Buenos dias, Cavallieros and Cavallieritas. They call me Optimist. I bring you peace.
It’s good to be back in tropical Cleveland after a successful Wine and Gold All-Star Weekend.
Delly helped his band of swarthy international brothers score an upset in the Rising Stars Challenge on Friday. Kyrie Irving, who already has one Three-Point title under his belt, was runner-up to a scorching Stephen Curry on Saturday night in Brooklyn. And he scored eight points in the fourth quarter of a pretty mellow 11-point performance in Sunday’s All-Star Game.
TheBron didn’t compete on Saturday night on accounta it wouldn’t be fair. But he pushed Russell Westbrook for MVP on Sunday at the Garden – scoring a team-high 30 points, including 15 of the East’s first 23 and finishing just two points shy of Kobe Bryant for the all-time scoring mark. The East tied the affair with four minutes to play, but James Harden and Westbrook put the finishing touches on the 163-158 Western Conference win.
I know what many of you are thinking. You’re thinking: ‘Hey, Optimist – how come you’re writing this now and not during All-Star Weekend? It’s Tuesday and we’ve moved on with our lives.’
That’s a fair question. And I had originally meant to do exactly that. In fact, originally I was hoping to do an All-Star precap, which morphed into a midcap, which eventually morphed into the recap that I’m writing right now. If you don’t want to read it, I’ll totally understand. Feel free to check out another worldwide website, like arngren.net – which features more useless Scandinavian crap than you could ever imagine --- from an Elektrisk-Scooter to a Fjernstyrt Fiskebåt or gatesnfences.com – a Florida-based site which covers everything from gates and fences to … well, actually, that’s really about it. Gates and fences.
If you’re still here, let’s talk a little All-Star Weekend and, if you’re well-behaved, we’ll take a look at the second half of the Cavs’ season.
For hoops fans from the four corners, if you’re looking for chaos, confusion and general nincompoopery, you just can’t do any better than the NBA All-Star Game.
And this year was no exception – exspecially around the armies of international journalists, some with little-to-no concept of NBA etiquette or personal space. When they descend upon All-Star Weekend in any city, it’s a feeding frenzy. When you hold it in the Big Apple, they wreak more havoc than Henry Hill, Black Caesar, Snake Pliskin, the Gramercy Riffs, Travis Bickle and a Cloverfield all put together.
I wasn’t alone in thinking that the Garden crowd lacked a little energy on Sunday night. William Jefferson Clinton1 got the biggest ovation of the night, with Melo, TheBron, Kyrie and Steph Curry all running second. Every other player got the tepid ovation usually reserved for an opponent’s head coach on the road.
But as always, the crowd – and a New York one that’s not easy to impress – was re-energized by truly the greatest thing about any NBA All-Star Game, season after side-splitting season: the annual dance number that the half-sized inflatable mascots do during the second timeout of the third quarter.
Cleveland’s own Sir Round C.C. had an integral part in the routine, but it was the Phoenix Suns’ wee Hairyson Gorilla2, (who according to the Suns’ official website lists R2D2, Curious George, and Gary Coleman as his biggest influences in life) who stole the show on Sunday.
I apologize on behalf of the National B.A. if you weren’t able to watch this at home. We laugh til we cry every year. I think Bubba had a tear in his eye too. The network was probably showing you a commercial about a lizard selling insurance.
Speaking of the All-Star Game, I done got a letter to the sweet, sweet Optimist Mailbox this week that inquired about a pair of former Cavaliers who were no strangers to the midseason classic …
Dear Optimist,
I can't believe you're still doing this. The last time I wrote to you, I lived in Beaverton, Oregon. That was SEVEN years ago. Kudos to you.
Anyway, things are going well for the Cleveland faithful. I don't feel the need to worry. My lack of worry has allowed for substantial day-dreaming. So, if you don't have any more important e-mails, I ask you the following day-dream question: if Mark Price and Brad Daugherty, in their prime, were able to join the current Cavaliers crew, how do you think they would fit in?
Love,
Dustin Murrell
The Midwest
Dustin, first of all, thanks for reading and writing in. Do you daydream at your desk or do you have a little bed built into the bottom of it? It might shock you to think that I think Brad and Mark would fit in quite nicely with this ballclub. I’ve calculated just about every scenario, and there are indeed no bad options. Price splashing treys and dishing dimes with Kyrie working off the ball. TheBron with a no-look to Daugherty, working hard, filling the lane. .
That’s a pretty great image, Dustin. And there ain’t nothing wrong with daydreaming. Sometimes I daydream about Denny’s Big Breakfast.
But if I sit around here pondering sausage links, I won’t be able to provide any educational or historical value in this column, something young PR jedi Jeff Schaefer demands, lest he get all fussy and irritable.
Fine, Schaef. Did you know on this date, February 17, the Blaine Act – sponsored by Wisconsin Senator John J. Blaine (and probably coerced by Nucky Thompson) – repealed prohibition in 1933, allowing regular joes like you and me to buy bourbon with impunity?
Or that today is the birthday of Luc Robitaille, Lou Diamond Phillips, Michael Jordan, Denise Richards, Neil Lomax, Mexican singer-songwriter José José, Sweedish footballer Pontus Segerström, the late great Rick Majerus, Rene Russo, Browns legend Jim Brown and Joseph Gordon-Leavitt.
You guys are probably thinking the same thing I am: What are the odds that Michael Jordan and Jim Brown and Pontus Segerström were all born on the same day? You might also be wondering why I’m not celebrating Mike Miller’s birthday, which is only a couple days away, on the 19th. I’m sorry. I can’t. The rules strictly forbid it.
Or you might be wondering why I didn’t mention Wally Pipp.
That’s on accounta I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of you guys. On June 2, 1925, Wally Pipp got Wally Pipp-ed by himself when he sat out of a game at first base in a game against the Washington Senators and was replaced by Lou Gehrig, who played in, like, 20,000 straight baseball games after taking over. Pipp should have known better. Not a month earlier, Yankees manager Miller Huggins pulled second basemen Everett Scott for ol’ Pee Wee Wanninger.
Happy birthday anyway, Walter Clement Pipp. Somebody had to be be you. Feel free to stick around for some cake and ice cream after the column wraps up.
The Cavaliers have a celebration of their own planned. It doesn’t go down until mid-June. But it starts in earnest on Friday night in Washington D.C. and you can see the look in TheBron’s eye that it’ll be all-business from here on out.
For the remainder of the regular season, here’s what we got: 11 more games at The Q; 16 on the road – including 11 of the next 14. Opponents in that road gauntlet include Washington, Indy, Houston, Toronto, Atlanta, Dallas, the Spurs and a South Beach rematch with the Heat. The Cavs close with five of seven at home in April, including two of the final four against Boston and a matchup in Cleveland against the Bulls on the 5th.
The Trade Deadline is February 19, and it’s safe to say the Cavs will at least be looking and listening. The Cavaliers have some seasoned vets, but also some key youngsters about to enter uncharted waters. But they also have the game’s greatest player. And he’ll accept only one outcome.
I had dinner and drinks at my favorite bar/restaurant on the road – Barney’s Beanery in L.A. – with my friend and fellow sportswriter. And I compared this Cavaliers season – which at the time was stuck in a ditch with six straight losses – to a horse race. (Yes, I’ve played the ponies before. I once put some cash on Joe Tait’s wine-and-gold-clad-filly – Maui Sunset – at the runners. I’m also known to go crazy every 19 minutes.)
And I esplained to him that the Cavaliers season is like a race with all the horses jumbled up together to start. Then one surprising underdog pulls out way ahead and older guys in slickers start getting all excited. That part of the season is where you just have your beer and start walking towards the railing.
But then, in the homestretch, the thoroughbreds usually take over. And if Sunday’s showcase at the Garden didn’t convince you that we have the thoroughbreds heading into the homestretch, then you were watching “Saturday Night Live.”
Over the next 27 regular season games, teams are going to bring their best against the Wine and Gold – and they’re going to get it in return. On certain nights, opponents and individuals will employ a Poke the Bear Strategy on the Cavaliers starting small forward. As always, it will fail miserably.
The bear was all smiles after the All-Star Game on Sunday. And like he said in his interview with the great Freddy Mac outside the Eastern Conference locker room: the flowers ‘bout to bloom in Cleveland.
And I say: BLOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE, BABY!! 3
We’ve got 27 games to go. Let’s gird up and get ready for the homestretch, party people!
That’s all we got for today. I’ll check your temperature over the next couple weeks. In the meantime, always, always …
Keep the faith, Cleveland.
Tu hermano,
The Optimist