I tend to write about how the Cavs could do better, what sort of upgrades they could sign or trade, who are the real threats to our title chances and what are the biggest weaknesses. I tend to not focus on the positive aspect of the Cavs, how we’re lucky to have a living legend leading the team, how we’re a top four team in the league with a real shot at winning it all; Sure, my specialty is analytics and because so my pieces tend to be focused on improvement, performance and statistics, but yet I still feel that my pieces are generally critical. I just wanted instead, just this once, to take time to just talk about why I love the Cavs.
My love for this team started all the way back in 2002. I was seven years old at the time and I could have cared less about sports. I was a pudgy kid, no hand eye coordination at all. I was the last pick in sports, and if I was ever asked what position I wanted to play, no matter the sport, I’d say QB, because that was the only position I knew and everyone else seemed to want it. I didn’t know anything about sports, couldn’t tell you the difference between football, basketball, any other sport with a ball for that matter. So when my dad called me into the TV room to show me something, and I always knew that was going to be sports, I really did not give a damn.
I walked into the TV room that faithful Thursday afternoon, assuming that ESPN would be on or some nonsense, my dad would try to attempt to bond with me over something, I’d sit there for a minute, nod my head and then I’d get to go back upstairs and try to finish another level of Super Mario. Instead when I walked in however I saw super grainy, poor quality footage of what looked like a YMCA gym. TY quality was bad back in the early 2000’s, but I distinctly remember this being REALLY bad, I thought he must have been watching a video of a friend or something, turns out it was local access television, but I came in a prepped my usual “dealing with dad” routine.
My dad was glued to the TV. This wasn’t a case of him watching some old movie where he might just doze off, he was watching this like it was his job. Once the play finally stopped he turned to me and said “watch this kid, number 23. I’m telling you right now he’s going to be the real deal.” Little did I know that day I was watching LeBron James ball out on the Irish.
I started to get sports around age ten, LeBron had been drafted, and everyone in Cleveland knew his name. He was the wonder kid, by this point people had already started calling him “The King” though that title would really be bestowed upon him after he beat the Piston’s in the 2007 Eastern Conference finals, dethroning “The Prince in the Palace” Tayshaun Prince. I started to figure out Basketball. I tried to figure out sports, not really to make my dad proud, but it always seemed like the kids on the playground were talking about “national championship” this and “grand finals” that so I needed to find something to agree on. I tried watching the World Cup that year, but soccer was just so slow that I couldn’t get into it (even now while I live in the UK, a Soccer mad nation, I could really care less, I’m banned from making comments while my friends watch it, apparently I’m just a little too uninformed American for them) and football just was not my cup of tea. I wasn’t rabid like I am now back then, but I decided that if Cleveland was going to be good at basketball, I guess I should know a little.
I remember laughing at Daniel Gibson’s nickname (Boobie, heh it still makes me chuckle) getting to yell “Z” every time Z made a big dunk. Mo Williams was the reason I watched The Godfather for the first time, but during LeBron’s first tenure with the Cavs, I couldn’t tell you much about more than who our starting five were. I remember going to games. One of my friends dad’s once took us on his work tickets and I got to sit courtside. I caught a Taco Bell ball, and after the game got it signed by the whole team. I still have that ball sitting in my room, almost taunting me with the value I wouldn’t learn to appreciate till much later in life. I remember game six of the Eastern Conference finals, confetti falling from the rafters, the arena being larger than life, it was almost impossible to comprehend, and I had nothing to compare to it until last year’s sweep of Atlanta, and even then that didn’t feel the same. I remember getting mad at Charles Barkley when he said that San Antonio was going to dominate the Cavs in the 2007 finals. Most of all I remember this shot.
But even with these experiences ranking among some of my most memorable, it still took till around 2013 for me to go from a casual fan to a fanatic. I attribute my fandom to two things, one was a split second moment, and one was more of a progression. I’m a huge fan of E-sports, the nerdy little kid never really went away, I just reimagined myself as a hipster, and suddenly knowing a bunch about Pokémon was cool as long as I had a beanie and liked music with under 2000 soundcloud plays. Specifically I love watching League of Legends, sure to a lot of sports fans that sounds ridiculous, but I really enjoy it so stop judging. My favorite team is Echo Fox, owned by Basketball legend, professional bookie for Amir Blumenfeld and egg aficionado Rick Fox. I think he explained it best when in an interview when he said that “It mirrors everything I’ve experienced in my own professional sport environment” and that “Some of the infrastructures for these [E-Sports] teams have 100-plus employees. They’ve grown over the years to mirror [traditional sport] franchises.” I watched E-Sports because I understood the rules; I played League, I understood the constraints and could appreciate the skill level these players exhibited. Once it was on a stage however things started to click for me, the excitement of the crowd, the casters giving a play by play, the idea of watching the same thing done over and over for an entire season started to take hold in my head. I started to realize how people could watch two teams play to their peak within the confines of a set rules. I could understand how people could actively love watching 82+ games of basically the same thing.
The other thing I attribute is actually basketball related I promise. It was 2013, I was hanging out in a friend’s attic, sitting on a beanbag and shooting the breeze with some of my other guy friends. Eventually, as many conversations do, the conversation shifted to a time honored question, who’s the GOAT. This topic came up so often before I was an actual fan that I had an answer prepped. If anyone asked me I’d just say Wilt and yell 100 until people went away. Well we were sitting around, one friend was still trying to make the argument that LeBron was number four (I’ve got him at four, but that’s for another time). He kept on citing how hard LeBron carried the Cavs back in the first seven years, and cited the 2007 Nets series sweep as hard proof. I don’t know where I got the courage to even speak up, usually I just let these conversations blow over but I looked at him and just said “Dude, the Nets are garbage, they’re better now than they were during that series, and how can you say that beating a team whose best player is Brook Lopez and average age is almost 40 is concrete evidence that LeBron is the GOAT?” Dude… how did I know any of that. I had a date the night before, and I remember the bowling alley having the Cavs/Nets game on but did I really subconsciously pick up any of that. That was the general sentiment of the whole room, not just me.
After that day things just kinda clicked for basketball. I decided I wanted to know about the whole league. I loved being part of that conversation, even if it was only for a few minutes, and I wanted to do it again. I started watching games, mostly Cavs games at first, but I even could figure out the important national games to watch. San Antonio, OKC, even Miami were all on the list of game’s I’d try to get into, by the playoffs I wouldn’t say by any means I was an expert, but watching the Spurs and Heat duke it out again gave me real insight into what good basketball was (and shattered some fake memories of how good the Cavs had been). Watching the Spurs win was also some icing on the cake, since I had to make up for all the lost time I wasn’t hating LeBron when he first left.
I was on vacation when LeBron published his return letter. I had heard rumors, everyone had. LeBron’s kids being re-enrolled at Old Trail, Dan Gilbert’s fish tank no longer being home to a torn up LeBron doll, casual drop in visits with his local Akron charities. I honestly don’t remember who saw it first, my dad or I, but I do remember hearing from a few rooms away the distinct sound of my dad yelling “He’s back! He’s coming home baby! WOOOOO!” and suddenly that was all we could talk about. That’s all anyone in Cleveland could talk about. I was in Miami at the time, and I proudly wore my Cleveland Cavaliers T-Shirt around that day, a shirt that before was simply used for sleeping. I had things thrown at me, it was a pretty good time.
These days my dad and I can barely be in the same room as each other when basketball is on. He is super critical, even during the game, while I put the players on a pedestal while they play, reacting with disappointment and even anger if they miss a shot. I remember one game where I was watching the game in the basement and he was upstairs, and we’d run to the laundry chute every time there was a big play and just yell things like “Three!!!!” or if there was a turnover, he’s just yell in a condescending voice “ut oh Will, not looking too good out there, maybe you should go draw up a play since you seem to know what you’re doing.” He really enjoys taunting me during games, but it’s all in good fun.
Living in Scotland, my obsession has got to drive my flatmates crazy. It will be four in the morning, class in five hours and I’ll be up in my room, hooting and hollering, yelling “why?!?!” or “You’re an Idiot ref/player/coach.” If I wasn’t the one doing the cleaning and making sure they got home safe after a long night, I’m pretty sure I’d be dead by now. I remember pulling an all-nighter before my flight back to Cleveland. It was the night of the OKC-Cleveland game, and when my flatmate got home from her night out, about two hours before I needed to leave for my flight, the only thing she said was “you’re still up?”
That’s what the Cavs do to us. They make us do crazy things. They make us watch to the last second, win or lose. They’re the cause of tears, lost voices, late nights, hours lost on Bleacher Report or ESPN watching videos, reading power rankings, and analysing trade rumors. The (at least in my case) have been the start and end of relationships. They turn everyone into a General Manager that clearly knows what’s in Cleveland’s best interests, even if those interests are absolutely absurd. The Cavs create something in Cleveland fans.
I’ve been a Cleveland Fan since I was young. Was I ever super dedicated? No clearly not. But from when the Indians actually made a playoff run, to that season where the Browns almost made the playoffs if it wasn’t for Indiana winning I remember the highlights. The Cavs are something special, they’re more than just a team, they bring people together, unite a common cause with something this city hasn’t had in a long time; Hope. Will they win the chip this year? Only time will tell, but until that point you can count on me continuing to say one thing; Lets go Cavs!