The Ground in Cleveland
May 13, 2014ESPN ranks the Browns dead last in off-season power rankings
May 13, 2014As members of the Cleveland Cavaliers arrived one by one, filing down the corridor that stretches between the team’s parking garage and their locker room, roughly 20 boys and girls with “Walnut Creek” played full court basketball in front of a few close friends and members of their family who were seated courtside. Quicken Loans Arena was otherwise desolate. A few security guards stood in the tunnel and watched this scrimmage. Mid-to-late-90s pop tracks like “Gettin Jiggy Wit It”1 and “Sabotage” echoed through the arena. The other 20,000 seats remained dark and empty.
Not long thereafter, however, Clevelanders of all shapes and sizes would file through the arena gates, clad in various shirts and jerseys, most in the team’s wine and gold colorway. Thousands upon thousands trickled through the metal detectors, past the photo-opp-ready Cavalier girls and toward their seats, all here to chear on their team, the very one that was just 48 more game minutes away from being in their fourth-consecutive NBA Lottery. For one reason or another, though the city was effectively promised a trip to the postseason and were handed a six-month stretch of turmoil, they all showed. As 92.3 The Fan’s Anthony Lima would tweet later that night, if one were to parachute into The Q having previously been unaware of franchise history—both recent and years past—there would be no way to tell that the home team was in fact one of the worst in the NBA.
So why do they come? Why do they trudge through winters that often replicate the End of Days just to watch their team hit rock bottom? Why do they keep renewing their tickets despite all of the uncertainty and unfulfilled promises?
“I’ve actually talked a lot about this, and our staff has talked a lot about this—I’ve never seen anything like this fan base, consistently,” Cavs general manager David Griffin told WFNY during his season-ending address. “It’s why we feel such an incredible sense of urgency. They’ve been that way throughout this entire process. As many of you recall, as we were going through the process of losing a few games in a row our first year together, we were selling games out with people ready to watch us get a win. This fan base deserves a radically better product.”
As 16 other franchises went on into the NBA’s postseason, the Cavaliers were provided the opportunity to re-group and decide what the next step of their journey would be. They had already fired the man who compiled the pieces in Chris Grant midway through season. Would Griffin—the man who acquired space-making center Spencer Hawes at the trade deadline and saw his team go 17-16 upon his arrival—be provided the opportunity to pick up where he left off? Would Mike Brown, the head coach who was celebrated just a year earlier and was only one season into his five-year contract be provided the same? The answers, as they were handed down late Monday afternoon, were a resounding yes and no, respectively.
As if things were not uncertain enough heading into the month of May, the Cleveland Cavaleirs are staring at yet another trip to the lottery while having a significant portion of their roster entering free agency and/or contract negotiations, all while staring down the barrel of their third head coach in three seasons. Those who have had the fortune of getting to speak with Griffin will come away rather impressed with his acumen and delivery, but they’ll become quickly aware of his basketball buzzwords. In recent months, “fit” has been used in mulitple instances and has not been limited to the roster, draft or free agency periods. Just as the team began playing better following Hawes’ arrival, Griffin believes that the only way his team will grow back into a contender is if it has the right fit at head coach as well.
Brown, for better or worse, is widely known for his focus on the defensive side of the ball. Plenty of other head coaches—Byron Scott, Mike D’Antoni—are proudly featured on the other side of the spectrum. But as all three men are now unemployed when it comes to the NBA head coaching ranks, Griffin’s tasked with finding the man who can blend both sides of the game—”I believe you find the truth in the middle,” he said on Tuesday morning.
“No franchise that’s incredibly well run is all one thing,” Griffin continued. “We need to find a way to speak to the best of all parts of the offensive background I know, the defensive background that’s dyed in the wool of this franchise. Ownership believes in defense, I believe in offense, and there’s a truth in the middle. We’re going to find that.”
The team will take whatever time it needs to find the right fit. Widely criticized for hiring Brown without conducting much in the way of a stone-turning search, Dan Gilbert must realize that he’s running out of lives with a fan base that was ready to erect a statue in his honor as recent as three offseasons ago. Fast forward to 2014 and the Cavaliers have taken over the reign as Most Dysfunctional team in the city of Cleveland, a rotating honor to be sure, but one that is not even close with the Browns seemgingly headed in the right direction while the Indians are coming off of a postseason birth and a 92-win season.
By all accounts, the Cavaliers’ sales staff takes incredible care of their season ticket base. Events are not limited to in-season let alone in-game. There’s a reason why the Wine and Gold’s in-game entertainment team wins awards throughout the league. But with two other teams fighting for the same entertainment dollar and professional sport franchises only having so many lives, the fact that fans have stuck around this long is a testament to them—a group that deserves so much better when it comes to the in-game entertainment for which they’ve paid hansomly.
“This fan base deserves and demands that we deliver a better product and we are going to do that,” said Griffin. “Everything that we do is geared towards that.”
When Game 82 came to a close, and the Cavs once again provided fans with the jerseys off of their very backs during their annual Fan Appreciation Night, they retreated to their locker room for the final time in the 2013-14 season—some, for the last time as members of the Cavaliers. The 20,000-plus filed out of The Q and into the mid-April night feeling good about their team’s victory, almost indifferent to the fact that it was just their 33rd of the season.
“We all know what the charge is here,” Griffin said. “I know what has to happen.”
- Na-na-na-na-na-na-na. [↩]
6 Comments
I’ll admit that when the NCAA tournament started, I stopped watching the Cavs. I needed a break from the past few years of play and used the time to do some research on the upcoming draft.
In a league where 53% of the teams make the playoffs every year and the team is in the vastly inferior conference, the odds are stacked in our favor to make the playoffs. Bad roster decisions, inadequate development of our young players, and just a general bad vibe the team gave off more often than not this past season was incredibly frustrating.
Yes, the fans who still went deserve many kudos for their efforts and hopefully we get the FO+coach structure correct this time so that everyone can work together and build the team properly (where have I heard that line before?).
The fans keep coming hoping they’ll see the Frenchman don a Cavaliers uniform again that’s why. I think that’s this organizations only hope unless Griffin can dissect this roster rather quickly.
I’m pretty sure the casual fans have already given up…take a look at ticket prices on Flash Seats from last season. I could go to pretty much any game I wanted for <$5.
As for me personally, I'm done if they hire D'Antoni this offseason. He has proven that he's incapable of winning the big game and (with the exception of Steve Nash) his personality has conflicted with every star he's ever had. I know they aren't bringing him in to run the team now that Griffin was named GM, but I would love to see George Karl. He is the one guy out there who has expressed an interest in coming to Cleveland (albeit in a different capacity) and has a track record of getting big time talent (Kemp, Payton, Allen, Anthony) to play hard in his system.
Gilbert has gotten an incredible free pass, maybe the residue of being so obviously passionate, so bonded with his fan base and so personally victimized by what’s his name.
But man, it’s amazing he’s not taken more to task more for incompetence in hiring executives that could not get it done, not even close. Ferry was a fail, and but he replaced him with Ferry’s spiritual heir in Grant. He stood front and center when Brown was re-hired, commenting on his “mistake” in previously firing him and commenting on the defensive emphasis he prefers. It’s heresy to say in this town, but Gilbert might really help his team by having a basketball president with real authority, someone who knows basketball and keeps these hiring decisions away from him. Because he hasn’t made a great hire yet.
Amen.
They should have just insisted on Brown getting an offensive coordinator. This was a mistake. They finally start playing some semblance of defense and we switch directions, after only one year, again.