Sunday Delivery: Star Wars

As we’ve seen over the past week across the NBA, the stars are hitting their strides and scoring like never before. Days after Joel Embiid and Karl-Anthony Towns became the 4th pair of players in NBA history to score over 60 points on the same day when they scored 70 and 62, respectively, Devin Booker scored 62 on the same night Luka Doncic scored 73. You may recall that Booker also has a 70 point game already on his resume, though like Towns’s 62, it came in a losing effort. What does this all have to do with the Cavs? Well, it’s about how they played the Bucks this past week.On Wednesday, the Cavs saw their 8 game winning streak come to an end at the hands ((hooves?)) of the Milwaukee Bucks, 126-116. This was no cause for concern, as the Cavs took it back to those same Bucks on Friday, winning on Friday, 112-100, to earn a split of the season series with Milwaukee, 2-2. These two games showed what makes the difference in the NBA: the stars. First, on Wednesday, a week after Georges Niang burst out for a career-high 33 points in a 40 point Cavs victory over these same Bucks, Giannis Antetokounmpo put up 35 points and recorded a triple-double, while his All Star teammates Dame Lillard (28) and Khris Middleton (24) also scored over 20 points. Giannis didn’t face the net-scorching Niang last week, but proved to be the difference for a Bucks team that seemed asleep at the wheel without him. The Cavs had six players in double figures scoring, including Donovan Mitchell and Jarrett Allen with over 20 a piece, but not enough to overcome the Bucks stars.The Cavs would have their revenge on Friday, led by Mitchell’s 32 points, but also contributing was Allen with 24 and the team’s defense holding the Bucks’ leading scorers to less than their previous game, limiting Giannis (22), Lillard (22), and Middleton (14) to lesser star efforts. That’s how it often is in the modern NBA, you live and die by what the stars give you.The Cavs have bucked ((pun intended)) this trend recently. They are 14-4 over their last 18 games without Evan Mobely and Darius Garland. They have played well with depth pieces like Sam Merrill and Craig Porter Jr. contributing important minutes and big nights, and Niang playing like the best minivan on the road. This has led to a bit of Cavs Internet Discourse, specifically that the Cavs don’t need Mobley and Garland and should trade them for more depth or consolidate them for another star. If the Cavs can just get a random star effort from role players every night, why not free up some cap space and gain some assets while keeping this same regular season vibe going? Why let Garland and Mobley, who have been out since December 15th, get back in rhythm, ruining the run the team is currently on? The reason is, while regular season success can be found with strength in numbers and depth, the postseason success the Cavs missed out on last year was due to the stars not performing as stars should come playoff time. Jarrett Allen said it himself, saying the lights were too bright for the young Cavs in 2023. ((This is a great quote that I’m proud of Jarrett for sharing because it is both a fair explanation for the events that occurred, but also an actual honest answer in a media session, something hard to find in modern sports.)) Regular season success matters, as the Cavs learned last year in a bad playoff seeding matchup with the Knicks leading to an early playoff exit, and probably the source of a lot of Cavs fans’ discomfort with the team keeping the same core as last year into this year. While the Cavs will have to wait for the playoffs to answer the valid questions of if they and JB Bickerstaff are better suited for regular season success or can also achieve deep postseason runs (or even just one series win), they have the talent right now to have enough All Stars to make another championship realistic. Mitchell is already the second-best player in Cavs history. Allen is playing at least to the level, but maybe even beyond his All Star campaign two years ago. Garland was All Star Caliber last year, showing his selection in 2022 was no fluke. And Mobley, he’s still got the juice to maybe be the best of the bunch, but even if never makes the full MVP-candidate star turn, he has shown that All Star level is well within his possibilities if he can stay healthy. Keeping this group together to develop with the supporting cast of shooters and role players they currently have could lead to a sustained success not seen in Cleveland outside of LeBron being LeGOAT.It’s important to a championship roster to have players who aren’t stars, but are stars in their roles. Kobe and Shaq needed Robert Horry and Derek Fisher. Giannis needed not just fellow All Stars, but Bobby Portis to get over the top. Hell, the Heat almost won a title last year with most of their players being stars in their roles rather than All Stars ((No disrespect to Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo and the ghosts of Kevin Love and Kyle Lowry, but that was a statistical anomaly playoff run)). The Cavs have guys like Merrill and Isaac Okoro (who shut Dame down on Friday) and Caris LeVert who can be stars in their roles, but in the playoffs, the team will only go as far as their All Stars can take them. When you have (maybe) four of them, a team can withstand losing a couple to injury without tanking the season. Instead of hitting the trade machine and selling off Garland and Mobley, dreaming of what they can add on the court to a team already rolling without them should fill the hearts of Cavs fans with hope. Internet Discourse can be saved for the Mitchell rumors that never stop. (Thanks, ESPN.) I want to see these Cavs fully healthy and playoff-prepared before anyone is allowed out of the wine and gold. Let’s see what kind of stars we have. AT THE MOVIES: All Star Wars Theatrical Releases RankedSpeaking of Internet Discourse, this is where I want to pivot to a little pop culture stuff every week, so if you only want sports, this is where to get off the train. ((Hopefully Sunday Delivery becomes a weekly thing, and this won’t always be AT THE MOVIES. If you love it, let me know. If you hate it, let me know even sooner.)) I figured the stars aligned with the article for a classic internet hot take: Star Wars rankings. While everyone is surely chill and cool about everything Star Wars these days, I want to stir it up a little with my own personal ranking and opinion on every theatrically-released Star Wars movie before The Mandalorian and Grogu comes out and shoots up to the top of everyone’s lists. Right? I don’t know, I still like The Mandalorian, even if last season was a bit of a dud. Better than weird CGI young Mark Hamill with an AI voice like in season 2. More on that later, let’s get to it:

12. Episode II- Attack of the Clones: Not weird CGI, but bad CGI, the first look at the horrible acting of Hayden Christensen, and also the ruining of one of my favorite actresses, Natalie Portman. Stinky doo-doo of a story when it could’ve been a cool war movie for Star WARS. Count Dooku is cool, though.

11. The Clone Wars: A bad art style for the animation that eventually got reclaimed and perfected in the TV show, but we’re only ranking movies here, so this gets shoved just ahead of AofC because at least it was an attempt to give us the actual Clone Wars.

10. Episode III- Revenge of the Sith: The internet has tried to revive this one as a secret masterpiece, but again, Hayden Christensen ruins it as much as Ewan McGregor tries to save it. That CGI factory sequence, the car chases, and Count Dooku and Mace Windu getting lame deaths really kills any excitement for Darth Vader’s origin, which is also killed by bad dialog. 

9. Episode IX-The Rise of Skywalker: Boy, good thing those prequels were around or this would be in the tank. I think this is the one thing Star Wars fans all agree on: This was a horrible ending to the sequel trilogy. No one was happy, no matter what you thought of The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi. Kylo Ren, you deserved to be a real villain. Carrie Fisher, you deserved a real sendoff. 

8. Solo: A Star Wars Story: The beginning of the “Why Did We Need This?” era of Disney Star Wars that has continued with Book of Boba Fett and the Obi-Wan series. This movie is fine and sometimes fun, but I didn’t need to know a lame reason for the last name Solo and Chewbacca was cooler when he wasn’t in a mud pit. Functional movie, better acting, but why?

7. Episode I- The Phantom Menace: Alright, so, it’s not good. Lots of bad stuff, lots of the accents are actually kind of problematic, Jar Jar is annoying. But, like, it’s also kind of cool? Naboo fighters rule, podraces are fun, Darth Maul looks like the Insidious demon, and John Williams is going to TOWN on that score. Duel of the Fates rules, and that was a cool lightsaber fight at the end. Nostalgia-tinged love for this movie. And this was before the CGI fully took over.

6. Episode VI- Return of the Jedi: Ok, I want to start off by saying that this where everything on the list is good. I love this movie! But it kind of just undoes the end of Empire right off the bat, and most of the plot is wrapped up for Han and Leia by this point. Good stuff with Luke and Darth and the Emperor, but also it’s just a bigger Death Star and the Ewoks are lame. The green lightsaber is the MVP.

5. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: Honestly, it’s cool that they all die in the end. Really does nail the “costs of war” part of Star Wars (more on that later). The ensemble cast all works, I like how weird and broken Saw Gerrara and Galen Erso are and how that affects Jyn, and The Force feels like a weird space religion in this again. Happy Andor got to have more story later. I can’t agree with the weird CGI Tarkin and Leia, but really, this would make top 6 if it was just the last Vader sequence, even if it makes the beginning of Episode IV a little wonky because of it.

4. Episode VII- The Force Awakens: It’s the same Star Wars story again, but guess what, that’s actually pretty enjoyable. Harrison Ford brings it, I fell in love with Adam Driver here as Kylo Ren being an emo boy, and Daisy Ridley delivers the sweetness. Again, The Force is best when it’s a weird space religion and not some ultimate power or micro-organisms. This is the only movie in the sequel trilogy that does justice to Finn.

3. Episode V- The Empire Strikes Back: This is where we get spicy. I’ll start cool by saying I think all these last three are masterpieces. What’s not to love about Empire? It’s got Hoth, an ice planet with cool ships and giant walkers that get tripped and a Yeti that almost kills Luke. It’s got a swamp planet with a little stinker of a green guy that’s actually Jedi Master Yoda and he talks funny but also feels like our wise grandpa. It’s got the real Force ghost stuff and actual Jedi training. Oh, and maybe the greatest twist in cinematic history. Great stuff! My knock on it is, while it starts fast and strong on Hoth, it ends in a way that feels like, “Ok, that’s all we got right now, see you next time!” Just like Across the Spider-Verse. I’m here for a whole movie, not a Part 1. Empire is way better than Spider-Verse, had to say that.

2. Episode VII- The Last Jedi: That’s right, I’m one of those guys that actually loves this movie. It’s got the “costs of war” stuff, stories told in flashbacks by unreliable narrators, grouchy old Luke running away from failure, then learning a lesson about how important failure is from YODA HIMSELF (love that it’s the original puppet instead of CGI). Finn is a bit on hold the whole time, but I also see the casino planet as a “profits of war” commentary worth making. I like the long, slow space chase, the salt planet with a big door, the clear foxes, and the way Luke goes out in peace, showing his Forceness one last time while making Kylo Ren look like a bratty child, just perfect. The quips can get annoying, and Poe being a dummy but also ending up in charge is a stretch. But beyond all that, this is the best looking Star Wars film as far as set designs, and I think it’s also John Williams’s best score besides…

1. Star Wars: No episode crap in the title for this one, this is THE Star Wars. The more I debated for a long about whether The Last Jedi or Empire was the best of these, the more I came back to how complete and perfect the original really is. It’s not worried about sequels or prequels, it’s just a hero’s journey and a lot of cool effects way ahead of their time, a perfect score, and characters that we love to spend time with. It wraps itself up nicely in the end. We love robots that can’t speak as much as we love human characters. It’s timeless and quotable and the world has never been the same since it was released. I’ll fight over any ranking on this list but this one. This one cannot be struck down, it is already more powerful than you could ever imagine.