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Innocence and Experience (1970-1983)

August 1st, 2010

In 1970, after Bill Nichols broke the story that Cleveland had landed a professional basketball team, the Cleveland Plain Dealer held a write-in contest to name the new NBA franchise coming to town. After 11,000 possible nicknames (I.E., Presidents, the Jays…) the winner, Jay Tomko, whose son Brett would later pitch in the MLB for about twenty-six teams, came up with “Cavaliers”. The city of Cleveland did not have an existing population of Cavaliers, just like Utah does not have a famous Jazz scene, but the name stuck.

Similar to almost every professional team’s first season, the Cavaliers were profoundly awful. Led by expansion draft pick-ups Bobby ‘Bingo’ Smith, John Johnson (the Cleveland Cavaliers first All-Star), and Walt Wesley, the Cavaliers managed a 15-67 season under new coach Bill Fitch. They did their best to fit in with the rest of the big boys. The next season brought top-draft pick Austin Carr, who got injured halfway through the season, but the team still managed to get up to 23-59, and then the next season to 32-50, led by some guy named Lenny Wilkens, who averaged around twenty points and eight assists.

By 1974, the Cleveland Arena was crumbling and lacked size, so owner Nick Milleti called for the plans of a new arena, the Richfield Coliseum, which was built thirty miles south next to a farmer named Doug…or thirty miles south of Cleveland, and closer in fact to Akron. Perhaps in part to the isolated location, the Cavaliers had their best season yet, winning forty games. The following year (1975-1976) was the ‘Miracle of Richfield’…

If you’re ever fortunate enough to run into a Cavaliers fan who experienced this immortal playoff series against a stacked Washington Bullets team, you should cancel everything you’re doing and buy the fan a beer. For seven games, the two teams went at each other’s throats, with three games being decided at the buzzer. The Cavaliers prevailed 4-3, and would later lose to the eventual NBA champion Boston Celtics, but not after making a case for turning in one of the most unselfish basketball teams in the history of the NBA. No player on that Miracle of Richfield team (Jim Chones, Bingo Smith, Campy Russell) averaged more than sixteen points a game, and, from what I’ve been able to find, not one player made the All-Star Team. This from a team who won 49 games and took two games from Dave Cowens and the Celtics.

The Miracle of Richfield was the first great moment in Cleveland Cavaliers History. After that season, Cleveland fans thought the sky was the limit. But that heavenly series turned out to be the farthest the team would go for the next ten years.

In 1980, Ted Stepien bought the team and managed to almost systemically destroy it. In a short span of three years, Stepien attempted to rename the team the ‘Ohio Cavaliers’ (so they could play their home games in other cities to boost revenue), allegedly tried to start a polka fight song, and traded away enough first-round draft picks that a Stepien Rule was put into effect so teams would not be able to trade first-round draft picks in consecutive years. The Cavaliers ended up winning a total of 66 games in the three years Stepien owned the team, which, if you’ll recall, is the exact number the 2008-2009 Cavaliers won in one season.

Luckily for all of us, in 1983, Stepien met a man by the name of Gordon Gund, and handed over the team for twenty million dollars (after threatening to move the team to Toronto). Gordon and his brother George saved the Cleveland Cavaliers.

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The Dark Chasm of Despair (1994-2003)

February 13th, 2010

Perhaps it was the new innovations of graphic design on personal computers, but the Cavs chose what many Clevelanders believe to be the ugliest uniform in the history of professional sports to start their new season. And they also chose to leave behind the backwoods of Northeast Ohio and the Richfield Coliseum to play in what would be called Gund Arena (not to be mistaken for a Godzilla nemesis). There, fans were treated to an electrically bright blue court, new pyrotechnics, and the slowest basketball team to ever crawl up and down a court.

If you’ve ever seen the beginning of the movie Office Space, where Peter is stuck in traffic and has to watch an old man with a walker pass by him at 1mph, then you might be able to grasp the speed of coach Mike Fratello’s offense. From 1994-1999, the Cleveland Cavaliers mastered the act of stalling, lulling other teams (and fans) into a 24-second hypnosis. The only way to fully prove this is to list the point total of the 47-35 1996 Cavs playoff team, who lost 3-0 to a New York Knicks team: Game 1: 83, Game 2: 80, Game 3: 76.

For years, the Cavs drank their Fratello milk and waltzed into the playoffs with a microscopic margin of error. Constantly, we’d hear the same old lines: We need to cut down on turnovers. We can’t make mistakes! For five years, Terrell Brandon and company were not allowed to have big games. They simply weren’t.

During this half-decade of fossilized memories, I watched Fratello neutralize any kind of flaunting athleticism in favor of roboticised playmaking. As I tried to make my basketball team (cut 7th, 8th, and 9th grade), I watched as even the high school coach adopted this style of defense, defense, defense. I clung to rare moments like these and thought to myself: You see, the NBA still has a place for shooters. Don’t give up. But the Fratello offense, and my high school offense refused to give in to anything resembling ‘flash’. I watched from the bench during JV games, as Cuyahoga Falls High School emulated five grandpas going up the court, making passes until their dentures fell out. Then I’d go home and watch Fratello do the same thing with men blessed with skills I could only dream of having.

Nothing seemed fair. When the 1997 All-Star game came to Cleveland, I felt as if fans had been brainwashed by this playing style. As the top players in the league came into our town, I wanted to run over to them and say Help our city! You see, it’s our coach. He’s a good coach…it’s just, well, we’ve won over 40 games the past few years, and we’ve made the playoffs a few times, but it’s all fake! You gotta believe me! Help us be exciting again.

I respect Mike Fratello. To me, he symbolized a co-worker that’s really good at never making mistakes and never draws attention to himself. He perfected the art of mediocrity, and to his credit, it kept him employed.

Following the 1999 strike, Fratello moved on, and I went to college. The Cavs entered a new kind of darkness, one filled with sub-30 win seasons. It’s as if the franchise had been paralyzed for years and were just now getting their legs back.

And in 2003, with the luck of a wind-whipped ping pong ball, the Cavs became relevant again…

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Celebration Dipped in Heartbreak (1983-1994)

February 13th, 2010

In an attempt to distance himself from the Stepien demolition, Gund changed the colors of the team to orange and blue, and, in honor of his muscular legs (or to be more fan-friendly) shortened the Cavaliers to Cavs on their uniform. It’s the equivalent of John Irving selling out and writing a cozy mystery novel, but the fans appreciated it. After being alienated for years, they started to come back. Plus, the Cavs had added an acrobatic player by the name of World B. Free, a consistent 22 ppg wizard with a ball.

Despite the Extreme Makeover, the Cavs punched in 83-84 with a 28-54 record. The next year they managed, out of sheer conference suckiness, to sneak into the playoffs with a 36-46 record and win a game. In 85-86, they took a step backward and won 29 games.

Gund was frustrated. The last thing he wanted was for his team to be spinning their tires, turning in 25-35 win seasons without ever taking a risk. But in 1986, Gordon Gund rolled the dice hardcore…if that’s possible.

-Consider the top 5 minute players on the 85-86 team:

Roy Hinson

World B. Free

John Bagley

Mel Turpin

Phil Hubbard

-And then the 86-87 team:

John ‘Hot Rod’ Williams

Phil Hubbard

Ron Harper

Brad ‘Wham with the Right Hand’ Daugherty

John Bagley

Gund set free World B. Free (sorry, couldn’t help myself) and managed to nab a short white guy who could shoot a sweet free throw by the name of Mark Price. He played off the bench his rookie year. But by the 87-88 season, he was the leader of the Cavs, famously pulling up on fast-breaks to shoot a three, which he made at a near 50% mark. The 87-88 team would end up winning 42 games and helped push away the cloudy days of Cavs mediocrity by almost beating the Chicago Bulls and a young determined Michael Jordan. No, 87-88 was not the year of ‘The Shot’. It merely set the stage, like a play that introduced its cast of characters.

I’ll approach this horrific moment through film. Hopefully you have seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. There’s a scene, where Harrison Ford cuts the rope to a flimsy bridge, and the native, voodoo tribe hangs on for dear life as they are all slammed into the side of a cliff, some falling down into water rich with alligators ready to eat your face off. Now, Harrison Ford manages to hang on, and climbs up the bridge, where he attempts to take back some funky jewel from the head voodoo guy. This intense-eyed voodoo guy is famous for plunging his hand into people’s chest and ripping their hearts out. But Harrison Ford is able to push back voodoo guy’s hand. But, tragically, the 88-89 Cleveland Cavaliers weren’t able to fight off voodoo guy (Jordan). In the Cavalier’s movie, their heart is ripped out, and for the next five years they fell from that bridge, and in 92-93 were eaten by an alligator (Jordan again…okay, I’ll stop the analogy) despite finishing with 57 wins. Watch those two clips at your own peril. I would know…

I was eight years old and absolutely obsessed with basketball during that first Shot. I remember sitting in the living room with my mother, poised on the edge of the couch. When Jordan’s shot rattled in, and Craig Ehlo tragically tumbled onto the sideline, a part of me died, even though I was busy playing Nintendo and memorizing stats most of the time.  Still, that shot sent shockwaves through me, and sometimes, when I talk to other Cavalier fans around that time, I can see the sadness in their eyes when The Shot is brought up. It’s as if we were soldiers in a war together, bonded by tragedy. Perhaps you noticed it in the first Miracle of Richfield clip. Cleveland fans are basketball crack addicts.

Unfortunately, outside of Cleveland, the Price, Nance, Daugherty, Ehlo, and Hot Rod years will be remembered more for the evolution of Jordan’s superstardom than for a half-decade of selfless team basketball. By 1994, the Cavs had established a new identity: Above-average, playoff-bound team with zero chance of winning a championship. Indeed, it was a clear improvement from 1983, but for Cleveland, things would only get harder for the next ten years…

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