Saw*Kick Media

How short the memory of our species can be… was it just last summer that the Cavs were champions of the NBA’s Eastern Conference, earning their first trip to the Finals? I can’t remember now.

Think about your sports conversations (you know, those times when you leave your parents’ basement and talk to people in the outside world), how much do you talk about the Cavs this season?

At my day job, we have an ongoing e-mail chain with a group of solid fans I call the SBN Sports Brain Trust. Within that group we have three former sports writers (including well-known blogger Papa Cass) and two other gentlemen with Cleveland heritage stretching decades beyond MoneyMike’s existence. Our conversations vary from one man’s daily tributes to starting Brady Quinn to existential arguments over the validity of Karma in the sports universe.

Sadly, our far reaching conversations have only glazed over last week’s Jason Kidd cock tease and the development of Drew Gooden. Suddenly, the Cavs are back to No. 3 on our list.

How can this be?

Long ago, when Jim Thome and Omar Vizquel had played out their Indian days and my friend Nathan successfully argued that Zydrunas Ilgauskas was the best-known athlete in Cleveland, there was a lull that made it the perfect time for the Cavs to strike. And, as business trends tend to go, they acted accordingly. Dan Gilbert bought the team, LeBron James was drafted, and everything seemed to be turning up wine and gold. With the return of the Browns going as smoothly as the return of Mike Tyson from jail and the Indians ending a decade-long stretch that came up short of a title, the Cavs had a chance to take the city over.

But that window was brief and the Cavs have not taken advantage. The worst thing that could have happened to the Cavs, following a year when the Indians came up a Cy Young choke from making the World Series, was for the Browns to be anything near mediocre. After sneaking past a terrible Jets team yesterday, the Browns have Braylon Edwardsed (yeah, he’s becoming a verb) over that tiny hurdle.

Suddenly, the Cavs, slumping without LeBron and losing the city’s spotlight, are inconsequential again. After dropping six straight, most recently a stinker to the Charlotte Bobcats, this team makes you wonder if they could ever win a game again.

Now, I know that Lebron will be back shortly - he recently told Cleveland’s 1100 AM that if this was crunch time he would make it a go – but this team is 9-12 and fading from the city’s collective memory faster than pullover Starter jackets.

Moreover, the little bit of news on the team has been consistently bad. MoneyMike has long been leery of the NBA because of the league’s willingness to overpay for underproduction (see Cleveland example Shawn Kemp), and that has become part of the problem for the Cavs this season. Sasha Pavlovic held out for more money. Anderson Varejao held out for more money. While I understand that this is a business for them, there are few ways to get your stock to plummet more than pissing off a fan base. And that’s exactly what Andy did. Whether or not he and his agent Dan Fegan actually asked Cavs GM Danny Ferry for $10 million per is debatable, but the fact is he’s a bench player who held out and then complained he doesn’t get paid what other guys on the team are getting paid. Andy, please, play out your first contract before you make contract demands. If that contract wasn’t fair, how come you signed it in the first place?

But I digress. The point is the team is going nowhere fast and all the news is bad. The holdouts, the injuries (even Larry Hughes got hurt, can you believe it?), the losing. It’s hard to take under any circumstances, but particularly hard to listen to when juxtaposed with the success of the Browns.

What’s worse is the NBA is making things even harder on the Cavs. Though the East is still a mini-division overall, the top got a little thicker when The False Idol’s Sports City sold its future for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.

So where do the Cavs go from here? The possibility of the Browns making the playoffs is looking more like a solid bet than an all-in bluff at this point, which means that their season could extend into early 2008. And, though The Q continues to sell out, I wonder how much attention will be shifted in early 2008 if the Browns are playing in the postseason and the Cavs are still in the middle of the pack in the East.

Either way, the Cavs will have their annual stretch of alone time with the city when the Browns inevitably break our heart. LeBron will certainly have healthy fingers by that time, so he better steal some of his thunder back.

Remember, their alone time is shorter than ever this year because the Indians are coming off a division crown, which means that when pitchers and catchers report, the Cavs can easily be shrugged off.

Even narrower is the window for the Cavs now than it has been previously. LeBron is the most dynamic player in the league, but basketball has never been a Cleveland sport the way football has. In their run atop the active sports season from January to April, the Cavs must do something to regain our full attention. Otherwise, the fall to permanent No. 3 is again a possibility – and I don’t think that LeBron is going to play the third fiddle in any market during his career…

A Brief note on Troy Aikman: There are many broadcasters with whom I have a bone to pick for various reasons that are both real and imagined, but Fox’s Troy Aikman has never been one. Maybe it’s because I rarely can fit in the NFC game, or because compared with the self-important Joe Buck he fades into the background. Whatever it is, Aikman failed me yesterday during the Cowboys’ 28-27 win against the Lions.

During that game, Cowboys tight end Jason Witten was having his way with the Detroit linebacking and secondary group, and Aikman noted that Witten had great hands and was probably the fourth-best tight end in the NFL – behind Anthony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates and Dallas Clark.

Now, maybe it’s my affiliation with the Browns that let this comment, presented as nonchalantly as one would say what color the Dallas star is, really irk me, but isn’t it time for Kellen Winslow to be on the short list of best tight ends in the game. Yes, he’s younger than Gonzo and Gates, but during the last two seasons it is my simple understanding that he is the best in the game – even at 90 percent. To make sure that I wasn’t just being a complete homer, I pulled each of these tight end’s 2007 stats. You decide.

K II: 69 rec., 943 yds., 5 TD
Dallas Clark: 50 rec., 542 yds., 9 TD
Antonio Gates: 67 rec., 890 yds., 9 TD
Anthony Gonzalez: 79 rec., 954 yds., 5 TD
Jason Witten: 80 rec., 955 yds., 7 TD

MoneyMike’s Green with Irony Watch (running item): You should know that it breaks my heart to do this, but this week’s winner of the MoneyMike Green with Irony Watch award goes to online insurance agent Esurance.

It’s long been known that Esurance’s Erin Esurance is my cartoon girlfriend, with her curvedly drawn figure and lush pink hair, but her company is coming up a bit short in its attempt to help protect the environment. They are doing some good – offering an online site that will let you measure what harm you are doing and offering third-party suggestions on how you can lower your carbon emissions (including such earth shattering suggestions as carpool!) – but like last week’s winner, Allstate, they are doing almost nothing on their own to promote a greener lifestyle.

Earth to big companies: If you want people to change, you can’t just suggest it, you have to make a change, too. Esurance’s online page about its commitment to the environment talks about the company’s efforts to help promote a greener lifestyle and help local communities, but does nothing to offer up a change in its policies on insurance. If Esurance really wanted to make a difference, it would skip planting 20 trees in a neighborhood and stop insuring Hummers, Corvettes and any other car getting less than 20 miles per gallon of gas. Now that would make a difference!

Sports Banter of the Week (new item): I’ve realized that many people I come across during the week say very funny, very true things about sports that are far better than anything I can write. With that in mind, I am adding a weekly piece of sports banter from my personal conversations. This week’s line comes from S*KM’s resident hobo Double C in an e-mail chat about the hype of the OSU-LSU national championship game:

“Did you know that football was invented in the SEC? True story.”

Next week: MoneyMike’s All I Want for Cleveland Christmas column.

In two weeks: MoneyMike and his Resident Lady Friend enjoy the fruits of another successful year by taking some time away from all of you.

-MoneyMike is S*KM’s longest column writer, beating your attention span by more than 600 words.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.