Greatest Cavs team ever?!
They have coasted through large portions of this season. They have frustrated us with breakdowns in fundamentals, specifically free throw shooting. But with an Eastern Conference Finals berth just one win away, this Cavalier team has to be grouped in the conversation of the greatest teams in Cavalier history.
True, how exciting it is to be considered the greatest team of a franchise that has yet to even appear in an NBA Finals series is debatable, it is still a history that spans 37 years.
Only two other Cavalier squads have appeared in the Eastern Conference Finals; the 1976 and 1992 teams.
Both teams lost in six games.
You may remember 1976 as the "Miracle of Richfield" team. Despite the monniker, that squad finished 49-33 and won just one series to get to the Eastern Finals. The '92 team featured the Mark Price/Brad Daugherty/Larry Nance trio and finished 57-25. They defeated the New Jersey Nets 3-1 in the first round and the Boston Celtics 4-3 in the second.
As of now, I would still put the '92 team far ahead of this years Cavs. If not for Michael Jordan, that was surely an NBA Finals team and maybe a league champion. Should LeBron's boys find a way to get passed the mighty Pistons, I will reconsider my stance.
-- I'm not very happy with the Indians right now.
I'm not sure if Mark Shapiro goes to the nearest cave to hibernate once the season starts, but there are some GLARING personnel moves that NEED to be made before the Tigers completely run away with the Central
1. Sowers needs to be starting for Buffalo, like yesterday. He clearly is NOT ready for the big time and now is having trouble even giving the Tribe 5 innings. Carmona is light years better than Jeremy right now and deserves to be in the rotation even after Jake Westbrook comes off the disabled list.
2. We need bullpen help bad. Go get Brad Lidge by any means necessary. Joe Borowski is absolutely BRUTAL. And if you think he won't be serving up moon shots well into September if we let him, you are sorely mistaken. I can't think of any other closer in the history of basebal that was effective topping out at 88 MPH.
3. Quit fooling around with the Michaels/Dellucci platoon and just bring up Choo and start him in left the rest of the year. Trust me on this one! The guy has a cannon arm, good glove and will hit you .280. I still haven't figured out why Choo didn't make the roster coming out of Spring Training. Michaels does nothing exceptional and Dellucci cannot hit with runners in scoring position to save his life.
These moves seem like common sense to me. I think baseball general managers are worse than their counterparts in the other major sports when it comes to shying away from the obvious move.
Crucial series with the Twins coming up. Winning or sweeping the series will get the Tribe right back on track in the division. Losing the series could start a May freefall that could lead to a lot of meaningless games in August and September, and those are never fun.
True, how exciting it is to be considered the greatest team of a franchise that has yet to even appear in an NBA Finals series is debatable, it is still a history that spans 37 years.
Only two other Cavalier squads have appeared in the Eastern Conference Finals; the 1976 and 1992 teams.
Both teams lost in six games.
You may remember 1976 as the "Miracle of Richfield" team. Despite the monniker, that squad finished 49-33 and won just one series to get to the Eastern Finals. The '92 team featured the Mark Price/Brad Daugherty/Larry Nance trio and finished 57-25. They defeated the New Jersey Nets 3-1 in the first round and the Boston Celtics 4-3 in the second.
As of now, I would still put the '92 team far ahead of this years Cavs. If not for Michael Jordan, that was surely an NBA Finals team and maybe a league champion. Should LeBron's boys find a way to get passed the mighty Pistons, I will reconsider my stance.
-- I'm not very happy with the Indians right now.
I'm not sure if Mark Shapiro goes to the nearest cave to hibernate once the season starts, but there are some GLARING personnel moves that NEED to be made before the Tigers completely run away with the Central
1. Sowers needs to be starting for Buffalo, like yesterday. He clearly is NOT ready for the big time and now is having trouble even giving the Tribe 5 innings. Carmona is light years better than Jeremy right now and deserves to be in the rotation even after Jake Westbrook comes off the disabled list.
2. We need bullpen help bad. Go get Brad Lidge by any means necessary. Joe Borowski is absolutely BRUTAL. And if you think he won't be serving up moon shots well into September if we let him, you are sorely mistaken. I can't think of any other closer in the history of basebal that was effective topping out at 88 MPH.
3. Quit fooling around with the Michaels/Dellucci platoon and just bring up Choo and start him in left the rest of the year. Trust me on this one! The guy has a cannon arm, good glove and will hit you .280. I still haven't figured out why Choo didn't make the roster coming out of Spring Training. Michaels does nothing exceptional and Dellucci cannot hit with runners in scoring position to save his life.
These moves seem like common sense to me. I think baseball general managers are worse than their counterparts in the other major sports when it comes to shying away from the obvious move.
Crucial series with the Twins coming up. Winning or sweeping the series will get the Tribe right back on track in the division. Losing the series could start a May freefall that could lead to a lot of meaningless games in August and September, and those are never fun.
posted by Jon Sladek at 1:59 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home