Ya hey, everyone! Ya hey! I’m an Optimist, working for the weekend in the Windy City.
I wanted to check in one more time before the regular season wraps up on Fan Appreciation Night this Wednesday at The Q. After the Wine and Gold put the wraps on the Eastern Conference with Saturday night’s victory over the Bulls, only two games remain.
The reason I’m writing is that I wanted to take everyone’s temperature as our beloved Cavaliers prepare to make another run at the Ring.
As many of you know, the only editorial advice I take from anyone aside from by beloved boss, Tad Carper, is from my best friend/consultant/life coach: The Maniac. He’s the Holger Geschwindner to my Dirk Nowitzki, so to speak.
And during the season, I confessed to the Maniac that, on certain nights, the Cavaliers absolutely flummoxed me. Yes, I’ve long since put away the childish notion that they’ll go 82-0 every season. But there have been moments this season where the Wine and Gold caused me genuine angst.
Angst!!
So in his infinite wisdom, the Maniac – (pictured above, bending an unimpressed-looking Uncle Dave’s ear) – told me to USE that angst. Work with it! Don’t lie to Cavalier fans about your feelings, he warned me. Instead … capture the passion, he said – the pathos!
Yes – it bothers me that the Cavaliers’ record is 1-4 this season without TheBron in the lineup. No – I don’t like blowing big leads to inferior foes. I love that this year’s squad is the best three-point shooting team in franchise history, but I’m concerned that long-distance love affairs don’t always end well. And, as much as anything, I want Timo to get back on bear. Timo MUST get back on bear. Timo must RIDE BEAR!!!
These are all legitimate concerns. And I don’t think I’m the only one who’s gotten a good case of agida fretting over them.
In the past, I might have even admonished you readers for your lack of faith for feeling the exact same way. But that ain’t me anymo’.
Instead, over the past few weeks, I’ve started getting that peaceful, easy feeling.
Brushing aside Wednesday’s hiccup in Indy, the Cavaliers had been averaging 30 assists per game in their previous four. They tied an NBA record for three-point consistency. Kevin Love looks his best he has since the Break, and anyone who doesn’t think Kyrie will come up big when the bright lights are on have been listening to John Michael and Chones’ broadcast from under a rock.
The Cavaliers are getting consistent production across their bench. And the team is – knock on wood – completely healthy.
But mostly, I can see that TheBron has what boxers refer to as “the Eye of the Tiger.”
Oh, it’s on. And it has been for quite a while. Cleveland’s Maestro served notice early this season. He began marking his territory in mid-March and hasn’t let up as the Cavaliers prepare to sew up the East. He’s averaging nearly a triple-double over the past two weeks and he’ll be more than ready to rumble when the checkered flag flies next weekend.
Add all that up and I’m high on life heading in the NBA’s second season!
And then who comes along to kill the buzz like Buzz Killington? That scruffy, skeletal stick in the mud – Jeff “Schaef” Schaefer – demanding that we derive some “educational value” out of the piece.
Fine.
We’ll get some of that in – and we’ll jump 13 cars in a turbo-powered Harley-Davidson XR-750 in front of 100,000 people in the process. Will that satiate you, Schaef?!
On this Date in History, April 9, back in 1867, the U.S. purchased Alaska from the Russians, knowing we could eventually keep tabs on them from our house. In 1413, Henry V was crowned. In 1969, the Chicago Eight pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and in 2003, Iraqi civilians pulled down the statute of Saddam Hussein and smacked it angrily with their shoes which, I think we can all agree, he totally had coming.
It also marks the opening of “the Eighth Wonder of the World” – the Houston Astrodome – back in 1965.
The Astrodome, which is now partially smushed and no longer hosts events, was home of some of the greatest sports and seminal moments in American history – including the Game of the Century featuring Houston and UCLA in 1968 witnessed by over 52,00 fans. There was the “Battle of the Sexes” between Billy Jean-King and Bobby Riggs and Earl Campbell and Bum Phillips' legendary run with the Oilers. And, of course, Evil Knievel once jumped 13 vehicles on his bike and vowed to return and jump the entire Astrodome on a jet-propelled rocket-car but never did on accounta he kept breaking all the bones in his body.
It also provided desperately-needed housing for thousands of evacuees from the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005.
Today’s Birthdays include nobodys (by comparison) like Joe Scarborough, Dennis Quaid, Paulina Porizkova, Steve Ballesteros and Croatian soccer star, Jerko Leko. All of these “celebrities” rolled into one couldn’t compete with our true Birthday Boy: the great Hugh Hefner, who turns 80 years young today!
Raised and educated right here in Chicago, Hefner attended the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and chose the one educational path he knew would one day guarantee him a multi-million dollar publishing empire and seven young, mind-blowingly foxy girlfriends: a bachelor’s in philosophy and creative writing.
Happy Birthday, Hef!! You don’t need me to tell you to enjoy it. I'm sure if the following people were alive, you’d invite them to the Grotto. But you can’t. Because they’re Dead and presumably, are still in that condition.
Those people are “Pops” from the great “We Are Family” Pirates of the late-70s, Willie Stargell, legendary director Sidney Lumet – who helmed, among other classics, “Dog Day Afternoon,” “12 Angry Men” and “Network” – and the man who’s been called “the greatest American architect of all-time”: Frank Lloyd Wright – who designed, among other structures, the incredible “Fallingwater” house in western Pennsylvania.
My then-girlfriend and I once toured it and it was fascinating – carved into the middle of a mountain and naturally-heated. Later that night, we went to a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere, PA, and former NBA center – 7-7, 300-plus pound Gheorge Mureson – walked into the middle of the dining room.
After he went up the back stairs, I asked the waitress what Gheorge Mureson was doing here and she said: “He was here last night.”
I’m sorry that an architect as brilliant as Frank Lloyd Wright had to pass away just so I could tell my Gheorge Muresan story. What can I say? I just really like it.
No offense to him, but at no point in his surprisingly-productive six-year NBA career could the Romanian giant compete with either Timofey Mozgov or the Iron Man himself, Tristan Thompson.
And knowing that we’re in good hands in the middle makes me feel good about next week’s playoff push. The Big Three are finding their balance, the bench is on a nice roll and the squad has a chance to sew up the East and spend next week nursing knick-nack injuries.
Man … I gotta say: it comforts me that we were able to talk through our issues together like grown adults. I feel better already.
Enjoy this evening’s game back in chilly-willy Cleveland, friendos. Stay warm and please remember to call a cab or an Uber if you’re having a few delicious libations. Bleary-eyed Sunday Morning You will thank Saturday Night You, I promise.
Aside from that – kick back, gear up and get ready to …
Keep the faith, Cleveland
Yours truly,
The Optimist