kind of egomaniac does that? People say "He doesn't owe Cleveland anything". No, he doesn't, but the city still has the right to be angry. 95% of athletes in that situation would've stayed with the home team that drafted them. Most of them would've been up front about their options months or years before the free agency period came up. Most probably would've signed a restructured deal years before their current deal expired (ala Kevin Durant) and literally none of them would've held a live press conference with Jim "the Weasel" Gray to announce that he was leaving. When I heard that he was going to use a TV special to make the announcement I thought there was no way that anyone could be callous enough to leave a city as starved as Cleveland on live TV. Nope, I was wrong, we all were, and Cleveland, I'm sorry it happened to you.
Now, bandwagon jumping is a touchy issue in sports because it's one of the worst things you can accuse of a fanbase. It basically means they're too soft to deal with the hardships and thus aren't worthy as fans to be apart of the good times. I can't really blame any group of fans for not supporting a bad team. I always make the analogy that says that if you were a fan of a coffee shop who suddenly starting making really low grade coffee then you wouldn't support that coffee shop. Why react differently when it comes to professional sports? Money talks to owners and supporting a bad team will only maintain status quo.
The facts are there however. The Cavs averaged 11,000 in attendance the year before Lebron. I grew up in Columbus and would often forget that Cleveland even had an NBA team. Their anonymity was astounding, their highlights weren't on the local news, and their jerseys weren't being worn in my elementary school. In other words, they didn't pass what I like to call, "the Columbus Test" which basically means that if something is big enough in either Cincinnati or Cleveland to be abuzz in Columbus then it must be noteworthy.
So normally I wouldn't have a problem with people hopping on the Cavalier-train as the pre-Lebron Cavs were beyond unwatchable (that's what happens when you build around Darius Miles), and I more than anyone understand not paying to see a crappy team, but Cleveland more than any other city loves to trumpet their undying loyalty to their teams. This is literally the number one trash-talking point they bring up when talking NFL. If their favorite past-time is talking about the convicts on the Bengals, then their second favorite is labeling Cincinnati Bengals supporters as "bandwagon fans". I think it's safe to say that most Cavs fans are also Browns fans and It was this hypocrisy above anything else that turned me off from the Cavs.
So with the game starting and without a clear decision on who I wanted to come out victorious, I decided to take a running log and see if the game decided for me.
- The Heat exit the tunnel by skipping onto the court for warmups. When did skipping replace confidently jogging out of the tunnel? Dislike, but isn't it funny how certain mannerisms go in and out of style? Don't believe me? Look at how guys used to celebrate and high five in the 80's. Behave like that today and you're instantly the biggest dork in the room.
- Watching Lebron going through warmups is like watching two people who used to be a couple pretend to ignore each other from opposite ends at a bar. Both act like they're into what is happening on their end with their group of friends, but you keep catching them glancing at one another. Lebron isn't interested in this warmup in the least, only pretending like he's into it.
- Pretty cool commercial about the Eiffel Tower and other famous landmarks being moved. Can't say I like the statement that Lebron James is as big as the Great Wall of China, but it does a good job of placing the emotion into how Cleveland felt when this guy left.
- The Heat are introduced to Darth Vader's entrance song. Fitting choice.
- Just realized the Cavs have new uniforms again for this season. I don't know how that got past me, but I like them. They're simple and devoid of Navy blue. They look like they were designed in a flash in the contingency that if Lebron left then they'd at least have new uniforms to give people an excuse to buy more Cavs stuff, but they came out sharp.
- Drew Carey sighting during pregame behind Reggie Miller. Over/Under on how many Price is Right beauties he's currently sexually harrassing is set at 3. I'm taking the over. Nobody who wears a plaid shirt under an NBA replica with those glasses isn't creepy around models.
- Lebron has the gall to go through his hand chalk routine. To me this isn't as big a deal as everyone will make it. Kevin Garnett and I'm sure others were doing the same thing years before Lebron was even in the league. Cleveland shouldn't take offense to that because the powder thing really was never theirs to begin with.
- Craig Sager in neutral gold blazer with red tie. Would've gone with a plaid number myself. I'm just going to say this now, Craig Sager can't pull off these whacko suits. It's the hair. You can't be insane down low and a banker on top. They don't mesh well.
- Lebron touches the ball for the first time. The entire city of Cleveland loses its mind. I really wish the TV audience could hear the personal barbs. NBA.com should've set up a webcam called "Hate-Cam" that lets you in on the personal attacks. I'd pay to listen to that.
- Chris Bosh looks like a velociraptor. That was the best nickname specific matchup between a player and his team since John Elway and the Broncos. It's a shame he left Toronto for that reason.
- I can't make out any of these chants. Is there a closed captioning for crowd noise?
- Lebron at the free throw line and out on the court looks patently uncomfortable and not because he just lost his head band and his receeding hairline is visible. Perhaps it's time he went the Jordan route and starting shaving his head completely.
- Apparently Josh Cribbs and Bernie Kosar hang out together. Hmm
- Lebron just hit a mid range jumper and the crowd collectively said, "agh, I hate you" in unison. Seriously. It was more clear than any of their chants.
- End of the first quarter and we're treated with the Carmelo Anthony commercial where he plays everybody in the arena. I don't get it. Is Carmelo Anthony known as a versatile player that can do a lot of things? Also, I thought he wanted out of Denver where this ad seems to imply that he likes it there.
- Spoelestra interview with Sager. Spoelestra looks like an insurance adjustor that lives in Miami not the head coach of the most scrutinized basketball team in the NBA.
- Lebron is getting friendly with the Cavs bench. This is one of the most irritating things about pro athletes today. To them it's a job and most of them growing up weren't huge fans of the team they play for. They don't hold the same resentment and grudges that fans do, they just play and have fun with their friends. As fans, we wish the players were as intense about the personal vendettas as we are. For the life of me I will never understand how NFL players can laugh with the other team after a game especially between rival teams and especially after a loss, but it doesn't surprise me to see the Cavs players giving Lebron a warm reception.
Halftime. I've had enough. The Cavs are getting boat-raced and their venom towards Lebron seems to have plateaued at a rage level that would lead to anything between upper-deckers and egging someone's house. I've said this before, but honsetly, I don't think it's been any worse than when Paul Kariya returned to Anaheim with Colorado the year after the Ducks lost in game 7 of the finals. Cleveland held back and didn't completely fall off the deep end. Good for them.
Oh yeah, who did I ultimately decide to cheer for? Cleveland, you came out on top with me. Lebron rubs me the wrong way and the fact that he came into the building and had a good game while the Cavaliers themselves laid an egg bothers me. Cleveland as a city could've used this one. At least you get another shot against him, Cleveland.
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