Its never okay when a team gets swept in a best of seven playoff series. Its downright appalling when that sweep occurs in a championship series. If you make it all the way to the championship round, you should be a good enough team that no one, and I repeat NO ONE, can take you down four games in a row.
Yet, that is exactly what happened to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2007 NBA Finals, when they were completely and totally outclassed by the San Antonio Spurs over the course of four games that were not only difficult to watch; they were difficult to stomach. But now that the Spurs systematic decimation of the Cavs is over, the quesiton must now be asked: Whose fault was this?
While the jury is still out, most of the early blame has been directed towards Cleveland’s (and possibly the NBA’s) best player, Lebron James. Over the course of the entire series, James looked lost out on the floor. He was overmatched, swarmed by San Antonio’s ferocious defense, and basically thrown off of his rhythm.
But to propose that James is the sole reason Cleveland did not win the 2007 NBA championship is ridiculous. What many people fail to remember is that the fourth-year forward is only 22 years old. While his physical stature (6’8″, 240 lbs.) would suggest otherwise, Lebron James is just a kid. While he is the best player on Cleveland’s roster, the young man simply does not have the experience and mental toughness necessary to carry a team to an NBA championship.
We’ve seen glimpses of Lebron’s future greatness, notably in the form of his legendary 48 point outburst against the Detroit Pistons in Game 5 of this year’s Eastern Conference Finals, where he scored 25 straight points and 29 of Cleveland’s final 30. If anything, that brilliant performance hurt the Cavaliers more than helped them, because it “Kobe-fied” the team. It put Cleveland’s other players in a mindset where they believed that as long as the game was close and they had Lebron, he would carry them to victory.
However, that was not the case. James wasn’t able to hit his shots, and the false sense of security that occupied the rest of Cleveland’s roster took them out of their games as well. Even Cleveland’s coaching staff appeared to be caught in Lebron’s headlights, as head coach Mike Brown appeared to be without any sort of offensive strategy beyond “Get the ball to Lebron”.
The Spurs picked up on this lapse in mental toughness, and pounced. James was routinely triple-teamed, and the other guys on Cleveland’s roster were unable to score in order to relieve some of the defensive pressure on Lebron. You could say the entire enterprise was doomed from the start.
So, in light of Cleveland’s unceremonial departure from the NBA playoffs, the question becomes: “What do they do next?” Well, with all things considered, the team is still in a pretty good position. They DID make it to the NBA Finals, after all. They have a young nucleus, including James, rookie sensation Daniel “Boobie” Gibson, Drew Gooden, and Anderson Varejao. As those guys grow and improve, the Cavs will get that much closer to being a team capable of competing with squads such as the Spurs. Also, the Cavs’ front office will have to bring in some help for Mike Brown as far as offensive gameplanning.
All in all, the Cavs are a good team on the verge of being great. But the least productive thing they could do is ostracize the man-child who got them where they are today.
