Amongst my Cleveland Cavalier fans here at Wooster, I am notorious. Despite not having an allegiance to any NBA team, I still make sure to give Cavs fans a hard time about the elephant in the room ó LeBron James and free agency. I always bring up that since the Cavs cannot even win a game in the NBA finals, LeBron won’t win a title here and will most likely be donning the New York Knicks jersey next year. Heck, I even wrote a fake Friday Conversation about it for The Wooster Vice, our April Fools edition.
Now I am extending an olive branch of sorts: The Cleveland Cavaliers are going to win the NBA Finals this year.
There has been no team better than the Cavs this season. In all of their regular season series, they only had a losing record against two teams óthe Charlotte Bobcats and the Denver Nuggets ó the first was just eliminated by the Orlando Magic in the first round of the playoffs, and the latter is down three games to one against the Utah Jazz.
The Cavs are looking at a potentially dangerous road ahead of them, with the Boston Celtics in the second round, and the chance for a rematch of last seasons Eastern Conference Finals against the Magic before possibly running into the reigning champion Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals.
While none of these teams are necessarily easy, the Celtics cannot win in the Q, giving the Cavs the edge there, and the Magic are without some of the key pieces from last seasons’ NBA Finals team. After that it is just the Lakers, who the Cavs didn’t lose to once this season.
Besides looking at records alone, the Cleveland Cavaliers have James. There is too much to say here. He is the reigning MVP. Barring a Kevin Durant upset, he is en route to a second MVP award. He would have been the league’s top scorer had he not been rested for the last five games. He is a triple-double machine. He swats more balls in the playoffs than a post-steroids Manny Ramirez.
Oh, and he is in the last year of his contract. His price tag is already higher than anyone in history. Imagine the boost it would get if he led his team to a finals victory for the first time in franchise history?
Important to note, seeing as most casual fans forget it, there is a whole team of other talented players around James. He has Shaquille O’Neal, who may be old, but if watching “Kazaam” taught me anything it is that age just makes him more effective. Also, the team traded for Antawn Jameson in the middle of the season, a player who has stepped up in big time spots when the rest of the team was having off days. Just look at the recent playoff series.
Cleveland needs this win. They have been striving for a champion for decades, let alone a competitive team. Behind James and the Cavaliers, the mistake by the lake just might have one.