For as much as the retiring MLB Commissioner Bud Selig loves to remind us that baseball attendance is at an all-time high and that the game has "never been more popular" than it is across the country today, there is really no refuting that the MLB is not nearly as widely followed or prominent as it once was in the American sporting world. Of course, the beginning of baseball in the spring and the excitement of a new season with new players in different cities - whether it be a Tanaka in New York or a Abreu in Chicago - and new possibilities - unless you are a Mets fan where the only possibility is more misery and looking like a little league team - always brings a certain sense of intrigue for a while, but from late May to early September over the past decade, there has been a sort of lull amongst fans about the game and interest in the sport in the dog days of the year. Baseball may be our national pastime as was coined in the 1800's, but to many it is just that, a great historic relic that has lost a lot of its luster from the golden days. It is a game that so many people have castigated for its slow pace and ridiculous rule changes such as the transfer rule and the confounding blocking home-plate regulation to prevent those phantom collisions from happening.
In contrast, despite some of its ludicrous policies and fundamentally flawed hierarchy of decision-makers from the NFL office, which has rightfully been exploited in the news over the past week with the Ray Rice and Greg Hardy domestic violence incidents and the NFL's really poor handling of the cases thanks to the always incompetent Roger Goodell, people are still craving their football every week because the sport has never been more popular amongst its fans (they play games now on Thursdays, Sundays, and Mondays because people can't get enough). Fantasy football is such a big draw for the borderline league watchers because they are now dialed in on every game to see how their players are performing. Furthermore, as painful as it is to sometimes watch games where every time a defensive player touches a wide receiver it is a flag, people love to see offense and points. The fact that the league average per team for points per game last year was 23.4, the highest ever in a single-season, only draws more people into each and every back-and-forth contest. With the NFL rules constituted in such a way that the offensive side of the ball is so heavily favored with holding, pass interference, and personal foul penalties, no lead in a game is truly safe because of just how quickly offensives can rack up points (Andrew Luck led 8 fourth quarter comebacks in just his first two years in the league alone).
Even basketball, a sport many people honestly maintained was saved from the depths of the sporting world just 35 years ago by the enthralling rivalry between Magic Johnson and his Lakers and Larry Bird and his Celtics (one of which was in the NBA Finals every year in the 1980's) has caught up to baseball, and possibly surpassed the game, in terms of its popularity and truly devoted fan-base. Additionally, the NBA has more global ties than any other American sport even despite the fact that their game in Mexico City got cancelled last season because of a fire in the generator room (there are technological issues at places outside of the Superdome too folks), as basketball has substantial roots in China and throughout a very prosperous Asian market. It also helps your game when you can boast a lineup of LeBron James, arguably the greatest player in the game that we have ever seen aside from Jordan, Kevin Durant, who is with guys like Jordan, Kobe, and Wiklins as the best pure scorer in NBA history, the emerging Anthony Davis and possibly Andre Drummond, the deadly three-point shooting combination of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson in Golden State, the equally lethal combinations in LA of Blake Griffin and Chris Paul, Portland with Lillard and Aldridge, and Houston with Dwight and Harden (and their role players who Harden doesn't really recognize), and hopefully a resurgent Derrick Rose and Paul George when they can both return from serious knee injuries (Rose this year and George next season).
Aside from the obvious issue of baseball games just taking way too much time in between pitches when batters are adjusting their gloves, stepping out of the box, and calling time, and pitchers like Matt Garza and Clay Buchholz aimlessly standing on the mound for 20 to 30 seconds, not everybody can be Mark Buehrle I guess, the MLB just doesn't have the star power that it once did in the game. (I'm not sure baseball games take too long because football games are now going on for 4 hours, but there is just way too much dead time where nothing is happening on the field. I don't mean to be a contrarian, but soccer games have 80 minutes of constant, fast-paced action along with 10 minutes of players rolling around in deep pain over a touch of their body, guys arguing with the referees and other coaches if its Diego Simeone, and having wild over-the-top goal celebrations while baseball games are just much too slow moving after each and every pitch). In decades past, a majority of the sporting world's biggest stars and attractions came from baseball rather than football, basketball, major college sports, or hockey and while these are all obviously team sports, they do rely on star power to captivate many interested fans.
After the dead ball era, the 1920's, 1930's, and 1940's had baseball icons and legends like Ruth, Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott, Lefty Grove, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Joe DiMaggio, and Bob Feller, who seem so amazing with their above .400 batting averages and 60 home run seasons in a time when everybody else was hitting in the 20's or 30's, that they are almost mystical or made up. The 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's brought to the world the likes of bigger than life personalities and stars from Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Warren Spahn, Hank Aaron, Sandy Koufax, Frank Robinson, and Bob Gibson to Juan Marichal, Roberto Clemente, Johnny Bench, Tom Seaver, Joe Morgan, Pete Rose, Reggie Jackson, and Jim Palmer. If you were walking down the street, you would instantly know if you saw Hank Aaron or Pete Rose, but nowadays, if you were sitting right next to some of the games top players like Josh Donaldson, Corey Kluber, or Chris Sale, it may not strike you right away that they are biggest names in baseball because the sport just doesn't have that same familiarity and big star presence that it once did. In the 1980's and 1990's, if George Brett, Ken Griffey Jr., or Mike Schmidt came to the plate or Nolan Ryan or Greg Maddux came to the mound, you would stop what you were doing and watch them at work. In baseball today, Edwin Encarnacion and Adam Jones are two of the best hitters in the game, but nobody is going to completely forget everything around them and take in their at-bat. In the past, the best athletes and the biggest names all came from the baseball diamond, but that is just no longer the case.
Baseball has been in this waiting period/limbo over the past several years about some of the guys that would step up and be their biggest stars to infatuate fans to the point where they needed to come to the ballpark to see them play or keep a chuck of their day open to watching them on television. Derek Jeter has been the face of baseball for such a long time, but with his impending retirement, the game is in need of some fresh superstars across the sport. Some pitchers have filled that void like Clayton Kershaw, based off the pure fact that his 1.67 ERA through September is just plain scary, especially after he posted a seemingly absurd but now less ridiculous 1.83 ERA last season, as well as Felix Hernandez with his King's Court in Seattle, but guys who only throw once out of every five days are hard to promote your entire sport around (come to the ballpark once every week to catch Kershaw is not exactly what you are looking for despite the amount of pull that has on an exclusive day when they are on the mound). We thought that Jason Hayward, Hanley Ramirez, a young Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, Domonic Brown, Jesus Montero, or Justin Upton may be the next group of young stars, but they have all struggled much more than expected with all their collective talent. Clearly, there has been some more clarity over the past two years around the guys baseball fans would gravitate towards with star players emerging like Mike Trout, Andrew McCutchen, Buster Posey, and Yasiel Puig. However, there was still some disconnect in the game, and that was the big-time power guy that everybody was missing out on and so desperate to see back in the sport.
In the interim, there is no way of disputing that the steroid era was good for the overall landscape of baseball. Following some rough times in the early 1990's with the MLB strike-shortened season in 1994, the first year that didn't feature a World Series in America since 1904 - they played the World Series in the middle of World War I and II, so that shows you how disconcerting that strike must have been to the game - baseball needed a quick restoration and revival, and performance-enhancing drugs, as much as I am against players using them to gain an unfair competitive advantage and changing the entire dynamic of the sport, provided that for baseball. Offense was at a never before seen level with runs, hits, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage going at all-time high rates, and the home run battles between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire in 1998 and 1999 were unlike anything that baseball had ever seen before in terms of following and interest amongst fans. However, the short-term gains of the steroid era came at the peril of the long-term growth of the sport, and not just in terms of every story over the last ten years involving baseball being about A-Rod or Ryan Braun getting caught for using performance-enhancing drugs. Actually, more precisely in the case of Braun, getting caught, lying about not using the drugs, getting off on a minuscule technicality while ruining the reputation of another person, and then getting caught again, which is basically the Lance Armstrong in a nutshell. However, what the steroid era also did is that it inflated run scoring and home run numbers to a ridiculous degree, where teams and players now have a nearly impossible task of matching or even coming near the offensive numbers of a generation in which so many players were juicing. People became so accustomed to seeing a lot of runs scored and multiple long balls every game that they are disappointed that today's baseball has so little of that going on with pitchers being much more dominant than ever before. For example, in 2000 when Jason Giambi was knocking out 43 home runs like it was nothing, there were 1.172 home runs per game and 10.280 runs per contest, and in 2011 those number were all the way down to 0.937 home runs per contest and 8.567 runs per game, the lowest for a single-season since all the way back in 1993 and 1992 for those two categories respectively, which were both before the steroid era really kicked off. In an era of baseball when the Richie Sexson's of the world are no longer hitting 45 homers in a season, the MLB was looking for somebody to take up the reins of the game's next best power hitter and real big slugger.
Some of the power numbers that Stanton has put up over the past five years, at just the current age of 24, is staggering to say the least, especially considering that he still has time to mature as he enters his prime major league years in his late 20's and early 30's. Since 2010, Stanton's 154 home runs are the most in the National League and only behind Jose Bautista and Miguel Cabrera among all batters in baseball over that time span (Stanton was not called up until mid-June of his rookie season, so he could be averaging even more than his 30 home run per season rate over the past 5 years if he came up from triple-A New Orleans Zephyrs, one of the best minor league baseball team names along with the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Toledo Mud Hens, and the Albuquerque Isotopes, a little earlier). His isolated power of .269 since 2010 is once again the best in the NL and only behind Joey Bats over the last five seasons in the majors (Stanton's .318 isolated power in 2012 was the 3rd best in a single-season in the MLB over the past seven years behind only Bautista in 2010 and Pujols in 2009 with a minimum of 500 plate appearances). Giancarlo's .549 slugging percentage since 2011 is only bettered by Ryan Braun and Troy Tulowitzki in the NL, who has 548 less plate appearances than Stanton over that span, and David Ortiz and Miguel Cabrera in the AL. Stanton is also on his way to leading the National League in slugging for the second time in three seasons, which only Johnny Mize (1938-1940), Stan Musial (1943-1944, 1946, 1948, 1950, 1952), Ralph Kiner (1947, 1949, 1951), Willie Mays (1954-1955, 1957; 1964-1965), Frank Robinson (1960-1962), Willie McCovey (1968-1970), Mike Schmidt (1980-1982), Dale Murphy (1983-1984), Barry Bonds (1990, 1992-1993; 2001-2004), Larry Walker (1997, 1999), and Albert Pujols (2008-2009) have done in the league in the last 80 years. Stanton's 25.0 home run to fly ball ratio is also the best in the majors since his debut in 2010, displaying the power and unprecedented strength that he has to get a quarter of his fly balls out of the ball park. After hitting 34 home runs in 2011 and popping 37 this season for Miami, Stanton joins just Mel Ott (1929, 1932), Eddie Mathews (1953-1956), Willie Mays (1954-1955), Frank Robinson (1956, 1959), Orlando Cepeda (1961-1962), Johnny Bench (1970, 1972), Vladimir Guerrero (1998-1999), Andruw Jones (2000-2001), Albert Pujols (2001-2004), Prince Fielder (2007-2008) as the only players to have two seasons with at least 34 home runs before the age of 25.
The first thing with Stanton that jumps out to you is undoubtedly his conspicuous power. He has that kind of truly remarkable and unrivaled force through the ball that it makes fans look upon him with awe, and opposing pitchers look upon him only with delight when they get to give him the free pass down to first base (his 24 intentional walks are the most in the NL), because of his unfair physical tools. Stanton, though, has evolved into a much more well rounded player than you would normally assume about a big, power-hitting slugger in the middle of a lineup that is there for power but not much else like a Jay Bruce, or a Chris Davis, or an Adam Dunn, who is on his way to becoming the worst ever 500-home hitter by a mile and a half and is going to awkwardly stand out more in that group than a father that doesn't know how to use twitter or an unknown Billy Campbell amongst the cast of The Rocketeer. While Stanton has his most power when he is pulling through the ball with his hips and driving the ball out to left field, his developing ability to hit the ball the other way has allowed him to get on base much more often than a typical slugger that hits a lot of home runs. The only players in the MLB this season with a batting average of .285 or above and at least 25 home runs are Victor Martinez (.333 batting average and 30 home runs), Jose Abreu (.317 batting average and 33 home runs), Jose Bautista (.286 batting average and 32 home runs), Adam Jones (.286 batting average and 25 home runs), Mike Trout (.285 batting average and 32 home runs), and of course Giancarlo (.288 batting average and 37 home runs). Even more impressive is the fact that Stanton has become much more patient at the plate and is really looking to zero in on pitches high in the strike zone and not chase off-speed stuff in the dirt, which has allowed him to go from an above average .350 to .360 on-base percentage guy to a .395 OBP batter this season, which is the 5th highest in the majors behind only Victor Martinez, Andrew McCutchen, Jose Bautista, and Paul Goldschmidt. It is also very helpful when you are so strong that you can hit righties, lefties, with runners in scoring position (.316 batting average with RISP in 2014), and just casually poke a ball out over the fence with ease. Stanton's defense could still improve out there in right field, but he does have an above average arm, and no team is going to complain about a solid defensive right fielder who just so happens to be having a year with an OPS of .950, 299 total bases, 105 runs batted in, and is leading the National League in virtually every offensive statistical category.
Despite all of his outstanding tools on the field, which are readily apparent to anybody that watches a single Marlins game, the real moment in which Stanton resonated with me and so many other fans were his comments about his Miami organization earlier this summer. Stanton said, "Five months [of good baseball with the Marlins playoff push this year] doesn't change five years [of losing season]... The way I felt last year, with the whole situation of losing and not play my best [he was still 4th in the NL in at-bats per home run], that was one of the worst feelings I ever had. I put it as a waste of time. I spent all that time in the offseason. To lose 100 games and to not do my best? It was like, 'What I do all that in the offseason for?'" At the same time, we're still not where we need to be to keep playing beyond the designed schedule... I want to be the only game on TV at the end of the day... That's still a long ways to go to be in the same conversation with the best of the best. I'm hungry for that." I don't think a fan or a front-office looking to build around a guy that will do anything to win could craft a much more perfect quote than that one from Stanton. So often in sports nowadays, we feel like the athletes are just going through the motions and making their money (Robinson Cano, for example, fielding a ground ball at second or running to first base looks like he is taking a leisurely stroll in the park and he is making 240 million dollars over the next 10 years in Seattle). Sports, after all, are a business, as so many people love to point out, and it is the way these athletes make a living, so I have no problem with them trying to make as much cash as they can attempt to do in their very short careers. With that being said, it just seems like in the sporting world today, some athletes do not live and die with the result on the field and it isn't a 'if I don't win this game, I'm going to have nightmares for the rest of my life about it and it will stick with me forever, so I'm going to do absolutely after I can to win this game' kind of proposition (remember when Gronk was partying just hours after the Pats lost in the Super Bowl to the Giants in 2011-2012). Obviously, life is bigger than sports, but it is sometimes refreshing to hear an athlete that is fed up with losing, showing everybody that he deeply cares about the results on the field and will do anything to change them. The Marlins have not made the playoffs since they beat the Yankees in the World Series in 2003 and they have finished under .500 for four straight seasons. In light of that, to hear their franchise player want to be around people who want to win as badly as he does, is exactly the type of desire that you can only dream a guy with the physical tools of Stanton would have about his team.
However, so much changed for the worse on Thursday night for the entire baseball world in the middle of Stanton's unparalleled season for a player at just the age of 24, heck, for any player regardless of age or league. It was the top of the 5th inning between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Miami Marlins from Miller Park with the Brew Crew up 4-0 and Mike Fiers on the mound for Milwaukee. Fiers threw a strike that Stanton took on the first pitch and the count moved to 0-1 (don't worry, though, because Stanton has a .364 career batting average on pitches coming from a 0-1 count, so he was still really looking to hit). The next pitch then resulted in something so devastating that only a few players in baseball history like Tony Conigliaro, Kirby Puckett, and Dickie Thon can truly relate to the feeling of the guy at the plate. Jonathan Lucroy was setting up over the middle part of the plate when Fiers completely missed the spot and his pitch went wildly sailing inside right towards Stanton in the batters box. Giancarlo, who was totally unsuspecting anything on the inner half of the plate, squared around like he was about to swing and saw the ball flying right at his helmet and he went tumbling down to the ground real hard after the fastball nailed right off the center of his face around his mouth area. Giancarlo was down in a heap, and blood was pouring everywhere onto the field from the slugger's face. I'm not sure which of these were the most horrifying sight about that hit-by-pitch: Stanton's legs swarming on the ground in miserable pain after getting plunked and needing to be taken off by a stretcher, seeing all the blood just dripping from his face and the grounds crew actually needing to delay the game to clean all the blood from the plate area, or the terrible sound that the ball made when it struck Stanton's face, which was just so painfully loud that you knew right away that Stanton caught one really badly.
Stanton's scary hit-by-pitch video
Let's get this out of the way first: Fiers in absolutely no way, shape, or form was trying to intentionally hit Stanton. He had been pitching a very nice game up until the 5th inning with just spreading out 3 hits and striking-out 7 Marlins batters (Miami has struck out more than any other team aside from the Cubs this season), so there would be no reason for him to go after a guy and ruin one of the best starts he had put together all season long in Milwaukee. The Brewers were also absolutely desperate for a win after losing 16 of their last 20 games and going from a 2.5 lead over the Cardinals and a 7 game advantage over the Pirates in the NL Central to trailing the Cards by 4 games and even falling behind Pittsburgh by 1.5 games in the division. In other words, Fiers would not be foolish enough to recklessly put guys on base in such an important game for a slumping team in September that needs to gain back the significant ground that it lost with its huge losing streak in August. You can just see on the replay that Lucroy was setting up over the middle of the plate with his mitt low in the zone, so it is plain and simple that Fiers just missed his location and lost total control of the pitch, and it was hard for Stanton to see the ball with his unique over the top delivery. Furthermore, it is not like the Brewers or Marlins, two teams in different divisions that have not exactly both been competing for the NL playoff spots over the years (they have made the postseason a combined 6 times out of the last 67 opportunities), have some bad blood that Fiers was trying to heat up or resolve in baseball's odd unwritten rules (that being said, everybody in the league does have some sort of bad blood with the always fiery Carlos Gomez). As if all of that wasn't enough, Fiers was so distraught over nailing Stanton and causing him a bad looking injury, that he plunked the next Marlins batter on the first pitch of his at-bat, clearly still shaken up and in complete shock over what had just transpired with Stanton. He seemed very remorseful after the game as well, profusely apologizing to Stanton and the Marlins in his interviews with the media and over twitter (speaking of remorse, do you know who isn't remorseful or contrite, Roger Goodell). However, none of that takes away from the unfortunate fact that for anybody that enjoys watching the game of baseball, Stanton is likely going to be out for the duration of the season with some serious facial fractures and month injuries.
The frightening injury to Stanton could also not have come at a worse time for a team like the Marlins, a club that has been trending upwards and has gotten itself back into the National League playoff race against all the odds and their 47 million dollar opening day payroll, the second lowest in the MLB (quite ironically, the Phillies, who are in dead last in the NL East, are paying more money to Ryan Howard and Cliff Lee alone than the entire Marlins roster). Despite the Nationals running away with the division, mainly due to their stretch of 10 consecutive victories in August that included 5 walk-off wins, unlike the Rangers, Twins, Red Sox, Astros, White Sox, Rays, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Cubs, Phillies, Padres, Reds, and Mets, Miami was still on the periphery of the hunt for October. Going into last night's contest at 71-73, Miami was 4.5 games behind the Pittsburgh Pirates for the second wild card spot in the NL, which is certainly not an insurmountable margin with a little less than a month still to play in the season if the right things go your way and you start to get really hot with 9 games left against the abysmal Phillies and Mets (trust me, as a Red Sox fan I know about teams coming back from big deficits in the wild card). In large part because of Stanton's hitting, the Marlins were able to climb their way back from a 44-52 start to the season with a very solid stretch of 27-21 baseball since July 20th to put them in striking distance of a playoff spot. They did all that with a pitching staff of five guys that nobody has ever heard of after the season-ending injury to stud Jose Fernandez, who was coming off one of the best seasons ever for a rookie pitcher with a 2.19 ERA, 2.73 FIP, and 0.979 WHIP, and actually having to play Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Garrrett Jones everyday and watch them strike out over and over again. Stanton was one of just two players on Miami with at least 15 home runs and an offensive WAR of at least 3.0 along with center fielder Marcell Ozuna, so I don't think it's a stretch to say Miami's season is all about over with at this point.
We are entering a new age of baseball right now in a post-steriod era with pitchers dominating the game at their best rate since the 1970's when the MLB likely had their best ever iteration of hurlers with several all-time greats like Bob Gibson, Gaylord Perry, Fergie Jenkins, Jim Palmer, Tom Seaver, Vida Blue, Bert Blyleven, Don Sutton, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, Luis Tiant, Phil Nierko, Goose Gossage, and Dennis Eckersley (the league average ERA of 3.26 in 1972 is the second lowest behind only 1968 in the last 95 years of the category). Not too far behind, however, is 2014, where the 3.75 league average ERA to this point in the season is the lowest the MLB has seen in 22 years since 1992, the year that seven pitchers all had ERA's under 2.50 including Greg Maddux (2.18), Curt Schilling (2.35), and Roger Clemens (2.41). As if that wasn't enough, the K% (20.3%) along with the K/9 (7.72) and K/BB (2.65) rates are all respectively the highest they have ever been for a single-season in baseball history, the 3.76 FIP mark is the second lowest the majors has seen over the past 25 years, and hitters .247 batting average and pitchers 1.28 WHIP are the lowest they have been in 42 years since 1972. If those statistics didn't make it clear enough, the MLB needs guys like to Stanton to entertain everybody with their hitting prowess and big time power ability, which is becoming few and far between in this age of baseball.
All of those factors prompted Mike Redmond to say, "It was very scary. We're hoping he is going to be all right... It's devastating for us. Devastating. For his season to end like that, I mean, that's not good." But Redmond was wrong about that, however, because it is not just a devastating blow for the Miami Marlins, but it is a terrible loss for the entire sport of baseball, which was reliant on a guy like Stanton to take the reins as one of the MLB's next great stars. Now, Giancarlo is out for an extended period of time, and baseball loses one of its biggest names and driving forces behind getting people really invested in the game again. Without Stanton playing every day, it is like the NBA losing Durant or the NHL losing Crosby. As unfortunate as it is for the Marlins to lose their MVP star and likely fall out of the playoff picture, it is even worse for a sport like baseball that has been yearning for years for a transcendent power hitting star like Stanton to take shape. In echoing the words of Mike Redmond, 'It's devastating for the entire game' is what baseball leaders are probably saying right about now.
AFC East:
The New England Patriots have dominated the AFC East unlike any other team in a single division in all of sports (basically, they have been the Microsoft of the AFC East). The Pats have won the division 11 of the past 13 years with the only exceptions being in 2002 when they went 9-7 with a second year Tom Brady - the last time they didn't have double-digit wins in a season - and in 2008 when they joined the 1985 Denver Broncos as the only teams to not make the playoffs despite winning at least 11 games in a season (the Seahawks won the NFC West with 7 wins in 2010 for perspective) after they went 11-5 with a Belichick is the true genius inspired Matt Cassel replacing an injured Tom Brady at quarterback for the entire season (ironically, the next year in 1986 the Broncos and John Elway had the same record in the AFC West and were actually the 2 seed in the conference, the same season they beat the Browns in "The Drive"). The Patriots have had an unprecedented run of success since Belichick ditched the Jets for New England in 2000 in a move somebody with true integrity like Jason Kidd would never do, as a 158-50 record over the past 11 years with 8 AFC Championship Game appearances, 5 Super Bowl appearances, and 3 Super Bowls is something that Browns and Lions fans wouldn't even be able to dream about because it seems so distant and fanciful to their doormat franchises. Tom Brady is one of the top 4 quarterbacks of all-time along with Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana, and Peyton Manning (apologizes to Otto Graham, John Elway, and Dan Marino) and Belichick is one of the top 8 greatest coaches ever along with legends Vince Lombardi, Paul Brown, George Halas, Tom Landry, Bill Walsh, Chuck Noll, and Don Shula (sorry Joe Gibbs, Curly Lambeau, and Bill Parcells).
However, it is a lot easier to be the class of your division when everybody around you is about as incompetent as Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell in The Other Guys. The Bills have not made the playoffs since they fatally lost the Music City Miracle to Frank Wycheck, Kevin Dyson, and Tennessee Titans all the way back in the 1999-2000 season. Over the past 14 years, the Bills have been 88-136 with 8 seasons of double-digit losses, have trotted out the likes of Alex Van Pely, Rob Johnson, J.P. Losman, Kelly Holcomb, Trent Edwards, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Brian Brohm, Jeff Tuel, Thad Lewis, and now EJ Manuel to play quarterback, seen a variety of their top picks excel on other teams whether it be Willis McGahee in Baltimore, Donte Whitner in San Francisco, Marshawn Lynch in Seattle, or Paul Posluszny in Jacksonville, and had Donald Trump and Bon Jovi make runs at buying the team (the only thing worse that could happen to the Bills is if they moved to Toronto and had Rob Ford replace Doug Marrone as head coach and Doug Whaley as general manager. On second thought, no longer having Doug Marrone patrolling the sidelines wouldn't be the worst of things for Buffalo). It has not been much better in Miami despite their owner Stephen Ross spending huge chucks of money on big name free agents to try and make the team relevant down in South Beach, as they have brought in guys like wide receiver Mike Wallace, left tackle Branden Albert, cornerbacks Brent Grimes and Cortland Finnegan, and defensive tackles Randy Starks and Earl Mitchell over the past two free agencies. The Fins have not won a playoff game since they beat the Colts in the 2000 Wild Card round with Jay Fiedler playing QB - their defense with Trace Armstrong, Jason Taylor, Zach Thomas, Larry Izzo, Sam Madison, and Brock Marion was ferocious - and unlike the Packers, who went from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers, the Colts who went from Peyton Manning to Andrew Luck, or the Oilers/Titans who went from Warren Moon to Steve McNair, they have still not found a reliable starter since Dan Marino retired in 1999, playing everybody from Sage Rosenfels to Tyler Thigpen over that time span. Finally, outside of the two seasons in which they somehow made back-to-back AFC Championship Game appearances in 2009 and 2010, the Jets have been full of drama and juicy story lines whether it be Tebow or Sanchez or Revis, but have not done all that much to challenge the Pats in the East. New York has not had a winning season in each of the past three years, the only other teams with that unfortunate mark are the Dolphins, Bills, Jaguars, Raiders, Bucs, and Rams, and Rex Ryan's time at MetLife Stadium may be running on thin ice.
New England Patriots:
Before any sentence can even be muttered about the Patriots offense in 2013-2014, it has come as a prerequisite to say, "Tom Brady had limited pass catching weapons," or "Tom Brady had a depleted receiving core," or "the Patriots lacked the options on the exterior to exploit a defense down the field," and that may be fair to say about the team (they did have the second most drops and second worst drops percentage in the NFL last season, only behind the Detroit Lions). Rob Gronkowski had two different surgeries on his forearm and then back surgery in the off-season, which caused him to miss the team's first 6 games, and then tore his ACL and MCL, which caused him to miss the club's last 3 games and the postseason. Aaron Hernandez went from 910 yards and 7 touchdowns in 2011 to being indicted for murder by 2013 and became the biggest criminal the country has seen since Phil Spector or Paul Kelly. Brady was left with a receiving core of rookies Aaron Dobson and Kenbrell Thompkins, who both dropped so many passes that they made Stevie Johnson look like he has sure hands (they were two of three NFL players along with Browns running back Chris Ogbonnaya with at least 7 drops and less than 40 catches in 2013-2014), and Danny Amendola, who was a free agency disappointment in coming over from St. Louis in the off-season. However, outside of three years with Randy Moss from 2007 to 2009 when Moss caught 47 touchdowns in three seasons including a record 23 in 2007 and the 2011 year when Welker, Gronk, and Hernandez combined for 33 touchdowns and each eclipsed 900 yards, Brady has never really had top end receivers and he has been just fine in New England. Now, that is not to say that if Brady had a receiving core like the one in Chicago with Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery, or Washington with DeSean Jackson, Pierre Garcon, and Andre Roberts, or San Francisco with Boldin, Crabtree, Steve Johnson, Brandon Lloyd, and Vernon Davis that he wouldn't be a much more efficient quarterback. What I am saying, though, is that Brady's receiving core was better than many of the groups he has had in the past in New England and that Brady should be held accountable for some of the mistakes he made last year, particularly when he missed so many throws high against Denver in the first half of the Patriots 26-16 AFC Championship Game loss to the Broncos. Furthermore, Julian Edelman, was terrific last season and may have been just as lethal as Wes Welker in that slot receiver role for New England in helping the team constantly move the chains with short routes to the sidelines and slants over the middle, so exclusively blaming the receivers for some of the Pats offense struggles is just not warranted. Brady struggled against the blitz last season, especially on third down, and although that certainly had something to do with his receivers not getting off the line quick enough and making plays, Brady took too many sacks to cost him team opportunities to score in the opposing territory.
Despite all of that talk, the Patriots should still win the AFC East once again this season by several games (in the last four years, New England has won the division by 3 games, 5 games twice, and then 4 games last season), and despite some of his struggles last season, Tom Brady is not regressing to the mean and is still a top four NFL quarterback along with Manning, Rodgers, Brees. The Pats have completely moved on from the Aaron Hernandez fiasco, the most paranoid man since Joseph Stalin, and Brady should have more continuity and familiarity with his receiving core this year of Danny Amendola, Julian Edelman, Aaron Dobson, Kenbrell Thompkins, newly acquired Brandon LaFell from Carolina (sorry Cam Newton but your receivers are all but gone), and for Pats fans sake, hopefully a healthy Rob Gronkowski. Gronk has been limited in practice and will likely take some time to come back and return to his normal self, but the Pats really need the big tight end for the stretch run and the postseason more than anything else. His addition to New England's offense is so important and cannot be understated because of his value to Brady in unlocking defenses over the middle and in the red zone especially. At 6-6, Gronk is such a big body that it is almost impossible to get in front of him when he runs those inside seam routes and crossing routes over the center of the field, and with the new NFL rules, you also can't hit him up high to jar the ball loose (if you can't hit high, you have to hit low and remember T.J. Ward, now of the Denver Broncos, cost Gronk the end of his season last year when he got him down in the knees, the only spot you can hit now without getting flagged for unnecessary contact; thanks Roger Goodell). New England had a 58.11 red zone touchdown percentage in 2013-2014, which was still good enough for 8th in the NFL, but with Tom Brady at QB, only in 2009 did they have a lower touchdown success rate between the 20 and the goal line in the last 10 years and that had a lot to do with Gronk's absence. Clearly, in the red zone everything is compressed, so it is harder for smaller guys like Edelman and Amendola to find space and open field because everything is so clustered, and the two combined for just 8 touchdowns last season. New England dearly missed having the big body of Gronk to throw to up high in the red zone when things got tight and there were not as many open windows to throw to underneath. With Gronk returning, it not only gives Brady a dynamic option in the red zone and when he is under pressure and needs to get rid of the ball because of Gronk's ability to out muscle any defender whether it be a bigger but slower linebacker or a quicker but smaller safety (unless it is Kam Chancellor because he is just huge), but it will also create more room for guys like Amendola, Dobson, and Thompkins to go down the field with all of the attention that Gronk's presence down the middle of the field deservedly creates (his presence off the field also seemingly creates a lot of notice amongst people, but that is for another time). Obviously, the more time that Brady's line of Nate Solder, Josh Kline (replacing Logan Mankins), Ryan Wendell, Dan Connolly, and Sebastian Vollmer gives him, the better he will be at spreading the ball around and getting the running game going with their assortment of backs including Stevan "Nobody Lost More Fumbles Than Me Last Season" Ridley, Shane "I Am Such A Good Pass Catching Tailback Just Call Me Kevin Faulk 2.0" Vereen, Brandon Bolden, and James "Watch Out For Me Because I'm Good Even Though I Played Behind Montee Ball In College" White.
People often tend to forget with Tom Brady and the Pats offense, just how concentrated the club has been with their running game since Bill Belichick took over as head coach at the turn on the century. Obviously, the emphasis on the running game has gone away a little bit over the years with Brady maturing as a quarterback and the league rules changing in such a way where any time a defensive back touches a receiver, it is a holding or pass interference penalty. Nonetheless, New England is one of the more balanced teams in the NFL (something the Lions and Cowboys could learn from), and are at their best when they are able to move the sticks with the run game and then set up the play action for Brady when he has more time to set his feet and really step into his throws without defenders in his face. Only the Bills, Jets, Chargers, and Bengals averaged more rushing attempts per game than the Patriots last season in the AFC and that was only the case for Buffalo and New York out of necessity because you really don't want to see EJ Manuel and you really, really don't want to see Geno Smith sit back and throw the ball 35-40 times a contest unless you are the opposing defense. In 2012, New England led the league in total yards (6,846) and points per game (34.8) largely because their 9.2 rushing first downs per game led the league (it has still not been bettered by any other franchise over the past 11 seasons), but last year they averaged just 7.1 rushing first downs per contest and were down to 7th in total yardage in the NFL. The Pats have always liked to wear teams down in the Brady-Belichick days with the running game and then set up the pass as the game goes along, but they do have some offensive line question marks. New England traded long-time left guard Logan Mankins to the Tampa Bay Bucs because of some issues with contract restructuring in very Patriots like fashion and their replacement, Josh Kline, only started one game in his rookie season last year. Furthermore, Sebastian Vollmer is coming off a broken leg and missed the second half of the year in 2013-2014 with the injury. Offensively, however, the Patriots have Tom Brady and the other teams in the AFC East do not possess the same advantage, so scoring a lot of points will not be too tough for this Patriots team in the regular season, but they will have to be hitting on all cylinders to win their first Super Bowl since back in 2004 (it has been longer than you think). Time is of the essence for an aging Tom Brady, who is already 37 years old, but they should have no problem rolling through the AFC East and finishing with a 11-5 or 12-4 record like they do almost every year. I also say that in large part when you consider the fact that they will have Vince Wilfork and Jerod Mayo, the lynch pins of their defense, both returning from injuries that cost them their season in 2013, Darrelle Revis shutting down one side of the field at cornerback and bringing back Revis Island, and the very athletic Chandler Jones rushing the passer from the right defensive end spot in the Pats much improved 4-3 defense.
Miami Dolphins:
There are certain quarterbacks coming into this season that are a very delicate point in their careers amongst fans of the league and NFL teams, and if they play well, they will have faith restored in their ability to lead a club to the promise land, but if they don't have a good season, serious doubts about their future as a starting quarterback and the amount of success that they can have if the NFL may come into thinking amongst everybody involved with a particular franchise. That is not to say that if certain quarterbacks don't have a good season this year that they will no longer have a job as a starter in this league, although it could in some instances, but it does means that serious doubt will be cast over their ability to take a team deep into the postseason and clubs may need to re-evaluate if this is their quarterback of the future (for example, the Vikings did not see enough out of Matt Cassel or Christian Ponder and the Raiders saw nothing positive out of Terrelle Pryor and Matt Flynn in 2013 to give either team the confidence that any one of their respective quarterbacks could be the long term solution for the club behind center, so Minnesota took Teddy Bridgewater out of Louisville with the last pick of the first round despite some of his arm concerns and Oakland took big throwing Derek Carr from Fresno St. in the second round of the 2014 NFL draft despite some of his brother concerns in hopes that they can be the guy for the next couple of years). Some of those signal callers that are at a very make-or-break point this season include Jake Locker, Carson Palmer, and Jay Cutler and possibly if you want to stretch this category out a little bit, Andy Dalton if he gets to the playoffs and fails to win a playoff game for the 4th straight season, Robert Griffin III (Kirk Cousins is right on his back in Washington), and even Eli Manning after his 27 interception laughing stock of a season last year although I think he needs maybe one or two more poor years to put him at a breaking point because of his two Super Bowl wins against Tom Brady and the Pats in 2007 and then again in 2011. However, the first name that comes to mind under this classification of quarterbacks is certainly Miami Dolphins third-year starter out of Texas A&M, the new factory for quarterbacks, Ryan Tannehill. After a 7-9 year as a rookie and a 8-8 season that came up just shy of the postseason in 2013-2014 because of some really bad losses at the end of the season including a 19-0 defeat to the Bills in week 16 and a 20-7 clunker against the Jets in the final week of the season at Sun Life Stadium, Tannehill needs to prove himself down in Miami this year for the Dolphins to put their complete trust in him going forward as their franchise QB. Tannehill throws a really nice ball, and he has a strong arm to get the pigskin down the field in a hurry, even when he is on the run and outside of the pocket, which is perfectly suited for a team that has the down the field receiving threat of Mike Wallace breaking the top off defensive coverages with his outstanding speed. Tannehill spreads the ball out nicely, despite too many of his passes getting tipped at the line of scrimmage (he had one game in a 2012 loss when two of his tipped passes against the Texans resulted in picks), and he isn't afraid to gun some throws into tight coverage, but like many young quarterbacks, his decision making needs to improve, and he needs to get rid of the ball quicker while not staring down receivers when doing so from the pocket. Tannehill is probably a 4th level QB and somewhere in the range of 20-25 amongst NFL single callers and he will have to make a little bit of a jump into the level of Nick Foles, Alex Smith, and Andy Dalton in order for the Fins to be all-in on him.
As much as this is a make-or-break year for Ryan Tannehill in year three, the Dolphins are almost at a franchise crossroads entering the 2014-2015 season because they either need to make some strides forward or change the way their roster is shaped under new general manager Dennis Hickey because the Bills, Browns, Lions, and possibly Texans and Redskins are the only teams that have been less successful than Miami since 2000. The Fins have been so mediocre since Marino's retirement 14 years ago with a record of 107-117 since the turn of the century, not good enough to challenge in the AFC with the likes of the Pats, Colts, Steelers, Ravens, and Broncos but also not bad enough to blow the whole thing up and start all over again (they have finished between 6 and 8 wins for 5 straight seasons since 2009 and have only had three top 7 draft picks since 1993). The Dolphins have tried for years to put some nice complimentary pieces around their quarterbacks on the offensive side of the ball, and despite past failures with guys like Jake Grove, Ernest Wilford, and to a certain extent Brandon Marshall, they have tried to make some strides in improving their offensive line, which was just terrible last season, and receiving group. Miami signed Branden Albert to a 5-year, 47 million dollar contract in the off-season to hold down their left tackle spot, which was a good move since Albert is coming off his best season with the Chiefs in 2013, and drafted Ja'Wuan James out of Tennessee in the first round, who is a much better pass protector than dominate force in the run game. The Dolphins desperately needed some new linemen to keep Ryan Tannehill on his feet and Albert and James should provide that in the passing game. Last season, Tannehill was hit more than almost any other quarterback in the NFL and had very little time in the pocket to go through his progressions because of constant pressure in his face. Miami was dead last in the NFL in QB sacks per game at 3.6, the most in a year since 2006, and in plays without the opposition sending extra men on a blitz, teams were still able to sack Tannehill 30 times, the most in the league by a good margin. Tannehill really struggled with his decision making when he faced pressure in 2013, which he did on nearly 23 percent of his passing attempts, so Miami was often put into long down-and-distances because of sacks and errant throws. With Mike Pouncey on the PUP list while still recovering from hip surgery, the Fins will be starting five entirely different offensive lineman from last season, which is a positive sign in the sense that they were proactive in the off-season and didn't just sit back after their QB was constantly knocked around last season like the Texans did with David Carr, but it is also a little bit worrying since they have barely worked together as an offensive unit. If the Dolphins are able to run the ball this season with new back from Denver Knowshon Moreno along with second-year tailback Lamar Miller, it will take a lot of pressure off the back of Tannehill. The Fins were only ahead of the Browns, Steelers, and Ravens in the AFC in rushing yards per game in 2013-2014 and were 27th in the NFL in rushing touchdowns last year, which put everything on the shoulders of Tannehill. They will need to be more balanced this year to help out Tannehill and get their offensive line pushing forward in the running game.
Much like how their offense has some really nice features (their receiving core with Mike Wallace, Brian Hartline, and Charles Clay) and also some real question marks (offensive line and running game) and would be categorized overall as fairly average to below average, the same can be said for their defense and their entire team in general (essentially, they are headed for another 7-9 or 8-8 season and a year of mediocrity). The Dolphins were 24th in rushing yards allowed per game last year at nearly 125 yards and as a Colts fans, I know what it is like to have opposing teams tail backs constantly running all over you on Sundays, so they need to improve on that front or feel the misery I have become so accustomed too over the years (as an optimistic Colts fan, however, with the newly acquired 30-million dollar Arthur Jones from Baltimore, Montori Hughes, and Cory Redding up front in the 3-4, Indy is going to have their best run defense since they ranked 15th in rushing yards per game in 2007 and went 13-3). Like many teams with below average rush defenses, Miami does have some dynamic pass rushers to get to the quarterback because their defensive ends just shoot down their lanes on the outside of offensive tackles and get to the QB on occasion, especially in obvious passing situations, but also leave openings in between the guard and the tackle in the running game. Aldon Smith, DeMarcus Ware, and Miami defensive end Cameron Wake are the only defenders to have two seasons of 14 or more sacks since 2010 and only Robert Mathis and Mario Williams had more sacks in the AFC than Miami's other defensive end, Olivier Vernon, last season, who came up with 11.5 including 7 in his last 7 games. In the secondary, any team that has to be heavily reliant on the very erratic and unpredictable Cortland Finnegan, like Miami is going to have to do this year with second-year players Will Davis and Jamar Taylor as their only other main cornerbacks, is a little nerve wrecking. Miami probably did make an upgrade in bringing in safety Louis Delmas from the Lions and letting the worse Chris Clemons, not the former Seattle and now Jacksonville one, go to Houston, but it may not make up enough for some of the defensive woes that the team has in the run game and with the unreliable Finnegan at the other starting corner spot across from Brent Grimes. Expect another year of .500 football from a very mediocre Miami Dolphins team and more head scratching and pondering of what to do moving froward with the club.
New York Jets/Buffalo Bills:
It is the Jets and the Bills. They are starting Geno Smith and EJ Manuel at quarterback respectively, two guys who make me confident in the abilities of Shaun Hill and Ryan Fitzpatrick. Do I need to say anything more? They are actually two teams that have a lot of similarities when you really come to think about it. New York and Buffalo both have second year quarterbacks that did not show nearly enough in their rookie seasons to give their fan bases any confidence in them going forward. When Manuel was on the field last year and not dealing with his knee injury, he showed his athleticism and ability to throw the ball on the run, but he still needs to improve on his pocket awareness this upcoming season. Geno Smith looked out of his comfort zone at times last season, like the game was just moving too fast for him, and he will have to be, at the bare minimum, a servicable quarterback for the Jets to do anything in 2014-2015. The Jets and Bills were also two teams that ranked at the top of the AFC in rushing play percentage in 2013 despite the fact that Chris Ivory's only good game came against the Saints, his former team, and C.J. Spiller single-handled ruined 30 percent of all fantasy football leagues last season when he went late in the first round and had 2 touchdowns all year long and had 23 rushing yards or less in 5 out of the 15 games he played in for Buffalo. The clubs have some serious defensive problems heading into this season despite the Jets very solid interior and Bills above average secondary, as New York's cornerback situation is in such disarray that Dimitri Patterson ran away from the team in fear of what was going to come in the future and the Bills lack the quality linebackers that you need in a 4-3 defense to stop the run (they ranked 28th in rushing yards allowed per game in 2013 and that was with a Marcell Dareus that didn't come to camp way overweight and a healthy Kiko Alonso, who will be out for the entirety of the season with a torn ACL). New York and Buffalo also have new wide receivers to help their young quarterbacks, as the Jets spent the big bucks for Eric Decker and the Bills traded up with the Browns to acquire Sammy Watkins. Nonetheless, expect 5-11 or 6-10 seasons for New York and Buffalo and top 10 picks in the 2015 Draft with questions circling around the teams all season long about future quarterback prospects such as Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariota, Brett Hundley, Connor Cook, and Kevin Hogan. Also expect Rex Ryan and Doug Marrone to be looking for jobs this off-season and Muhammad Wilkerson and Sheldon Richardson of the Jets defensive line and Mario Williams, Kyle Williams, and Leodis McKelvin of the Bills defense wishing they had more capable offenses to help them win some more football games. New York football teams are in for another tough season, especially if the new look Giants offense mirrors their miserable performance in the pre-season and the Jets and Bills play the sub-par football must people expect from them in 2014-2015.
There are certain questions that are always asked about specific sports over and over again in main stream media. Any time after a substantial international soccer tournament or a thrilling match in club play in Europe, people constantly wonder if soccer is truly growing into a major sport in the states. The World Cup is obviously a catalyst for this conversation because of just how important the competition is to the rest of the globe and even its popularity in America with people supporting the national team in large numbers in public fan gatherings. Even outside of the World Cup, which has gotten people invested in soccer for years, after Sergio Aguero scored the championship winning goal for Manchester City in their 3-2 victory over Queens Park Rangers in 2012, everybody began to ponder if European soccer leagues were becoming much more prevalent in the American view (I can watch Aguero's goal all day long). In golf, after each and every tournament where Tiger Woods is either out hurt or missing the cut while looking like a shell of his old self, the inevitable question that comes along is can golf flourish without Tiger? The NBA survived without Jordan (although for a while, any big player that came along was supposedly the "next Jordan," whether it was Grant Hill, Penny Hardaway, or Harold Miner), the NHL went on without Gretzky, but can golf really prosper without the single man who has dominated the game for so long and broke down so many golf barriers (remember, Tiger won his first major back at the 1997 Masters when he was only 21, so Woods has been the biggest walking golf story for nearly 20 years) The PGA Championship at Valhalla showed that golf does have the potential to be just as enthralling even without Tiger, with the right mix of drama and key players fighting it out on a Sunday (if Downtown Abbey can remain intact even after Dan Stevens was killed, so can golf without Woods).
With remarkable late drama and four players having at least a share of the lead on the back nine, golf may lose some fans that only watched for the intrigue of Tiger, but it can remain very captivating if the final rounds are as climactic as the one at Valhalla this past weekend. The PGA of America could not have been much more fortunate because to go along with the late theatrics of the tournament, they could not have picked a better group of players to be involved in the late stretch of really tense golf. Rory McIlroy, the best player in the game and somebody who is well on his way to challenging for 10 to 15 majors over the next decade, came into the 4th round at the top of the leaderboard and was always the favorite to win the championship after his wins at Royal Liverpool and Firestone in late July and early August. The most beloved golfer on the tour for his class and near misses over the years, Phil Mickelson was able to turn his lackluster season around at the PGA and really get into the mix in the final round at Valhalla after he birded the par-3, 11th hole and had a share of the lead for a long stretch on the back nine. For as much as I admire Rory McIlroy for the force he possesses at the bottom of his swing and the turn he gets in his shoulders to just power through the ball, he is not a guy that is going to get a lot of new people into golf (unless your a single girl). However, Rickie Fowler is going to attract new fans into the game with his colorful clothes and sparkling play, and he was also in contention on Sunday for the 4th consecutive major (he also gives American golf fans some hope because Kevin Streelman at the Travelers Championship at TPC Rivers Highlands and Brian Harman at the John Derre Classic at TPC Derre Run are the only two US players to win on the PGA Tour in the last 10 events since early June). Finally, although Henrik Stenson is not a particularly alluring name (not nearly as much as his compatriot Zlatan Ibrahimovic), he won both the FedEx Cup and the Race to Dubai in 2013, and can spin back his irons like nobody else in the game (see his shot on the 13th hole onto the island green that set up his birdie to have a share of the lead), making him a very dangerous player to be around the top of the scoreboard on a Sunday. Golf without Tiger is not going to be easy, but with late drama and the right names in the mix on Sunday, it is still possible to reach Tiger-like excitement.
The amazing theater of the PGA Championship was only intensified because of its stark contrast to the dreary previous two majors of the season. Martin Kaymer just obliterated the field at the U.S. Open from Pinehurst No. 2 and not only did the course not look like a typical U.S. Open with thick rough when it was replaced by sandy waste areas next to the fairways, but it was the first time I can ever remember my dad saying he did not even watch a single shot of tournament because of just how little intrigue there was in the event. At the Open Championship from Royal Liverpool, Rory McIlroy went wire-to-wire for the victory and literally nobody else in the field even put up a mild challenge to stop him from doing so (It was Rory's second wire-to-wire victory at a major, putting him in a select group of players to have multiple wire-to-wire wins at major championshps. Arnold Palmer won the 1960 and 1964 Masters in such fashion, Jack Nicklaus won the 1972 Masters, 1972 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, and 1980 U.S. Open at Baltusrol all in wire-to-wire wins, Raymond Floyd did it at the 1969 PGA at NCR, 1976 Masters, and 1982 PGA at Southern Hills, and finally Tiger won the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, 2000 PGA at Valhalla, 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black, and 2005 Open at St Andrews in wire-to-wire victories). I guess you could say Sergio Garcia came close to putting up a fight at the Open Championship this year, but everybody knew Sergio would pull a "Sergio" somewhere in his final round, and that came with his horrible bunker shot on 15 that never left the sand and led to a bogey on the par-3, all but ensuring a title for Rory in England. Over the past decade, there have been plenty of head-to-head battles amongst golfers at majors, which is always gripping stuff with each guy trying to pull away, whether it be Retief Goosen and Phil trading blows at the 2004 U.S. Open from Shinnecock Hills, Tiger and Chris DiMarco being so close during the final round at the Masters in 2005, Stewart Cink and Tom Watson going into a playoff at the 2009 Open Championship from Turnberry, or Y.E. Yang and Tiger going at it in the 2009 PGA at Hazeltine. However, it is much more rare to see a major golf tournament, like this year's PGA, where coming down the back nine so many different players have a share of the lead and a chance to take home a major championship with the utmost suspense attached to it. The 2001 Masters with Tiger, David Duval, and Phil all in the hunt was quite tense, Phil overcoming K.J. Choi and Ernie Els in the 2004 Masters for his first major was so exciting, and the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot with Geoff Ogilvy, Jim Furyk, Phil, Colin Montgomerie, and Padraig Harrington passing around the lead was wild. The 2014 PGA Championship gave us all of the late drama that the game had been missing over the past several majors with guys trying to match one another on every hole coming down the final stretch.
Enough about how Rory McIlroy is the future of golf because he is the here-and-now of the golfing world after his PGA Championship at Valhalla. On a day in which everybody around him was making serious moves on the front nine (Phil was 4-under, Stenson was 5-under, and Rickie was 3-under on the first nine holes), Rory shot a 1-over 36 (he bogeyed 3 and 6 before finally making a birdie on 7) and could not really get anything going or any big birdie putts to go down to gain some momentum. However, the fact that Rory showed so much resolve to keep on fighting, even as his final round lead was shrinking, should really worry the rest of the players on tour. If Rory has the unwavering mental strength that he showed this past weekend to go along with his immense golfing talent, he should be well on his way to double-digit major championships. When Rory won the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional, he did so by eight strokes over Jason Day and set records for the fewest shots and lowest score under par at the world's hardest golf tournament in his blowout win. McIlroy destroyed the field once again at the 2012 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island and took home the Wanamaker Trophy after winning by eight strokes over David Lynn, the most ever in tournament history. Rory entered the final round of this year's Open Championship leading by six strokes (in the last 60 years only Tony Lema in 1964 had a bigger lead going into the fourth round of the major when he was up on Jack Nicklaus by 7 strokes at St Andrews) and nobody ever really came close enough to scare McIlroy for the title, or put any significant pressure on his game. Any time you have three majors in the bag at the age of 25, the talent is obviously there, but McIlroy's fourth major proved the resolute and obstinate nature that he has built into his mentality, which so few golfers truly possess. The great ones in every sport have this unshakable tenaciousness to always fight through various challenges, no matter the circumstances around them. For the first time at Valhalla, people saw Rory's unyielding personality on the golf course, because even when he wasn't at his absolute best and guys were right on his back, he stayed strong through the adversity and the pressure. In a week where McIlroy only gained 1.1 strokes on his putting (in comparison, Phil gained 1.7 strokes on putting and Henrik Stenson racked up 2.3 shots on his putts), he was still able to be persevere for another major championship.
As much as winning a tight major golf championship is about staying tough mentally, which Rory demonstrated for the first time that he can do on a Sunday with his calm emotions and staunch confidence, he also hit some incredible shots on the back nine to secure the championship. Unlike most of the other golfers that struggled on the back nine because of the difficult par-4 12th and the 508 yard par-4 16th, Rory destroyed the final nine holes at Valhalla all week long, as he was 2-under on Thursday including a stretch of 4 straight birdies from 12 to 15, 3-under on Friday and Saturday with an eagle on 18 in his second round, and 4-under on Sunday without a bogey to close out the tournament. On the back nine in his final round, Rory was able to hit a three wood onto the green for an eagle on the par-5 10th hole to jump start his round, finally get a big putt to fall on the par-4 13th for his 3rd birdie in 4 days on the hole, and then put a shot from a fairway bunker to within 10 feet of the hole for a dagger birdie on the 17th. Even though he did not putt his absolute best, when a guy can pull off some of the shots that Rory can on a golf course, and hit the big ball that he can from the tee with his driver to set up short irons to the pin, like he showed on the back end of the PGA Championship at Valhalla, it is scary to think about what he is capable of doing in the future.
Some of Rory's accomplishments and records are just staggering to think about, especially at his young age. With McIlroy's victories at the Open Championship and PGA Championship in 2014, he joins Arnold Palmer in 1960 and 1962, Jack Nicklaus in 1963, 1966, 1972, 1975, and 1980, Lee Trevino in 1971, Gary Player in 1974, Tom Watson in 1977 and 1982, Nick Faldo in 1990, Nick Price in 1994, Mark O'Meara in 1998, Tiger Woods in 2000, 2002, 2005, and 2006, and Padraig Harrington in 2008 as the only players to win at least 2 majors in a single season in the last 55 years and joins Walter Hagan in 1924, Price in 1994, Tiger in 2000 and 2006, Harrington in 2008 as the only players to win the two titles back-to-back in nearly 100 years. Rory has actually won the Open Championship, the Bridgestone Invitational from Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, and the PGA Championship in three consecutive starts, becoming the first golfer since Tiger Woods in 2008 when he won the Buick Invitational, Accenture Match Play, and Arnold Palmer Invitational to do so. Gary Player (9 majors), Harry Vardon (7 majors), Nick Faldo (6 majors), Seve Ballesteros (5 majors), James Braid (5 majors), John Henry Taylor (5 majors), and Peter Thomson (5 majors) are the only golfers born outside of America with more grand slams than McIlroy, and the Northern Irishman is only 25 years old and at the beginning of his career. In fact, only Young Tom Morris (1868-1870 and 1872 Open), Tiger Woods (1997 Masters, 1999 PGA at Medinah, 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach, 2000 Open at St Andrews), and Jack Nicklaus (1962 US Open at Oakmont, 1963 Masters, 1963 PGA at Dallas Athletic, 1964 Masters) won 4 majors at a younger age than McIlroy. Essentially, Mark Zuckerberg is the only person to accomplish more than Rory by the age of 25 to put it all in a nutshell.
Rickie Fowler has had one of the best seasons ever for a guy to not have a single win all season long on tour, which leaves much more to be desired in the future for the young American. Since Fowler is only 25 years old and does have so much promise in his game, especially with his ball striking and iron play at such a proficient level, I would still characterize his year on the side of impressive and auspicious rather than disappointing and frustrating (it is hard to call a year with 7 top 10's through August a poor season). Despite all of his great tournaments throughout the season and his more than solid performances in the four majors, it is not like Rickie ever blew opportunities for victories or threw away leads when he was in position to run away from the field. He has been on the periphery of almost every tournament he has entered this season, but has never really been able to cement himself at the top of the leaderboard in any event, as was evidenced at the PGA Championship. Fowler's tied for 5th finish at the Masters, tied for 2nd spot at the U.S. Open and Open Championship, and tied for 3rd mark at the PGA Championship puts him with Jack Nicklaus in 1971 and 1973 and Tiger Woods in 2000 and 2005 as the only golfers to finish all four majors in the top five in one season (Nicklaus, however, won the PGA in 1971 and 1973 and Tiger came out victorious in the U.S. Open, Open, and PGA in 2000 and the Masters and Open in 2005). Rickie also joins Ben Crenshaw in 1987, Sergio Garcia in 2002, Ernie Els in 2004, and Vijay Singh in 2005 as the only players in the last 35 years to finish in the top 10 in all of the majors in a calendar year and not win any of them. Fowler's bogey on the par-3 14th hole at Valhalla because of a tee shot that went wayward and into some mud to the right of the hole dropped him behind Phil and Rory on the back nine, and he was never able to really recover from that blow even after an incredible scramble for a par on 16. Fowler, though, just exudes so much confidence on the course, especially in his calm putting stroke, and it is a matter of "when" not "if" he wins a major championship.
Over the past two decades, golf has really been dominated by two man, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, and coming into the PGA Championship, both of them had been having horrible seasons and there is no way around that fact. The only event Phil finished in the top 10 before the PGA was back in January on the European Tour in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Tournament and Tiger basically missed 4 months of the year with back surgery and then came back to miss the cut at the Quicken Loans National from Congressional, have his worst 72-hole finish in a major in the Open Championship, and then withdrew from the Bridgestone Invitational due to his back pain coming back once again. Tiger looked terrible once again on the golf course at Valhalla, missing just his 4th cut as a professional at a major tournament (he also missed cuts at the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot after he missed significant time because of his father's death, the 2009 Open at Turnberry, and the 2011 PGA at Atlanta Athletic Club). Golfers not named Tiger Woods have now won 26 straight majors dating back to 2008 and if Tiger doesn't win the Masters in April, it will be exactly 7 years since his last major victory. He looked in pain at the PGA with his reoccurring back ailment, and seems to be having all sorts of trouble with his driver, having no consistency with his misses which is a bad sign for a professional. On the other hand, after shooting a 62 in his final round at Firestone to gain some much needed confidence (it was his best 18 hole score since he shot a 60 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in 2013), Phil was finally able to turn his play around at the PGA and he was right in the thick of things on a Sunday at a major once again. Mickelson took advantage of the three par-5 holes at Valhalla all weekend long, birding the 7th in all four rounds, birding the 10th on Friday, and going 5-under on the 18th including an eagle in his second round. Lefty also went away from the claw grip that caused him so much trouble on the greens at the U.S. Open when he finished tied for 28th and made so many long putts to keep him towards the top of the leaderboard at Valhalla. His clutch putting was highlighted by a 30-foot par save on the arduous 12th hole to keep him tied for the lead at 15-under in the final round. The finish for Mickelson, however, could not have epitomized his career of ups-and-downs in a more symbolic fashion. On the 16th hole, his chip for birdie lipped out of the pin and he was unable to salvage a par with his next putt, and then on the 18th hole, his eagle attempt to pull even with Rory at the top of the leaderboard just barely missed the cup. Despite shooting a final round 5-under, 66, Phil once again came up just short of a major championship - something we have gotten so used to saying over the years with his near misses - finishing in second at a major for the 9th time in his roller-coaster career, and for the 2nd time at the PGA Championship (only Jack Nicklaus with 19 and Arnold Palmer with 10 have more second place finishes than Phil in majors).
The other thing that the PGA Championship does is that it solidifies the U.S. Ryder Cup automatic selections for the competition this September in Scotland, a match-up that is likely going to be the biggest mismatch since "The Mountain" came up against "Prince Oberyn Martell" because the European team is going to be an overwhelming favorite. Even the most optimistic American golf fans have to realize that this US Ryder Cup squad could be even worse than the teams in 2004 and 2006 that lost by a margin of 18.5 to 9.5 to Europe in the biggest blowouts since all the way back in 1975 at Laurel Valley when it was still the US against Great Britain and Ireland. The nine players that have automatically qualified for the US team and will be playing at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire are Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler, Jim Furyk, Jimmy Walker, Phil Mickelson, Matt Kuchar, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Reed, and Zach Johnson. Phil was on the outside looking in coming into the PGA Championship, as he was sitting in 10th place on the US points standings, but his second place finish at the major bumped him all the way up to 5th and gave him a spot on the team for the 10th consecutive time. Despite having to withdraw from the PGA because of a back injury, Matt Kuchar was still able to finish amongst the top 9 positions for the US team because he has the most top 10 results on the PGA Tour, but his back problem is another big concern for an already weak US team. Patrick Reed was good enough at the PGA to keep his spot on the team, as he made the cut and shot even par golf for the tournament, but he has played really poorly since winning the Humana Classic and WGC Cadillac Championship at Trump National in Doral earlier in the year. Meanwhile, Zach Johnson nabbed the last automatic spot on the US team mainly because of the poor play of everybody else around him. Jason Dufner, who came into this year's last major in the 8th position for the US team, had to withdraw from the PGA as the defending champion midway through his first round because of a neck problem and was knocked out of an automatic spot. Keegan Bradley, Chris Kirk, and Webb Simpson all missed the cut at Valhalla and only one player shot worse than Brendon Todd who stayed around for the weekend, so Johnson fell into the last automatic US Ryder Cup spot more than anything else. With Bubba's recent struggles in missing out on the cut at the U.S. Open
and the Open and having a 65th place finish at the PGA, Rickie, Furyk,
Jimmy Walker, and Phil are the only guys playing well right now of the
nine automatic US players on the cup teams. The struggles of the US spells big trouble when
they go up against a stacked European team that will likely be
highlighted by Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, Martin Kaymer, and Ian Poulter. The Europeans could have the best squad that their continent has assembled since 1985 when Seve Ballesteros, Sandy Lyle, Bernhard Langer, and Nick Faldo took the cup back from the US for the first time since 1957.
"Before anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio. It's where I walked. It's where I ran. It's where I cried. It's where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart. People there have seen me grow up. I sometimes feel like I'm their son. Their passion can be overwhelming. But it drives me. I want to give them hope when I can. I want to inspire them when I can. My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn't realize that four years ago. I do now.
Remember when I was sitting up there at the Boys & Girls Club in 2010? I was thinking, this is really tough. I could feel it. I was leaving something I had spent a long time creating. If I had to do it all over again, I'd obviously do things differently, but I'd still have left. Miami, for me, has been almost like college for other kids. These past four years helped raise me into who I am. I became a better player and a better man. I learned from a franchise that had been where I wanted to go. I will always think of Miami as my second home. Without the experiences I had there, I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing today.
I went to Miami because of D-Wade and CB. We made sacrifices to keep UD. I loved becoming a big bro to Rio. I believed we could do something magical if we came together. And that's exactly what we did! The hardest thing to leave is what I built with those guys. I've talked to some of them and will talk to to others. Nothing will ever change what we accomplished. We are brothers for life. I also want to thank Micky Arison and Pat Riley for giving me an amazing four years.
I'm doing this essay because I want an opportunity to explain myself uninterrupted. I don't want anyone thinking: He and Erik Spoelstra didn't get along... He and Riles didn't get along... The Heat couldn't put the right team together. That's absolutely not true.
I'm not having a press conference or a party. After this, it's time to get to work.
When I left Cleveland, I was on a mission. I was seeking championships, and we won two. But Miami already knew that feeling. Out city hasn't had that feeling in a long, long, long time. My goal is still to win as many titles as possible, no question. But what's most important for me is bringing one trophy back to Northeast Ohio.
I always believed that I'd return to Cleveland and finish my career there. I just don't know when. After the season, free agency wasn't even a thought. But I have two boys and my wife, Savannah, is pregnant with a girl. I started thinking about what it would be like to raise my family in my hometown. I looked at other teams, but I wasn't going to leave Miami for anywhere except Cleveland. The more time passed, the more it felt right. This is what makes me happy.
To make the move I needed the support of my wife and my mom, who can be very tough. The letter from Dan Gilbert, the booing of the Cleveland fans, the jerseys being burned -- seeing all that was hard for them. My emotions were mixed. It was easy to say, 'Ok, I don't want to deal with these people ever again.' But then you think about the other side. What if I were a kid who looked up to an athlete, and that athlete made me want to do better in my own life, and then he left? How would I react? I've met with Dan, face-to-face, man-to-man. We've talked it out. Everybody makes mistakes. I've made mistakes as well. Who am I to hold a grudge?
I'm not promising a championship. I know how hard that is to deliver. We're not ready right now. No way. Of course, I want to win next year, but I'm realistic. It will be a long process, much longer than it was in 2010. My patience will get tested. I know that. I'm going into a situation with a young team and a new coach. I will be the old head. But I get a thrill out of bringing a group together and helping them reach a place they didn't know they could go. I see myself as a mentor now and I'm excited to lead some of these talented guys. I think I can help Kyrie Irving become one of the best point guards in our league. I think I can help elevate Tristan Thompson and Dion Waiters. And I can't wait to reunite with Anderson Varejao, one of my favorite teammates.
But this is not about the roster or the organization. I feel my calling here goes above basketball. I have a responsibility to lead, in more ways than one, and I take that very seriously. My presence can make a difference in Miami, but I think it can mean more where I'm from. I want kids in Northeast Ohio, like the hundreds of Akron third-graders I sponsor through my foundation, to realize that there's no better place to grow up. Maybe some of them will come home after college and start a family or open a business. That would make me smile. Our community, which has struggled so much, needs all the talent it can get.
In Northeast Ohio, nothing is given. Everything is earned. You work for what you have.
I'm ready to accept the challenge. I'm coming home."
"I'm coming home." Those were the poignant words of LeBron James, detailing his return home to the Cleveland Cavaliers in a first-person letter as told to Lee Jenkins of sports illustrated, a letter, which was really more like an official announcement or declaration, that can be easily characterized as courtly and dignified. LeBron's letter on his departure from the Miami Heat to return back to his roots in Northeast Ohio will be recognized as one of the greatest sports moments in Ohio history along with anytime Jim Brown touched the ball for the Browns, the Big Red Machine's championships in the mid 1970's, and Ohio St. beating Miami in the Fiesta Bowl in 2002 for the title, and will live on in sports lore for not only its significance with the best player in all of sports picking the Cavs in free agency, but also the grace and elegance in which it was deftly written. In sports, it is nearly impossible to do anything with universal approval because there will always be those critics out there, especially when you are a free agent (LeBron left Cleveland to team up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and was criticized from all angles for not trying to win in the right manner and needing to join forces with other players to do so, but Carmelo Anthony stayed in New York this year and has been getting killed over the past few days for taking the money and not looking for a championship because he turned down the possibility to play with Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah in Chicago). However, LeBron's letter actually received widespread acclaim and praise because of the heartfelt nature of the piece and the fact that he was able to explain everything about his decision in an uninterrupted manner in an announcement full of refinement and urbanity. You don't always say classy and anything about an NBA player in the same sentence, but LeBron handled his free agency announcement with nothing but class and there is no arguing that point no matter how much LeBron loathing some people still have lingering in their body.
In 2010, LeBron James handled his free agency about as poorly as you possibly could with his 75-minute ESPN program The Decision, a TV special that has been heavily lambasted over the years due to its totally unnecessary narcissistic and egocentric feel. LeBron's announcement that he was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers after 7 seasons with the team and joining the Miami Heat came off as plain unprofessional and improper to anybody that watched the show because the special, and especially LeBron's interview with Jim Gray, seemed like a distasteful shrine to the man himself. Although I understand the idea behind having the Boys and Girls Club of America there at the telecast and the 2.5 million dollars the event raised for the charity, the whole spectacle was patronizing and objectionable to fans and media alike. LeBron also failed to let the Cavs or any of the other teams know of his decision to head for Miami and hung the organization out to dry on national television without any prior warning at all. Essentially, if somebody could put together the worst possible way to go about a free agency while making yourself look like a self-centered athlete that is as tasteless as any sane person out there, it was LeBron's TV special and ESPN announcement in a nutshell. It rubbed everybody the wrong way and LeBron's team made a really ill-fated decision to air the special once so ever, as it was about the most excruciating 75 minutes of TV you will ever watch in your life.
LeBron James's "The Decision" Interview
I can totally understand people being upset at the egotistical and tasteless decision show that LeBron held and the manner in which it went down, but to this day, I vehemently disagree with people like Knicks legend Walt Fraizer that detest not the pompous manner of the program but solely LBJ's literal decision to leave the Cavs for the Heat. Many fans blamed LeBron for deserting the Cavaliers and leaving the team when things got tough in 2010. Now, should LeBron have done more in that 2010 Conference Semifinals series against the Boston Celtics? I think the answer to that question has to be a yes, but the team around LeBron was not nearly good enough and he recognized that a starting lineup of Mo Williams, Anthony Parker, Antawn Jamison, and an old Shaq, and Delonte West, Anderson Varejao, and Daniel Gibson coming off the bench was not going to get things done when it mattered in the postseason. LeBron was a free agent and he absolutely had the right to choose the destination where he thought he could best win a championship and I don't think there is anything wrong with him wanting to play in Miami with two other star players as much as people may disagree. Every basketball player that has ever went on to legendary status and won at least one title did not do so alone and had a much better supporting cast than Mo, Anthony Parker, Antawn Jamison, and a near 40-year old Shaq. Russell had Bob Cousy, Tom Heinsohn, and Bill Sharman early on in his career and then Sam Jones and John Havlicek later on, Jerry West had Elgin Baylor at the beginning and then Wilt and Gail Goodrich towards the end, Oscar had Lew Alcindor and Bob Dandridge, Moses had Julius Erving and Maurice Cheeks, Bird had the end of Nate Archibald, Dennis Johnson, Robert Parish, and Kevin McHale, Magic had Kareem, Jamaal Wilkes, and James Worthy, Hakeem had Clyde Drexler, Jordan had Pippen and Rodman, and Shaq had Kobe with the Lakers and D-Wade with the Heat, so I do not fault LeBron for leaving at all and put it more so on the Cavs inability to put anything around the king. I understand that Magic would never team with Bird and that some people think LeBron took the easy way out, but he was getting absolutely no help in Cleveland. I look down on the decision, just as everybody else, because the manner in which it played out was dreadful and callous but I do not blame him for wanting to be apart of a team that could surround him with some actual legit NBA level talent.
In LeBron's first season with the Heat in 2010-2011, he tried to prove all of his critics and haters wrong and he seemed to play with a lot of bitterness, rage, and resentfulness in his basketball game. As much as America loves itself a good fairy tale story and a nice hero, it is also enamored with good villains whether it be the joker in The Dark Knight, Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, Jack Torrance in The Shining, Biff Tannen in Back to the Future, or Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas and LeBron was seemingly the biggest villain in the entire sporting world during the 2010-2011 sports season. As if the decision wasn't bad enough, LeBron and the big three then had a big welcome party at American Airlines Arena where LBJ declared Miami would win "not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, not 6, not 7 [championships]," making him the biggest sports villain since practically Ty Cobb because of the entire way he handled his free agency and his move to South Beach. LeBron played with way too much anger and hostility for the Heat and it clearly hurt his mental game on the floor, as it was too much for him to try and take on the role of a villain while trying to proving everybody wrong in one fell swoop. LeBron never seemed comfortable on the court in his first season with the Heat, a year in which they would go on to shockingly lose to the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals in 6 games, and the king got too caught up in the fans and everything around him that he lost sight of his own game and just trying to play without all the distractions.
After the Heat feel in the 2011 NBA Finals to Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavericks, LeBron's second loss in the final round of the playoffs, the king hit his ultimate low in Miami when he said, "All the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal, but they have to get back to the real world at some point." LeBron was really just overwhelming upset with himself for his poor play in the world's biggest basketball stage, but his words of criticism for his haters once again came off as arrogant and full of disdain for everybody around him. It was a point in time when LeBron was so frustrated with himself and trapped within this idea of trying to be a villain, somebody he is not, that he lost himself like a teenage girl in high school and it represented just how much the hatred and abuse from had gotten to LeBron.
Highlights Of The Heat's Game 6 Loss To The Mavericks
However, so much changed with the king over the past three years with the Miami Heat and he has grown immensely since his free agency back in 2010 and since his rocky first season in South Beach at the start of the decade. Rather than constantly trying to prove everybody wrong in all of his actions and playing this persona of a villainous character, LeBron went back to basketball and made several drastic strides in his play from his first season in Miami. He greatly improved his jump shot, especially from three point range, an area of his game that he had struggled with over the years and was on clear display against the Mavericks in the NBA Finals when Dallas practically let LeBron take outside jump shots because of his inability to make the club pay from outside the key and his own lack of confidence in his jumper. After shooting 33 percent from three in 2010-2011, LeBron was all the way up to 40.6 by the 2012-2013 year and he hit more than 100 three pointers in that season for the first time since he was back in Cleveland. In his first year in Miami, LeBron had a true shooting percentage of 59.4 and an effective field goal percentage of 54.1 and in the three seasons since then his true shooting percentage has been 60.5, 64.0, and 64.9 and his effective field goal percentage has been 55.4, 60.3, and 61.0. Just to emphasize just how much LeBron has improved his shooting ability to extend defenses just that little bit further out, LeBron was 44.3 percent on field goals from 10 to 16 feet from the basket in 2010-2011 and all the way up to 48.1 percent on those same field goals in 2011. LeBron not only improved his shooting, but he dedicated himself to getting better in the low post and worked with Hakeem Olajuwon in order to help him assert his physical nature as a small forward down in the blocks. Although LeBron's percentage from outside greatly improved because of the strides he had made in his shooting stroke, he was more assertive in attacking the basket and getting into the post after his first year in Miami. In 2010-2011, LeBron's average field goal distance was 12.7 feet from the basket and in 2012-2013, that number was all the way down to 11.2 feet from the basket for his average bucket. With LBJ being more focused on using his body down low and taking more shots around the paint, he was able to shoot 62.2 percent on two point field goals in 2013-2014 after hitting just 55.2 percent of those same shots in his first year in South Beach.
As much as America is enchanted by cinderella stories and underdogs doing well against all odds, we love a winner more than anything else. In the NCAA tournament, we marvel at a Florida Gulf Coast beating Georgetown, a Lehigh or Mercer beating Duke, or a Norfolk St. knocking off Missouri, but at the end of the day, people watch when we have teams like Kentucky, Louisville, or Kansas in the Final Four. It is a good story in golf when an aging veteran like Stewart Cink wins at Turnberry or when Dareen Clarke wins at Royal Liverpool, but Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods are who we want to see in the hunt on Sunday. Winning changes everything and it did for LeBron after he was finally able to get over the hump in helping the Heat beat the Thunder in a tight 5 game Finals series in 2012. Winning cures all evils and it certainly does so in a season in which you join Michael Jordan as the only two players in NBA history to have a player efficiency
rating better than 30.0 for the 4th time in your career (LeBron's 30.74
PER in 2011-2012 was the 11th best all-time for a single season), win the regular season MVP, the NBA Finals MVP, and then go on to win the Gold Medal in the Olympics for Team USA for the second straight tournament and the fifth time in the last six competitions. As if that wasn't good enough, LBJ came back the next year and won the NBA MVP for the second straight year to capture his fourth overall and put him behind only Russell, Kareem, and Jordan in total MVPs, scored 14 points in the 4th quarter of game 6 against the Spurs in the NBA Finals, got fortunate enough that Tim Duncan was not in the game for the Ray Allen three that kept the Heat's season alive in that same game, nailed the dagger against San Antonio in game 7 to help Miami defend their championship, and once again took the NBA Finals MVP to join only Jordan, Hakeem, Shaq, and Kobe to win the award in back-to-back years since they began to give out the trophy in 1969 for the best player in the finals.
Highlights Of The Heat's Game 7 Win Vs The Spurs
The LeBron James that seemed angry and annoyed on the court in 2010-2011 has been completely thrown aside and he has seemed much more comfortable and relaxed with himself on and off the hardwood over the past few years. The most ostensible difference between the LeBron then and now is how he handled his past two free agencies, as "The Decision" in 2010 and "The Letter" in 2014 are pretty contrasting ways to go about announcing your intentions to switch teams in the upcoming season. As much as people castigated LeBron for everything that happened with his departure from the Cavs and his arrival in South Beach, and deservedly so, LBJ needed all of that to transform and mature into the person and player that he is today, as he even said in his letter, "These past four years helped raise me into who I am. Without the experiences I had there [in Miami], I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing today." LeBron has admitted on several occasions over the past couple years that he wished he would have done things much differently in 2010 and that he understands why everybody in Cleveland was so devastated over his departure. While it may sound like one of the biggest cliches you will ever hear, it often takes failure to breed future success and LeBron needed his wrongdoings with "The Decision" and some of his adversity in Miami to morph into the basketball player and person that he is today (that lesson is so true with athletes whether it be Michael Jordan not making his high school varsity team as a sophomore and then proving that coach wrong I guess you could say or Phil Mickelson finishing with 17 top 10s in majors before winning one in 2004 at Augusta). In fact, if LeBron wasn't the subject of all the criticism and hate that he received in Miami, which made him grow up the way he did, I'm not sure he would have ever returned to Cleveland at all.
So, the question is why LeBron left Miami to return home to Cleveland? The answer to that inquiry may be more layered than you think.
As much as the idea of returning to Cleveland must have enticed LeBron to change teams in free agency, the problems in Miami and some of the shortcomings of the Florida team must have been just as big of a reason for why LBJ ditched Micky Arison, Pat Riley, Erik Spoelstra, and crew despite winning two championships with the group in four seasons and joining the 1989-1990 Detroit Pistons, 1991-1993 and 1996-1998 Chicago Bulls, 1994-1995 Houston Rockets, and 1987-1988, 2000-2002, and 2009-2010 Lakers as the only teams to repeat as NBA champs in the last 45 years. The Heat team that got obliterated in 5 games in the NBA Finals to the San Antonio Spurs this year looked much more like the 2007 Cavaliers team that LeBron dragged to the last round of the postseason than the club that was so impressive against the Thunder in 2012. LeBron had to be getting tired of bringing an entire team through the regular season and postseason as if he was back in his earlier Cleveland days. His usage percentage of 31.0 was the 4th highest in the NBA behind only Kevin Durant, DeMarcus Cousins, and Carmelo Anthony and he must have hurt his back having to carry the Heat all the way to the Finals with limited help from his co-stars or elderly role players. At times, we even saw a LeBron James that seemed very frustrated on the floor because of all that he had to do each and every game in order for the Heat to compete, which he was not expecting when he came to a much better team in Miami than Cleveland. Any time the Spurs came up the court in the NBA Finals all five guys for San Antonio were always a threat to score or dish off the killer pass whether it be their stars in Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, and Kawhi Leonard or their key role players like Boris Diaw and Patty Mills while the Heat did not have those same options at all offensively and were slow on the other end of the floor. LeBron must have been growing tired of some of the Heat limitations from a pure basketball perspective. We will never know each and every reason behind why LeBron left Miami but we do know that the Heat have very little chance of becoming the first professional sports team since the 1980-1984 Islanders with Mike Bossy, Bryan Trottier, and Billy Smith to make five straight finals appearances now that they no longer have LBJ down in South Beach.
Let's start with Dwyane Wade, a player that was so good in his prime a few years ago that LeBron was compelled to come to Miami so that he could play along side Flash. There are some athletes in the world who seem to be exempt from condemnation no matter what happens to them or their team and that they are so popular amongst the fans and media that you can't say anything against their play or their personality without being ostracized and D-Wade is one, if not the only, guy like that in the NBA. Whether it be dating back to his college days when he took Marquette to a surprising Final Four in 2003 after putting up a triple-double against Kentucky in the elite eight, his heroic performance in the 2006 NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks that any fan of the game can appreciate for its greatness, or just that he seems like a genuinely good guy, Wade has built up this air of invincibility in Miami, one that practically puts him beyond any criticism or questioning like no other player in the league. Nonetheless, the fact that Wade's body is physically breaking down and that his knees seem like they can no longer hold for a full season and are as fragile as Penny Hardaway's knees must have been really concerning for LeBron and one of the reasons why he saw from a basketball standpoint that his move back to the Cavs made sense. As much as LBJ and D-Wade are close friends and all, Wade is nowhere near the player that he once was with Miami during the mid to late 2000's and is barely even a true all-star caliber talent anymore, as James Harden and Klay Thompson are probably better shooting guards right now than Wade. Dwyane Wade is to the Heat as Tom Brady is to the Patriots or Cal Ripken
was to the Orioles in that he has done more for that organization than
any player in the past. Wade brought Miami their first
NBA title in franchise history in 2006 by averaging 39.3 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 3.5 assists over the final 4 games of the series, completely sacrificed his
personal stats and playing style so that LeBron could step in and lead
the Big 3 era team (his usage percentage shrunk from 36.2 in 2008-2009
all the way down to 27.9 this past season), and battled through countless injuries to his shoulders and knees to be on the floor for the Heat. LeBron, though, had to see that Wade is in a serious decline and that he would no longer get the help he needed from his old sidekick.
In the NBA, you can certainly win a championship with two star players and a bunch of role players around those two guys, but Wade is no longer anywhere near a top 5 or even a top 15 player in the association. D-Wade missed 28 games last season because of his chronic knee issues and even came off the bench in a game against the Spurs in January for the first time in six years after he had missed four straight games that month because of the lingering problems he was still feeling in his weak knees (backup point guard Norris Cole played more minutes than Wade and Shane Battier nearly did as well). Wade only played in 2 back-to-back games all season long on consecutive nights and after playing against the Mavericks on December 15th and then again versus the Bobcats on November 16th, he had to sit out a week before he could play again because his knees tightened up at the end of the Charlotte game. The idea of not playing Dwyane on back-to-back nights after he underwent shock-wave therapy procedure on his knees in the off-season made sense on paper because it would be the best way to try and limit the wear-and-tear on his knees and help him rest and recover rather than having him attempt to play through pain in his knees. However, as much as LeBron said he agreed with exercising caution over Wade's knees and not having him put to much stress on those legs in games in January and February that don't hold any real significance, it is very hard for a team to establish continuity when one of their top guys misses more than 35 percent of the regular season. Even more importantly, it puts way too much pressure on LeBron to carry a team through a very long 82 game season when a club's second best player is constantly on the bench and has limited minutes when he is on the floor. LBJ knew he was not going to get that help on a consistent basis from D-Wade and it has to be very mentally and physically tiring having to grind through a season without a guy that should be picking you up on any given night.
Although the idea within the Heat organization all season long was to rest Wade during the regular season so that he could be fresh and ready to go for the Heat in the postseason, he still looked like a shell of himself in the playoffs outside of game 5 against the Nets at home and game 1 vs the Pacers in Indiana. In the NBA Finals, Wade could not guard anything that was moving and he looked like he was defending everybody on the Spurs in quicksand because guys were getting by him with ease all series long. He lost defensive coverages and assignments all over the place in the Spurs 5 game thrashing of Miami and let Danny Green and Manu Ginobili kill him from behind the arc, the same Manu Ginobili who looked like a walking zombie in the 2013 NBA Finals (the argument that Wade could have a Manu-like resurgence next year is also flawed since Ginobili was only asked to play 22 minutes per game on a much more balanced Spurs team while the Heat need Wade to be a top all-star caliber guy to help LeBron out). Wade's inability to stay in front of anybody from the Spurs, including Boris Diaw, caused more defensive rotations in that series than any other player in NBA Finals history. You know you are playing some bad defense when somebody makes an 11-minute YouTube video of your atrocious play on that end of the floor, so now James Harden suddenly has some company in that respect (Harden somehow got two votes for the all-defensive team, which is the most awful job of voting since Ken Wood had a -2.2 WAR for the St. Louis Browns in 1950 and got two points in the AL MVP race or since the United States elected James Buchanan as President back in 1857). Wade wasn't much better on the offensive end of the floor and he lacked the explosive and slashing to the rim that once made him one of the best players in the league. LeBron looked gas in the NBA Finals and that has a lot to do with the fact that not only did D-Wade sit out so much of the regular season and force LeBron to exert way too much energy throughout the year, but also that he was not there to carry any of the load in the playoffs to help LBJ when he needed it, which had to be extremely concerning for the king when he mulled over his decision in free agency.
Dwyane Wade's Poor Defense Against The Spurs
Chris Bosh was a very nice complimentary piece for LeBron in Miami and worked well with him when the king would drive to the basket and attract defenders and then kick it out to Bosh for open jump shots around the elbow or on the wings for threes. Bosh was able to extend defenses because of his shooting abilities, especially the last two seasons when his productivity from behind the arc began to increase, and he made it very difficult on teams to defend him when he would play the five position because most clubs did not have a center that could protect the rim when LeBron drove the lane and then recover to Bosh when he was standing open for jump shots. For example, in the final three games of the Heat's series against the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, Roy Hibbert really struggled to contest Bosh's jumper, which allowed him to score 25 points in game 4, 20 points in game 5, and 25 points again in the clinching game 6 in Miami in just 29 minutes of play. However, Bosh is more of a finesse and skilled forward with the ball rather than a power big man down in the blocks, so the Heat never had a guy who could score in the post - aside from LeBron - and get some easy buckets for the team without running through an entire offensive set. In other words, LeBron really never got a break from practically setting up every single play for Miami in the regular season and the playoffs. To make matters worse for LeBron, the rest of the Heat's roster was full of aging veterans and guys that were in the twilight of their careers, as Ray Allen, Shane Battier, Chris Andersen, Rashard Lewis, and Udonis Haslem all played significant minutes for the Heat last season and they are all in the mid to late 30's (Ray Allen is so old that he played on the Milwaukee Bucks when they were actually good and made the Conference Finals).
The reason LeBron left the Miami Heat to go to the Cavs may have had nothing to do with the Heat at all and more so his yearning to return home to Northeast Ohio and undo some of the wrong that he had done to his hometown back in 2010. Nonetheless, it would be a little negligent to think that the various deficiencies of the Miami Heat and all of the difficulties LeBron would have had to face with an aging team around him and a broken D-Wade if he stayed in Miami did not factor into his decision to leave for Cleveland once so ever (I'm sure the signings of Josh McRoberts and Danny Granger did not exactly tempt LeBron to change his mind and stay in South Beach for another couple of seasons). Remember, this is a Heat team that came out of a historically weak Eastern Conference without facing any real competition and got clobbered by the San Antonio Spurs in the Finals (I think that all eight teams out west could have possibly beaten the Heat in a 7-game series, as the Mavericks were the 8 seed out there and took the Spurs to a final game in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs). LeBron had to be perturbed over what he was seeing in Miami with a very weak supporting cast around him and a team that had really played poorly all season long despite making it out of the East by beating the Bobcats, who two years before had just 7 wins all season long, the Nets, who were the worst team in the history of sports to have a luxury tax of 90 million dollars, and the Pacers, who hit the self-destruct button in the middle of March. There is no way LeBron is leaving the Heat for Cleveland if Miami has a great season, Wade stays healthy and returns to the D-Wade of old that LeBron signed to play with back in 2010, and the team wins their 3rd title in a 4-year span since the big three came together.
So, LeBron is taking his talents not to South Beach, but to Cleveland this time (from South Beach to Cleveland is not something that you hear to often unless somebody is being exiled). Looking at this from solely a basketball perspective, I actually think the move from the Heat to the Cavs makes total sense for LBJ because not only do the Cavaliers have a much younger and athletic roster than Miami, but they also have a ton of assets to help them bring in more personnel to help LeBron this year and in the near future. As weird as this sounds, the Cavs, who won just 33 games all of last season and are 97-215 in the four years since LeBron originally left, may be in a better position to win with LeBron than the Heat with LeBron, who made four straight NBA Finals appearances with him, with just a little bit of tinkering with their roster to make them a championship caliber team. LeBron is clearly the best player in the NBA and he can single-handedly bring any team into playoff contention because he is just that special of a player and a guy that only comes around once in a generation like a Oscar or a Jordan. The Cavs have such a young roster that it is a little unrealistic to say championship or failure for this team because it does take some learning and experience on how to win in the NBA postseason and it is impossible to know how some of their guys will play when it all matters in a big playoff game in June. However, this is a team that has the potential to be very dangerous in the Eastern Conference and beyond because of its quickness and youth, and could be even better than the teams that LeBron played on in Miami the past four years. With a little veteran help and some shooting to space the floor, and possibly a huge blockbuster trade, the Cavs are ready to build a dynasty for the next decade, which may be the biggest reason why LeBron left for Cleveland, even more so than to return home.
At the point guard position for the Cavs, Kyrie Irving, who the club took with the number 1 overall selection in the 2011 NBA draft after they acquired the pick from an earlier trade with the Clippers in the Mo Williams deal, is shaping up to be one of the best back-court players in the entire NBA. The 22-year old point guard has some of the best shake-and-bake moves with the ball in the entire league and can break down a defense because of his ball-handling ability on the perimeter. His quickness on the bounce and his ability to change directions with his exceedingly good ball-handling allows him to constantly attack the rim because it is so difficult to stay in front of him on the outside. Kyrie's handles are really as good as anybody you will ever see, and he can dribble and finish in the lane with both hands, which is actually rare to see in the NBA nowadays. Since Irving is so good at changing his pace on the floor and setting up guys for his crossovers from left to right or from right to left, it allows him to get into the lane with ease and get to the rim. Last season, Kyrie was 7th amongst point guards in free throws made per game at 4.1 because of his ability to penetrate into the key and get fouled when attacking the bucket. In fact, only 26.7 percent of Kyrie's 2-point field goals were assisted by another Cavs player on the court last season, once again demonstrating his capacity to create his own shot off the dribble with his great handles (last season 28.1 percent of Kyle Lowry's 2-point field goals and 29.0 percent of Deron Williams's 2-point field goals were assisted). Kyrie is also an above average catch and shoot three point guy, which is so valuable to have on a team with LeBron James because of his Magic Johnson-like vision to find open teammates all over the floor when he attracts multiple defenders, especially when he gets the ball down in the post and commands double teams because of his physicality. Irving was tied for 9th amongst point guards in three point field goals made per game at 1.7 last season and can put on a three point barrage when he has enough time to set his feet and fire away at the basket. Although Kyrie was forced to take way more contested jumpers last season because the Cavs did not have a lot of offensive help around him, he did shoot 39.9 percent from three in his rookie season and 39.1 percent from behind the arc in his second year before dropping a bit this past season when his three points attempts went from 183 and 279 in his first two years to 344 in 2013-2014.
A Kyrie Irving Crossover Compilation Video
For as good as Kyrie is with the ball in his hands and breaking down defenses with his unreal handles in one-on-one situations on the perimeter, the jury is still out on the very talented, young point guard out of Duke. Kyrie is a score first and pass second point guard and is not the best distributor of the ball to set up an offense and get other players involved, which is why he and Dion Waiters never seemed to work last season because the ball movement in the team just wasn't there. On a club with LeBron James, Kyrie is going to have to play off the ball much more than ever before because LBJ is clearly going to be the focal point of the Cavaliers offense under new head coach David Blatt. So often in Miami we saw James bringing up the ball in the Heat offense and setting up other guys with his passing ability and size to see the entire court. While LeBron will surely feel some relief in coming to Cleveland and having help from a point guard that can also penetrate and knife through a defense unlike Mario Chalmers, he still likes to have the ball in his hands as much as possible so that he can create for others as much as for himself. Irving will have to get used to playing off the ball a little more than he has done the past three seasons in Cleveland and pass up some jump shots from behind the arc when guys are in his face in order to help the Cavs be more efficient on offense. Kyrie will also have to show that he can run a team and look to get others involved as much as himself when he beats a guy off the dribble or comes off a screen from a big man. Aside from the ever looming presence of injuries, which has haunted Kyrie in college and in the pros, he will also have to be more committed on the defensive end of the floor to locking down the opponents point guards. Although the Eastern Conference is not littered with great guard play as Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, Chris Paul, Tony Parker, Ty Lawson, Mike Conley, and Isiash Thomas are all out in the west, Kyrie's defensive wins shares was just 2.1 last season (in comparison, fellow point guard George Hill had a 4.0 defensive win shares in Indiana). Kyrie is more than talented enough to be a great 1-2 punch with LeBron in Cleveland, but he has never been on a winning team before and will have to more the ball a little more often and not settle for threes in order to push the Cavs to a title winning level. The potential, though, is there for Kyrie to become one of the next huge stars in the NBA, which is something that LeBron had to see in his move back to the Cavs.
The really exciting youth doesn't end with Kyrie though in Cleveland, as no other team in the NBA has as much young talent as the Cavs because of just how fortunate the team has been in the lottery since LeBron bolted for Miami four years ago. At the two guard position, Cleveland has a very dangerous scoring threat and three point shooter with former Syracuse star Dion Waiters. Waiters, who the Cavs took with the number 4 overall pick in the 2012 Draft, is a guy that is always looking for his shot because of his really good shooting ability from anywhere in the half-court, especially from the corner, as he made 37.3 percent of his three point attempts from the left and right corners of the court this past season. Waiters is always looking for his shot when he comes off screens or gets a pass on the wing and as important as it is on a NBA team to have a good ball distributor, a guy who sets hard screens, a good rebounder, and a fierce rim protector, every club also needs a guy that can flat out score and get a bucket on his own when he wants with his ability to separate from the defense, which is what Waiters can do at the shooting guard position. DeMar DeRozan was the only two guard in the Eastern Conference to average more points per 48 minutes than Waiters last season since Waiters did average nearly 16 points per contest in roughly 30 minutes per game under Mike Brown in 2013-2014. Obviously, with a guy like Waiters that is constantly looking to shoot from the perimeter, he can sometimes force up threes and not be patient enough to swing the ball around and get a better opportunity for a teammate on the other side of the floor. Waiters is a volume shooter and is a guy that needs to cut down on how many contested jumpers he does put up from outside, but his scoring ability can not be denied at the shooting guard spot for Cleveland. I like Waiters coming off the bench for the Cavs because he can provide instant offense with his scoring ability with the second unit and not take some of the stars for Cleveland out of the game when he gets a little too shot happy with his jumper.
Dion Waiter's Highlights From This Past Season
The Cavs are also fortunate enough to have two really promising young players at the power forward position with 23-year old Tristan Thompson and 21-year old Anthony Bennett even though there are trade rumors around Bennett at the moment. Thompson, who the Cavs took with the number 4 overall pick in the 2011 draft, has a really good feel in and around the basket and can finish with both hands on offensive put-back attempts and layups. As crazy as this sounds, Tristan actually changed his shooting hand from lefty to righty during the off-season in 2013 and his free-throw percentage went up from 60.8 to 69.3, his true shooting percentage went from 51.6 to 52.8, and he hit 37.1 percent of 2-point field goals from outside 16 feet as compared to the 27.3 percent he made when he was shooting lefty from that same distance back in 2012-2013. Thompson's offensive game has not evolved nearly as quickly as most people expected it would when he came out of Texas as a one-and-done freshman because of some of the struggles he has had with his jump shot from outside and his hesitation around the basket to go up strong when he is in traffic with his sub-par finishing ability. Thompson could surely get a little bit stronger so that he could be a little better finisher when opposing defenders are draped all over him down low, as he shot 43.5 percent on field goals inside of 3 feet and just 37.8 percent on field goals from 3 to 10 feet last season with the Cavs. Thompson is still a very intriguing player because of his athletic ability since he does have very good vertical jumps for a power forward and is very long with his more than 7-foot wingspan and 9-foot standing reach and is another young guy that LeBron must have seen as a encouraging player to run with in Cleveland. Meanwhile, Anthony Bennett, who the Cavaliers took with the number 1 overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, had a very poor first season in Cleveland, averaging just 4.2 points and 3.0 rebounds all year long and having just 6 double-figure scoring games the entire season. However, Bennett looked much better in Summer League with his outside shooting and had lost some weight from the year before - granted it is Summer League, a league the Kings actually won - and is a very good asset to have as trade bait since he he did only play one year in college and is still developing his overall game on both ends of the floor, which gives the Cavs even more leverage to put the pieces around LeBron that he wants.
As much as the idea of playing with so many young and athletic players must have enticed LeBron to consider going back home to Cleveland, the Cavs already had some veteran pieces in place on their roster and have since brought in some more older role players to help out LeBron since he committed to the team. Chief amongst those Cavs veterans is the poor man's Joakim Noah with Brazilian center Anderson Varejao (for LeBron's sake, hopefully he is better than his compatriots this season because I'm sure he doesn't want to see another 7-1 type performance). Varejao, who played with LeBron from 2004 until LBJ left in 2010, is the kind of hard-working, defensive minded played that every team needs in order to function at its highest possible potential. Varejao does not look for his own offense unless it comes to him around the rim on dish offs from driving guards or forwards, but he is so valuable to a team because of his rebounding and defensive toughness. Over the last four years, Anderson's rebounding totals per game has been 9.7, 11.5, 14.4, and 9.7 again last year, as he is a guy that will scratch-and-crawl and dive on the floor for every rebound on both ends of the floor. Although Varejao is not a shot blocking presence in front of the rim because he is only 6-10 and has limited jumping ability, his defensive rotation is really good because of his lateral quickness and intelligence on the court and he isn't afraid to throw a few flops in there to get some class from the refs. Varejao is a hustle player, particularly on defense, and is a guy that somebody like LeBron loves to play with because of his willingness to work so hard. The other veterans that the Cavs have brought in since LeBron signed with the team are all LBJ favorites, which is a smart move by the front office because you always want to satisfy your best player and put guys around him he likes to play with and knows are a good fit for the team. Despite getting better offers from the Denver Nuggets and the Houston Rockets, Mike Miller turned down the money in order to team up with LeBron in Cleveland, who he played with for three years in Miami before getting amnestied in 2013, a move LeBron did not like because the Heat only did it to reduce their luxury tax bill. Miller, who has dealt with some back injuries over the years, was vital to the Heat's victory over the Thunder in the NBA Finals in 2012 when he hit 7 threes in game 5. He is a guy that can stretch the floor and knock down the three ball on catch-and-shoot opportunities when LeBron attacks the lane and draws defenders to him. The Cavs also brought in three point specialist James Jones, who is such a LeBron James favorite that he questioned Erik Spoelstra about not playing him more last season. Jones is another guy that can help Cleveland because it is of the utmost important to have guys around LeBron that can shot the basketball and space the floor so that defenders can not completely forget about their man and help on LeBron.
Andrew Wiggins stumbled right into the laps of the Cleveland Cavaliers, as the Cavs acquired their 3rd number one overall pick in the last 4 NBA drafts when they won the lottery with just a .017 chance of getting the top selection
(the Pistons lost four more games than the Cavaliers in 2013-2014 and
got the 9th pick in the draft, which they then had to trade to the
Hornets because it fell outside of the top 8, while the Cavs got the
number one overall pick in the best draft class since 2003. Since 2000,
no team other than Cleveland has had multiple number one overall picks
while the Cavs have amazingly had four such selections over that
stretch). Now, we get to the biggest question in the NBA right now: do you give up 2014 number one overall pick Andrew Wiggins in a trade to land Minnesota Timberwolves big man Kevin Love (the deal would also include Anthony Bennett and a future first round pick going to Minnesota and possibly some of the T-Wolves bad contracts like Kevin Martin - 3-years, 21.255 million dollars left on his deal - and J.J. Barea - 1 year, 4.520 million owed to him this season - going to the Cavs or a third team that would get into the trade like the 76ers, Celtics, or Nuggets). This is a decision that can make or break the future of a team, and ultimately if I were in the Cavs position, as tough as it is to give up a player with Wiggins's future potential, and I would wait a little bit before during anything, I would eventually take the all-star forward in Kevin Love and pair him with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving in Cleveland.
Wiggins was the most hyped player coming out of high school since LeBron himself and there is no doubt in my mind that he can come into the NBA right away and shine on the defensive end of the floor with his freakish athletic capabilities and anticipation skills, which will enable him to guard the various players he will see on the wing in the league like James Harden, Klay Thompson, DeMar DeRozan, Monta Ellis, Bradley Beal, Carmelo Anthony, and Rudy Gay. Wiggins is a good 6 foot 8 inches tall and combines his ability to jump out of the building to disrupt jump shots with his lateral quickness to stay in front of driving offensive players to be a menace on defense. Since he is so long and athletically gifted, Wiggins should be able to become one of the top perimeter defenders in the association along with guys like Paul George, Andre Iguodala, Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, and Tony Allen. LeBron, who is a 5-time all-defensive first team member, has been one of the best defenders in the NBA for a long time, but to have a guy like Wiggins, who can guard any opposing teams best scorer, is so valuable because it allows LeBron to not have to kill himself on both ends of the floor each and every game as he enters the second stage of his career going into his 30's. Wiggins could do a lot of the heavy lifting on defense and allow LeBron to have more of a free, roaming role to step into passing lanes and switch off screens to trap ball handles to try and start the fast-break.
On the offensive end of the floor, Wiggins has a lot of potential and room for development, but he never really showed the signs at Kansas of being a guy that can take over a game with his ability to score the basketball or set up the players around him with his dribble penetration (we heard a lot of the same things said about former Kansas two-guard Ben McLemore although Wiggins possesses all the physical tools in the world to grow into a more established scorer). Only in a few games towards the end of the season when Joel Embiid went out for the Jayhawks did Wiggins truly step up and dominate a game like when he scored 41 against West Virginia and got to the free throw line 19 times or when he put up 30 against Oklahoma St. in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals. Wiggins is a right hand ball dominate dribbler, so consequently, his handles are not good enough to always create separation from defenders and his jumper was inconsistent at Kansas, as he shot just 34.1 percent from three all season long and only had two games with more than three, three point field goals made. Wiggins is more of a slasher than anything else at this point, which is why Jabari Parker, the number 2 overall pick in the draft, is much more of a finished product offensively coming into his rookie year in the NBA. Although Wiggins is not as refined on the offensive end as some other rookies in the past, he is just 19-years old and it is so hard to give up on a guy with so much potential and room for growth in his game, especially in learning from a guy like LBJ.
Andrew Wiggins Highlights From His 2013-2014 Season With Kansas
However, to have the opportunity to team up a top 10 NBA player like Kevin Love with LeBron, Kyrie, and the rest of the young crew in Cleveland, I would give up Wiggins, even despite all of his future potential, to get the big man from Minnesota and put the Cavs right at the top of the NBA. Blake Griffin and Anthony Davis are the only power forwards or centers in the league I would take over Kevin Love for the upcoming season with Dwight Howard, Marc Gasol, and LaMarcus Aldridge just behind the forward from the T-Wolves. Although it is sometimes worrying that Love seems to care a little bit too much about his statistics and has thrived in Minny as the lone focal point of the offense, Love is one of the best scorers in the game period. Love was 4th in the NBA in scoring in 2011-2012 with 26.0 points per contest, 4th in the league once again last year, averaging 26.1 points per game for the Timberwolves, and his 8.4 field goals made per game were the 7th most in the league this past season. Love is one of the best in the NBA at keeping the ball high above his shoulders off passes from driving guards and forwards and also offensive rebounds so that smaller defenders cannot swat the ball away from him and so that his shot does not get blocked, especially since he is only 6-10 and does not have an exceptionable leaping ability. Kevin is really good at absorbing contact with pump fakes and power moves in the post, as his 6.8 free throws made per game were only behind Kevin Durant and James Harden in the league in 2013-2014. However, the biggest reason why Love and LeBron would be so dangerous together is because of Love's deadly shooting ability from anywhere on the floor. K-Love made 190 three-pointers last season (2.5 per game), tied for 8th most in the NBA, and Channing Frye was the only other power forward or center to make at least 140 threes in the league. As has been previously discussed in this post, having shooters around LeBron is so vital to the success of a LBJ team because guys who can space the floor open up lanes for the king, especially stretch power forwards that don't sit and clog the paint area with their defenders there for help coverage. Furthermore, shooters like Love allow LeBron to kick the ball out for three point opportunities and chances to reverse the ball around the floor and make the defense move and rotate. Love has a really quick release on his jumper and anybody that plays with LeBron gets open jump shots, but Love would get more than most because power forwards would have so much trouble trying to help on LeBron and also getting out on Love to contest his shot, which he loves to hit from the top of the key.
Kevin Love Offensive Highlights From The 2013-2014 Season With The Timberwolves
Love does bring some concerns on the defensive end of the floor, where he has certainly not flourished on a Minnesota Timberwolves team that has not been to the playoffs since 2003-2004 and had its best season in 2013-2014 in 9 years and still finished under .500 with a 40-42 record and were 8 games behind the Suns for the 9th spot in the West and 19 games back of the Thunder in the Northwest Division (here are the T-Wolves loss totals over the last several seasons: 49 in 2006, 50 in 2007, 60 in 2008, 58 in 2009, 67 in 2010, 65 in 2011, 40 in the lockout shortened season in 2012, 51 in 2013, and a great year for their standers in 2014 with 42 defeats). At times last year, it seemed like Love was reluctant to be really physical with opposing players in the post and really commit himself defensively for Rick Adelman, who was honestly just going through the motions out there in Minnesota last season, almost like Love was concerned about accumulating too many fouls and having to sit or just being plain uninterested in working hard for a bad T-Wolves team once again. If the Cavs were to trade for the 25-year old Love, which I still think they should do to intersect his prime with LeBron's, Cleveland would be playing Love with Anderson Varejao, two big man that are not shot blockers at all, no matter how much Varejao runs like a maniac out there on the floor (Love's career high in blocks per game is 0.6). Nonetheless, in the current NBA, so few elite clubs have true rim protecting giants in their team because the league is a faster, shooting game nowadays (Serge Ibaka, DeAndre Jordan, Marcin Gortat, Roy Hibbert, when he was playing like he knew how to play basketball, and Dwight Howard were the only dominating shot blockers in the whole NBA playoffs last season). Love could improve on the defensive end of the floor with more focus on his court awareness and physicality when bumping with other guys down low, but to even things out, he is already one of the game's most dominant rebounders. Kevin is so good at locating players around him in the paint on missed shots and boxing out opposing big man with his very wide body by pushing hard into their chest with his butt and back. Love was 3rd in the NBA in 2013-2014 with 12.5 rebounds per game and top of the league in defensive rebounds per contest with 9.6 because of just how good his positioning is under the hoop when a shot goes up from outside. His quick outlet passes off of those rebounds would also potentially let Cleveland break out on the fast-break, and it is impossible to stop LBJ in transition unless you give him a bear hug and send him to the line like the Spurs did in the NBA Finals. Love is a guy that fits perfectly with LeBron and as nice it would be to play Wiggins and LeBron together and have the most athletic wings in the world, Love is a top 10 player that could get LeBron, Kyrie, and the Cavs to the top right away.
Aside from the basketball reasons for LeBron returning to Cleveland because of all of their young players that are full of potential and their multitude of trade assets to get another star - whether they pull the trigger on the Kevin Love deal or not - the most obvious rationale for LBJ picking the Cavs is clearly his desire to return home. LeBron has always called Northeast Ohio home and each off-season he returns to his mansion in Akron, where he grew up and went to high school at St. Vincent-St. Mary, to train and get ready for the new season, so he has never really left Cleveland even if the fans dissociated themselves with him in a very public manner after "The Decision" in 2010. In fact, LBJ has always hinted at wanting to finish his career where everything started for him in Cleveland, and while it is a little surprising he returned so early at just the age of 29 when he is still in his prime, most people knew the day would always come when he would want to return home, and it makes even more sense now that the Cavs have such an up-and-coming roster with all of their youthful talent. The idea of LeBron coming back to Cleveland solely for redemption and to repair his image from when he left Cleveland in the first place back in 2010 is way too overblown because although LBJ is certainly returning to bring a title back to Cleveland, which he couldn't do the first time around, his decision to come back to the Cavs comes more down to his desire to return home to everything he knows than to be looked at in the right manner by everybody in the public and get some complete absolution from the media. I'm sure, however, that it also plays into his thinking that he would like to satisfy everybody back in his hometown if he can. Obviously, with his return to the Cavs, LeBron had to get over Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert's now infamous Comic Sans letter to the team's fan base after the king left for Miami in 2010, where he mocked LeBron for his "cowardly betrayal" of the team, called his program a "narcissistic, self-promotional buildup," and said in all caps, "I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER 'KING' WINS ONE." The extent to which LeBron has sincerely forgiven Gilbert will always be unknown as well what happened in the meeting between LeBron and his inner circle and Gilbert, but it is clear that LBJ has at the bare minimum moved past all of the venomous hatred he received from Cleveland and Gilbert and was still willing to come back home.
A Segment Of Dan Gilbert's Open Letter To Cavs Fans After LeBron's Departure in 2010
No matter what LeBron's true intention is for returning home, the bottom line is that he is coming back to Cleveland and it is a historic move. This is the second time LeBron has switched teams in his career, putting him in a select group of players to win a MVP with a team and then leave that same club in their 20's featuring Wilt Chamberlain, who won a MVP with the Philadelphia Warriors in 1960 when he set a NBA record with 27.2 rebounds per game and then got traded to the 76ers in 1965 due to financial problems, Bob McAdoo, who received a MVP with the old Boston Braves in 1975 when he averaged 34.5 points per game and then went to the New York Knicks in 1976, Bill Walton, who won a MVP with the Trail Blazers in 1978 in the year he first began to suffer serious foot injuries and then ditched them for his hometown San Diego Clippers in 1979, Kareem Abudl-Jabbar, who won three MVPs with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1971, 1972, and 1974 and then went to the Lakers in 1975, and finally Moses Malone, who got two MVPs with the Houston Rockets in 1979 and another in 1982 when he averaged 31.1 points and 14.7 rebounds per game and then left them for the Philadelphia 76ers in 1982. Of those players, Wilt would go on to win three straight MVPs with the Philadelphia 76ers from the 1965-1966 season to the 1967-1968 NBA year, Kareem would win three more with the Lakers including back-to-back trophies in 1975-1976 and 1976-1977 with the other MVP coming during LA's championship season in 1979-1980, and Moses would win one with the 76ers in his first year there in 1982-1983 in the "Fo, Fo, Fo" title winning year in Philadelphia.
The rightful king is returning to his throne, and that king is not
Stannis
Baratheon but LeBron James (you could argue that Daenerys Targaryen has
the real right to the throne, but that is for another time for my fellow
Game of Thrones fans). I know LeBron always wanted to return home to
Cleveland and finish up his career in his hometown, but to think that
LBJ is coming back to the Cavs in the middle of his prime is a little
bit surprising, especially after the Heat made the NBA Finals in all
four of the years he was there and won two NBA titles along the way
(they joined the 1957-1966 Boston Celtics, 1984-1987 Boston Celtics, and
1982-1985 Los Angeles Lakers as the only four teams to make at least
four straight NBA Finals). The sheer magnitude of LeBron's decision can
not really be underestimated because it is so rare in sports for the
best player in the world to switch teams at the peak of his playing
powers. It has happened before in the past like when Wayne Gretzky got
traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings, when Patrick
Roy was dealt to the Colorado Avalanche from the Montreal Canadians,
when Eric Dickerson went to the Indianapolis Colts from the St. Louis
Rams, when Reggie White left the Philadelphia Eagles in free agency for
the Green Bay Packers, or when Greg Maddux ditched the Chicago Cubs for
the Atlanta Braves, and each time it happened, it sent shock waves
through the entire sporting world. However, even more so than hockey,
baseball, and football, basketball is a sport where one player can change the entire landscape of
the league and can determine which team will win it all each and every
year because the team with the best player usually wins the series in
the playoffs, and that statement is accentuated when that player will
likely be in the conversation with Michael Jordan for the best
basketball player of all-time when it is all said and done. LeBron's
desire to return home and play for Cavs is one of the most important
decisions in recent sports history and its level of importance can not
be slighted because it will change how we look at everything in the
association for the next decade.
With LeBron's move to the Cavs and all of the subsequent dominions that resulted because of his return to Cleveland, the Eastern Conference may not be nearly as strong as the Western Conference once again next year, but it should be just as interesting. The Cavs figure to be a top 2 seed in the East with the addition of LeBron and the young nucleus around him in Cleveland. With the Bulls signing power forwards Pau Gasol and Nikola Mirotic, who they got in a draft day trade in 2011, to three year contracts and drafting sharpshooting Doug McDermott out of Creighton, they should have much more offense and floor spacing to go along with their always tenacious defense under Tom Thibodeau. Gasol is a really good passing big and should be a better fit in Chicago's offense with his ability to play from either the elbow or in the post than when he was misused by Mike D'Antoni in LA. The Bulls probably have the deepest team in the NBA with Kirk Hinrich, the improving Tony Snell, Doug McDermott, Taj Gibson, and Mirotic likely all coming off their bench, but the x-factor for the club if they want to get to a championship level is obviously Derrick Rose. Since Rose won the MVP in 2010-2011, he has played in just 50 of the Bulls' 253 games over the past three years and he has basically missed the entirety of the last two seasons with a torn ACL in his left knee in 2012 and then a torn meniscus in his other knee in 2013. Even if Rose still has trouble getting back the explosiveness that made him such a threat when attacking the rim in his MVP year, Chicago is deep enough where they should be a top three seed in the East no matter what happens with D-Rose. The Pacers, who got the one seed in the conference last year with a 56-26 record, are the real question mark because they finished the season in totally disarray and were a mediocre 17-15 in their final 32 games of the regular season. Indiana lost Lance Stephenson to the Charlotte Hornets (goodbye Bobcats) and as annoying and maddening as Lance can be on and off the court, he was such an important creator for Indiana in setting up their sometimes lackluster offense. Paul George needs to assert himself more on the offensive end of the floor and hopefully Roy Hibbert doesn't turn into Benoit Benjamin, but the Pacers are too good on defense to miss out on the postseason and should finish in the top five of the Eastern Conference even with a small decline from last season.
The Washington Wizards won a playoff series for just second time in the last thirty two season in their 5 game romp of the Chicago Bulls last year and look to be one of the few teams in the Eastern Conference, along with the Cavs, on the rise. The Wizards overpaid to re-sign Marcin Gortat to a five-year, 60 million dollar contract this off-season as you have to do with all decent big men in the NBA nowadays (see Roy Hibbert, Tyson Chandler, David Lee, JaVale McGee, Andrea Bargnani, or Tiago Splitter), which will likely hurt them in the long term but was a key move in the interim to give them rim protection and a good rebounding big down low to balance out with Nene at the forward and center positions. With a good back-court pairing of the speedy, rim attacking John Wall and the really good shooting Bradley Beal, and the experience and leadership of Paul Pierce to add to the mix, the Wizards should finish somewhere in the top 6 in the East. Meanwhile, when LeBron James left the Cavaliers, fans in the city were devastated by the news and felt betrayed by their ideal that they burned his jersey in the streets and gave him the most hostile return to an arena you will ever see in sports, especially since the team was completely destroyed after his departure in 2010. As upset and bitterly disappointing as they were in Miami when they learned that LeBron was returning to Cleveland, things are different in South Beach because not only are the fans are little bit more fair-weather down in Miami, but they were able to regroup right away unlike the Cavs. Obviously, the Heat will not be near championship caliber next season because losing LeBron is an impossible task to recover from the next season. However, they are bringing back Mario Chalmers, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Udonis Haslem, Birdman, and will be adding the stretch four ability of Josh McRoberts and the always underrated Luol Deng, who can defend any wing player in the NBA with his length. Heat fans are clearly very discouraged and distressed over the loss of an all-time great like LeBron, but they still have a playoff team in store for next season.
The 76ers are still in deep rebuilding/tanking mode and general manager Sam Hinkie is planning for future years to come with his acquisition of second round draft picks in 2017 and his drafting of Joel Embiid, who may miss the whole year with a foot problem and be the second straight first round pick of the 76ers to miss their entire rookie season with an injury. Jason Kidd left the Brooklyn Nets for the Milwaukee Bucks, as unethical as it was for him to displace Larry Drew while he still held the head coaching position in Milwaukee, because of a power struggle with Nets general manager Billy King and was upset with not having a bigger say in player personnel in Brooklyn, but the only thing he will be upset with in Milwaukee is their rather sub-par team on the floor. The Bucks do have some promise and potential in the future with the Greek Freak Giannis Antetokoumpo, a NBA ready scorer in Jabari Parker, and a very solid rim protector in Larry Sanders, but they are more than a couple years away from contending in even a weak Eastern Conference. Another team that is steadily improving but still a few seasons away from getting into the playoff mix is the Orlando Magic. They did sign Channing Frye to space the floor with his three point shooting ability, which should fit very nicely with the rebounding dominance of Nikola Vucevic, and Tobias Harris, Maurice Harkless, and Aaron Gordon are all guys that have exciting futures with the Magic because of their athleticism and versatility. Nonetheless, the Magic have some real questions in the back-court in setting up the offense and being able to knock down the three ball, as they were 22nd in the league in assists per game and 21st in three pointers made per game last season. After waiving Jameer Nelson and trading for Elfrid Payton on draft night, Orlando is giving the keys to their team to a point guard out of Louisiana-Lafayette and it doesn't help that he is paired with Victor Oladipo, an elite defender but another guy that struggles to shoot from the perimeter. The Celtics finished 25-57 last season in their 3rd worst full campaign in the last 64 years as a franchise and as much as I like Brad Stevens, they are in for another tough year in Boston. The C's seemed to have drafted well because Marcus Smart is a bulldog and a fierce competitor and James Young is a very good slasher that can really stroke it from behind the arc. However, they still have Gerald Wallace and his terrible contract, a front line that is one of the weaker ones in the NBA with Brandon Bass and Tyler Zeller, and who knows how motivated Rajon Rondo will be to play for a poor team. To make matters worse, the trade market for Rondo seems to have softened up over the past year and their desire to get Kevin Love in a trade seems like a fleeting hope at this point with Cleveland closing in on the forward. Finally, the Pistons are a really intriguing team because Andre Drummond is a monster down low and one of the rising stars in the league, but playing Josh Smith at the three doesn't work at all and needs to stop immediately. Detroit should miss out on the postseason for a 6th consecutive season and make Stan Van Gundy growl with anger.
The Cavaliers, Bulls, Pacers, Wizards, and Heat all seem to be locks to make the postseason out of the Eastern Conference while the 76ers, Bucks, Magic, Celtics, and Pistons are all teams that should be outside of playoff contention for another year. If all goes according to plan and there are no real surprises or big disappointments, that leaves the Toronto Raptors, Charlotte Hornets, New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets, and Atlanta Hawks fighting for the final three playoff spots in the East. The Raptors had a very nice season last year in winning the Atlantic Division and getting the 3 seed in the conference after missing out on the playoffs for 5 straight seasons and never having a season with as many wins as they did in 2013-2014 in franchise history. Plus, in the Raptors seven game series against the Nets, Drake was shown on TV and discussed more than the game itself and Toronto has the legend that is Rob Ford if Drake isn't good enough for fans. After losing so many free agents in the past to bigger markets like Chris Bosh in 2010, the Raptors were able to retain Kyle Lowry in signing him to a four-year, 48 million dollar contract, a great deal considering that I would only take Chris Paul, Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook, Tony Parker, Damian Lillard, and possibly Kyrie Irving and John Wall over him at the point guard position. DeMar DeRozan is the big scoring threat that the Raptors have on the wing and they are good enough in their interior defense to make the playoffs for a second straight year. The biggest question mark in the Eastern Conference, outside of the Indiana Pacers, is the Brooklyn Nets because of all the older players that they have in their squad and all the injuries that their starting lineup is trying to overcome for the upcoming season. Deron Williams got surgery earlier this off-season on both of his ankles and has looked nothing like the player the Nets signed to a five-year, 98.7 million dollar contract in 2012 when they thought he would be their franchise player that they could build around in the future. Brook Lopez has missed almost the entirety of two of the last three seasons with a broken right foot and right ankle injury in 2011-2012 and another broken right foot in 2013-2014 and is a walking injury ready to happen. So much for the Nets depends upon how Deron and Brook recover from their injuries, but they do have the players around them with the mid-range game of Joe Johnson, the shooting of Mirza Teletovic and Alan Anderson, the defense of Andrei Kirilenko, and rim protecting ability of Kevin Garnett and Mason Plumlee to make the postseason for the third straight season with their massive payroll. The last team I see sneaking into the playoffs as one of the bottom three Eastern Conference teams is the newly named Charlotte Hornets. Bringing in Lance Stephenson on a three-year, 27 million dollar contract should provide a lot of energy for a Hornets team that already has some quickness in the back-court with Kemba Walker and some legitimate scoring in the front-court with big Al Jefferson. The only question for the Hornets is playing Lance and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist together, who both struggle to shoot the ball at times, but they do have Gary Neal and Gerald Henderson to help in that respect off the bench. Sorry Knicks and Hawks fans, but it could be another long season for them if the Raptors, Nets, and Hornets beat them out for the last three spots in the East.
LeBron's return to the Cavs could not mean much more to Northeast Ohio, as Cleveland sports fans have not exactly had a lot to cheer about over the past 50 years, as being a supporter of teams from "The Forest City" has been about as miserable as Chris O'Donnell's career following his role as robin in the 1997 movie Batman & Robin. The Browns have not won a title for the city of Cleveland since they beat the Baltimore Colts 27-0 in the 1964 NFL Championship Game - two years before they even started playing the Super Bowl - behind the offense of Frank Ryan, Jim Brown, and Paul Warfield. In fact, since the modern era began following the NFL-AFL merger in 1970, the Browns have never been to a Super Bowl, they have only had 14 winning seasons in 44 years, they have been to playoffs just once since 1995 and have a horrendous record of 82-174 over that span, and they were not even apart of the league for three seasons from 1996 to 1998 because Art Modell was so sick of Cleveland that he moved the team to Baltimore and left the city in the dust like Bob Irsay did with the Baltimore Colts back in 1984. They have also had to deal with 4 incompetent coaches in the last 9 years (Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini, Pat Surmur, and Rob Chudzinski), and on the day after they drafted Johnny Manziel and there was finally some hype and excitement back in Cleveland football, the sports world learned that Josh Gordan, who led the league in receiving yards in 2013 despite playing only 14 games, could be suspended for the entire season because of failing his second drug test.
Meanwhile, the Cleveland Indians have not won a World Series in 65 years ago, since all the way back in 1948, when they had Hall of Famers Joe Gordon, Lou Boudreau, Larry Doby, Bob Lemon, and Bob Feller and beat the old Boston Braves in 6 games (a World Series so long ago that the Boston Braves would still have to move to Milwaukee before they would arrive in their current home of Atlanta). Remarkably, the Indians somehow went from 1955 until 1994 without playing postseason baseball or winning a major league pennant, which did not help them get any closer to ending their current World Series drought (the second longest in baseball behind, of course, the Cubs). Nowadays, the Indians regularly boast one of the worst attendance in all of baseball at Progressive Field and have been one of the most mediocre team in the majors for decades.
Finally, the Cleveland Cavaliers have not won a NBA Championship since they began playing as an expansion team in 1970, and their 44 year title winning drought only trails the Phoenix Suns, Atlanta Hawks, and the Sacramento Kings for the longest in the association. The most famous player in Cavs history, aside from LeBron James, is likely Brad Daughtery or Mark Price and while Daughtery was a good scorer and Price was one of the best point guards in the late 1980's and 1990's in a time with great lead guards like Magic Johnson, John Stockton, Jason Kidd, Gary Payton, Mark Jackson, Tim Hardaway, Penny Haraway, and Kevin Johnson, they are not typically what you think of as franchise greats. The Cavs have also had some of the single worst seasons in NBA history including when they went 15-67 in 1970-1971 and 1981-1982, 17-65 in 2002-2003, and 19-63 just back in 2010-2011 in the first year after LeBron James left.
Cleveland has not seen a sports championship in almost half a century - Cleveland really hasn't seen much of anything in 50 years if we are going to be honest - but plenty of cities across the country have been deprived of pro sports titles for years (Milwaukee's title drought has gone on since they won the NBA title in 1971 with Oscar and Lew Alcindor and San Diego has not seen a championship since the Chargers won the AFL in 1963 behind Paul Lowe and Lance Alworth). However, no city has seen heartbreak, disappointment, and near misses in excruciating games quite like Cleveland since the great city of Gotham.
God Has Hated Cleveland In The Past... Until Now
I don't really believe in curses or sports curses in particular, which is saying something since I am a Red Sox fan and had to hear about the Curse of the Bambino every day until the 2004 World Series, but with that being said, I wholeheartedly believe that the Cleveland Browns are cursed (their owner's company just had to pay a 92 million dollar fine as if things couldn't get worse). In the 1981 AFC Divisional Playoffs, the Browns were trailing the Raiders by 2 points and were on Oakland's 13 yard line when Brian Sipe threw an interception while looking for Ozzie Newsome in the end zone on "red right 88" to cost the Browns a shot at the Chargers in the conference title game. How bout when the Browns were up on the Broncos 20-13 with 5:32 left to play in the 1987 AFC Championship Game and Elway led "the drive," a 15-play, 98 yard drive for a touchdown to put a dagger through all of Cleveland with the game-tying score and then twist that dagger with an eventual overtime victory in that game. Then there was "the fumble." Down by 7 points and two yards away from scoring the game-tying touchdown in the 1988 AFC Championship Game, Earnest Byner fumbled on a strip from Jeremiah Castille and the Browns saw their history of brutal suffering continue, as the Broncos advanced to the Super Bowl once again at their expense.
The Indians had some very good teams in the mid to late 1990's with guys like Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel, Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, Sandy Alomar Jr., Eddie Murray, and Kenny Lofton at the plate and Charles Nagy, Orel Hershiser, and Jose Mesa on the mound, but they somehow did not win a title with that talented core despite getting to the World Series in 1995 and being a Jose Mesa save in the 9th away from winning game 7 of the series in 1997 over the Marlins. In 2007 when the Indians had Victor Martinez, Jhonny Peralta, Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, Cliff Lee, and CC Sabathia and were up 3-1 on the Red Sox in the ALCS, they did the most Indians thing possible and lost the series in 7 games (just the 7th team to blow a 3-1 series lead in the ALCS or NLCS along with the 1985 Blue Jays, 1986 Angels, 1996 Cardinals, 2003 Cubs, 2004 Yankees, and 2007 Indians). Even Willie Mays's "the catch" in the 1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds was against none other than the Cleveland Indians, a series the Giants would sweep for the title (one of just four World Series sweeps from that date until 1988 along with the Dodgers beating the Yankees in 1963, the Orioles defeating the Dodgers in 1966, and the Reds over the Yankees in 1976).
Finally, the Cavs were the victims of one of the most memorable moments in NBA history on behalf of Michael Jordan, a play that is literally shown in every montage of the league and epitomizes both Jordan's greatness under pressure and Cleveland's constant inability to finish anything. In the first round of the playoffs in 1989, Jordan hit "the shot" over Craig Ehlo to send the Bulls to the next round at the expense of the Cavaliers in the decisive eastern conference game 5. It is pretty fitting how a city with a sports curse like Cleveland was the receipt of one of the most heartbreaking buzzer-beaters of all-time and a play in which the whole city fell to their knees, just like Craig Ehlo. MJ's shot is always called "Jordan over Ehlo," but it was really "Jordan rising up and putting down the entire city of Cleveland in one fell swoop." As if things weren't bad enough for Cavs fans, Jordan would then go on to knock out the Cavs in three straight postseasons from 1992 to 1994, thanking the people of Cleveland for helping him create the first chapter on his ride to greatness.
If LeBron is able to bring a championship back to the city of Cleveland for the first time since 1964, he may actually be anointed the King of the entire state and be the most popular man in a single city since Elvis graced the streets of Nashville. As dismayed as Heat fans must be to have lost LeBron to the Cavs, his return back home was always the best story and possible outcome to his free agency and we are now all just witnesses to his journey ahead in Cleveland.
