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As the Cavaliers continue their descent into Dante’s ninth circle of hell, I thought it was best to detach myself from the frosty pain of getting annihilated by twenty points every game and talk about something different.

The Players Union wants the age restriction rule to be changed from 19 back to where it was prior to 2005: 18.

Though I have no problem with players wanting to come out of high school and make a living, I do believe there should be a massive salary limit to that player’s first year. Also, there should be incentives placed in NBA Contracts that would reward a player who actually does finish school.

This is if, truly, the NBA cares about the benefits of a good education.

Here are my two ideas.

1) The 18yr. old who comes out of high school directly to the NBA should be rewarded the equivalent salary of a four year scholarship at a public university. For example, if Kobe Bryant 2.0 goes to the NBA, he would be given a one-year contract at around 100,000 dollars, depending on the statistics the league goes by. Not a bad salary for what could be considered an ‘entry-level’ position. After that one year, the team would be free to re-negotiate a deal going by the standard rookie contract that exists today. That would be one hell of a raise.

Benefits: The player would be given a chance to manage their money better. Using only myself as an example, I knew nothing about money management when I was eighteen. You may not be able to buy your mother a new home yet, but you might be able to get everything in order so that, when you do get that ‘raise’, you’ll be much smarter than if you were simply handed a gigantic 3 million dollar contract.

2) This one to me seems the most important. A player’s salary should get a bump if they have a college degree. This should be the case in all sports. How much of a bump? Well, it would have to be somewhat substantial. Perhaps 250k to 500k a year. So, for example, since Tyler Hansborough finished his degree at North Carolina, he would have been given the standard rookie contract he is on now, plus that ‘graduate incentive’.

Of course, this deal would stand as long as the player is playing in the NBA. Various athletes have gone back to finish their degree while playing professionally. This would give players even more incentive to continue building their life AFTER basketball, because, let’s face it, we know too many stories of athletes who did not properly save their earnings, and, since they never finished their degree, don’t have a bright future ahead of them.

By implementing these two changes, I think the NBA would be showing the public that they care about education for their players. It would also blaze a trail, and perhaps the MLB could do this as well.

After all, one of the reasons why the ’18yr old. rule’ was changed was so athletes would get a taste of the collegiate experience. What better way to support that then to reward them with a bigger contract for obtaining a degree?

After a 118-90 beatdown by their former hero, I can only say that I learned a lot about how the Cavs players felt, and are still feeling about Lebron. Confused.

As for the Cavs fans? Awesome. I remember booing Michael Jordan during our Price/Nance/Daugherty years. I remember how fans truly despised Michael Jordan, yet respected him at the same time. They were respectful boos. This was an earthquake compared to that. I’m sick of commenters on other sites blindly saying get over it. Cleveland fans are insanely loyal. Think about it this way. Is it true that, almost every year, besides a random successful season, our professional sports team are average or below average? Yet they remain in Cleveland. We have all three professional sports, and if our fans were like the ones down in Miami, where a suntan is more important than screaming yourself hoarse, those sports would have been gone by now.

Let’s get down to some practicalities. We need size. We play like the Golden State Warriors of the Eastern Conference at times. Not one Cavalier, except Gibson, understood that, even if they weren’t ‘feeling’ it because of confused emotions, they needed to show heart, passion, hustle, and toughness on a night where, for the first time all season, we were on national television.

Cavs players must understand. You cannot play like victims. The NBA is an assassin’s league, conquered by superstars whose fathers pushed and pushed and pushed them to never settle for anything but number one with a bullet.

Cavs players…did you not see how much power you can get from the Cleveland crowd? Tonight? That was a crowd. After today’s 2nd half surrender, here is your new goal. Make the playoffs, and rewrite how you played against an ex-friend. I don’t want to remember this game as the Lebron Came Back And Showed How Little Talent He Had Game. I want this team again, in the playoffs.

You are going to have to trust B. Scott’s decisions. And Coach? You are going to have to get creative this year if you want to reach 40 wins. My suggestion? Create two dangerous 5-man units. Two cores that are interchangeable, yet unpredictable. You are already doing it as of now. You are saving all of your firepower for the bench. Gibson and Jamison on the bench? We’re 7-11!  But I get what you’re trying to do. You want to create mismatches. The strategy works at times. It surprised the Celtics once, and you’ll get a few more down the road, but there is going to have to be an upgrade of some kind in the starting five.

Here’s my two lineups.

1) Mo Williams, AV, J.J., Leon Powe (for some size), and Jamison playing the two guard.

2) Gibson, Parker, Hollins, Moon, Sessions (hugely undersized, but if they play as a unit and have an up-tempo, they can grow into a threat much like last years Sun’s did with Dragic and Dudley)

Personally, I think Scott is still experimenting with his lineup. And I can now start to see why his 1st year records with teams are not that good. He does his research. But if he wants any chance at saving this season, there needs to be some kind of organization, some kind of player assurance. (You’re with the 2nd and 4th quarter team. You’ll get the floor at the start of those quarters, no matter what)

Nevertheless, I still think we’re going to be fine. All we need to do is not believe what everyone else is saying. The draft is not the answer. I repeat!!!!!! The draft is not the answer! We’ve got picks galore. Worry about that stuff when it comes, because right now, we have a fan base’s dignity on the line right now, and tonight was humiliating.

It was too difficult to write an instant response about the Cavs-Celtics series. Game 5 and Game 6 seem like a fractured nightmare, unrelated to the season we’d been enjoying.  The fact that the Cavaliers gave up with a minute and a half to go, down by 9, makes me wonder why I cared for so many months about a team, who, when things got intense, decided to lay down and die. The shocking lack of effort from the Cavaliers in Game 5 and 6 border on conspiratorial. That needs to be said. If a poll question were to occur with this sentence: “Was there a suspicious lack of effort from the Cavaliers in Games 5 and 6?” I’m sure there would be a greater majority answering yes. When Delonte West threw a pass against the backboard in Game 6 after jumping and finding only lazy cutters to the lane, I knew then we were toast. The team had given up on each other, on the coach, on the season, on being winners.

Cavaliers fans need answers from the players and coaches. Full answers. Complete answers. Otherwise, how can we ever believe in this kind of team again? It’s as if we were led up Everest by a group of professional guides, only, near the top, they said to us: “This is a good enough view, we’re going back down.”

Was it Mike Brown? Was it Lebron not wanting the ‘Cleveland Experience’ anymore? Was it player A hating player B? Was it the pressure? Was it ‘outside’ pressure? The Celtics are a team who don’t make mistakes in the playoffs, and they are indeed discplined, tough, and quite talented, but to lay an egg after dismantling a team 124-95, reeks of internal conflict.

I’m tired of people also saying that Lebron did not get enough help. Lebron, you dominate the ball. The only way you’re able to get into a rhythm is if you have the ball in your hands for a long period of time. Perhaps 10 seconds on the shot clock. Yes, you pass off to teammates, you get your assists, but you control the entire possession. Please, pick a position (preferably point guard) and BECOME that position. You need a ROLE. Your teammates need to see you have a role, so they know how to play off of you. You’re not Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, playing many instruments at once, you are one person of five. And each part must harmonize with the other. Maybe you realized this in game 5, and chose to be a small forward and nothing but a small forward. But, sadly, that is not what that particular team was used to. That kind of change can only occur in the offseason. No matter where you go, please, choose a position and dominate it. If you don’t, you will forever be a regular season god who gets double-teamed in the playoffs. Oh, and find a coach who refuses to believe you are great. Find a coach who takes you for granted and treats you like shit. Find a coach who believes you are nothing but a failure. Find a coach who doesn’t want to have fun. Only then will you win, and only then will people start to understand you…if that’s what you want.

You can find this in Cleveland, by the way.

Where is Our Team?

I’ve been a Cleveland Cavaliers fan ever since moving to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio in 1987. I grew up watching those Daugherty, Price, Nance, Ehlo, and Hot Rod years. Every year they were a solid, all-around team coached by Lenny Wilkens, a man who put complete faith in his team and brought a calmness and wisdom to his actions. Yes, every year it seemed like we lost to the Bulls, or Michael Jordan, but I always admired how hard they worked to keep those games close. If there’s one thing Michael Jordan would say about those Cavs teams, it would be this: They tried as hard as they could.

In my years of sports watching and playing, I’ve bore witness to athletes whose minds were out the door before the season even ended. It happened to me my senior year of college, playing my final week of tennis matches. The fire had gone out of me. Forgive me for comparing myself to world-class athletes, but each of us knows that feeling when our heart is not into doing something. That can happen to anyone, and it’s currently happening to Lebron James.

Game Five was a massacre on so many levels, an event us Cleveland fans did not deserve. When Charles Barkley compared the Cavaliers to the Atlanta Hawks during halftime, I had a feeling we were toast. There are so many reasons being floated around as to why Game 5 happened the way it did. Here’s the list below. I added a few…

1)       The Cavaliers have stopped believing in Mike Brown.

2)       Lebron is hiding an intense elbow injury

3)       The elbow injury is not severe, but the mental damage it has caused a once invincible Lebron is.

4)       Players are upset about rotations, especially since there is no  set ‘bench’. This might support reason number 1.

5)       A scandal of some kind…

Personally, I lean toward number 1, because nothing destroys the soul of a team more than losing faith in their leader. Watching Al Gentry fuse the Suns into a well-oiled machine of rhythm and beauty, one can see first-hand the benefits of a respected coach. The Hawks gave up on Mike Woodson this year. The Orlando Magic are excellent, but the Atlanta Hawks played like shadows. The Denver Nuggets care very much for George Karl, but winning without him perhaps felt strange and almost blasphemous. They couldn’t respect Adrian Dantley, because their most innate respect was reserved for the man who created their chemistry.

In retrospect, perhaps that is what has happened to Mike Brown. The chemistry changed too much. Did we need to make changes after losing to Orlando? Yes. Did we make too many and, as a result, break apart the chemistry we once had? Possibly. Watching how hard the Cavaliers played against Orlando last year, I actually get a little nostalgic. They fought the way Larry Nance, Mark Price, and so on fought. Overmatched, but never outworked.

With the acquisition of Mr. O’Neal, Jamario Moon, Anthony Parker, and later Mr. Jamison, the Cavaliers were perhaps (God let Game 6 prove me wrong)  given too many parts for one machine. Bill Simmons mentions in his book ‘The Disease of More’, that happens to championship teams who try to get even better the next year through trades, signings, larger contracts, et cetera. Again, in retrospect, think about the massive changes we made to a 66-16 fun-loving team. True, we didn’t win the championship, but we had chemistry.

I’ll watch game 6, and I’ll be looking for one thing: Effort. I want to see us frantically trying to cover their shooters. I want to see us rough up Rajon Rondo. I want to see group huddles, head nodding and attentive players listening to their coach, no matter what they feel. I want to believe in my team again. I want to believe that they tried their absolute best. And if it wasn’t enough, then that’s fine. I can live with that. Put aside the issues, the complaints, the doubts, the injuries, the egos, and play the game you have loved, and I have loved, since you were kids. Step onto the court for game 6 and love the game all over again.