CAVS.SPACE

Cleveland has seen its share of success in lesser known leagues as the Force/Crunch, the Rockers, and the Fusion have found playoff life. However, when it comes to the longest standing teams--the big three: Cavs, Browns, and Indians--there has rarely been the situation where all three teams made the playoffs. The only time something like this happened was around 1994-1995, when the Cavs were in the midst of a playoff streak from 1991-1992 through 1995-1996, the Browns made the 1994 playoffs, and the Indians began their playoff streak of 1995-1999. Soon, the Indians should join the Cavaliers as official playoff teams. While it is too early to make the claim for the Browns, we just may be closing in on an era of year-round major league playoffs for Cleveland. Stay tuned. (As for the other franchises in Cleveland, let us dominate anywhere and everywhere!)

As the Spurs proved in the June Finals, the Cavaliers offense has room for improvement. It can even be argued that the offense regressed last season. On the flip side, the defense was much better and before this point had only looked good in spurts since the departure of Mike Fratello as Head Coach. What Coach Mike Brown has done for the Cavaliers is taught them to play defense when they do not have their best stuff. While dominance earns the spotlight and media attention, championships are earned through challenges and struggles. Basketball teams at all levels often miss this point. Honestly, the Cavaliers have always been able to play good defense; the problem is that they only played solid D when the situations were in their favor and they were in a rhythm. When the team hit a slump or suffered an injury, the defense disappeared. Now, Brown has the team playing solid defense no matter what (again, aside from the Finals when they forgot how to angle and cut off Tony Parker

Unfortunately, some teams spend their offseasons worrying about the associates and destinations of their star players. Thankfully, aside from a quiet offseason in terms of roster development, the biggest worry for the Cavs is LeBron James's eye surgery. After his outstanding play in the FIBA Americas Tournament, James looks poised for a successful year. Now, from a physical standpoint, all he needs to do is make sure he gets a little rest before training camp hits.

In sports, a long-standing and commonly held philosophy is: "No pain, no gain." Today, the sports world has Greg Oden. Around March 2006, Oden suffered a couple injuries to his shooting wrist. Eventually, this turned into a right wrist that needed surgery. As a result, Oden was forced to limit his practicing and missed the first seven games of his collegiate career. Yet, he managed to play a year of college ball with the recuperating wrist. Later, pre-draft physicals brought warnings to Oden's long-term physical health, although the argument should be made that pre-draft physicals and workouts bring warnings about almost every potential draft pick. Oddly enough, Oden went on to miss most of the NBA summer league due to hurting tonsils. Finally, a few days ago, the announcement was made that Greg Oden would be having exploratory arthroscopic knee surgery. Today, that 'exploration' has become microfracture knee surgery. This is definitely a setback for Od

While Charles Oakley's best playing performances are clearly behind him, he still would bring the Cavaliers two things they are lacking. First, Oakley played in the playoffs almost every year in his career (basically every year until the end of his career). He played for winners year-in and year-out. Although he lost in his only NBA Finals appearance, his Knicks team played in one of the most competitive finals in league history. Until last season, only Eric Snow had played in the Finals. Many of his teammates had not seen much playoff time and relied on collegiate experience. And, until last year, LeBron's championship stories always included St. Vincent-St. Mary high school memories of Dru Joyce hitting threes or Romeo Travis stepping up big. Second, Oakley is a tough big man. Sure, all the big men the Cavs have under contract right now are tough in some way (Ilgauskas - surviving injuries and showing tolerance for pain; Gooden - playing through criticism; Varejao - bo

Summer '07 Winners: Congratulations to the Boston Celtics on their unexpected offseason turnaround. Months ago, players (including Garnett) were refusing trades to the team. When the Celtics ended up with the #5 pick in this year's draft, all hope seemed lost for another few years. This is not so anymore. This Celtics team just may take the Atlantic Division this year. Three-fifths of the Fab 5: Chris Webber and Jalen Rose are free agents. Juwan Howard has asked for a trade because his main reason for heading to Minnesota left for Boston. It sounds odd, but for some strange reason I could see at least two of the three ending up on the same roster this year. The biggest road blocks, aside from age and declining skill, would be that two of the three (Webber and Howard) have no NBA Finals experience and the third (Rose) has found a way to become an outcast on every team he has played on since making the Finals in 2000 with the Pacers. The Sonics of ?: Stay tuned to see if