The Cleveland Cavaliers advanced to the NBA Finals by defeating the Pistons last night.
It will be their 1st ever trip to the Finals.
I am happy over the outcome,but I cannot lie and say I feel a huge part of the win.
Even though I rooted heartily during the game,as I wore my LeBron James jersey that Cherie bought me for the game(Thanks again Cherie!!!),
It still did not feel the same as those games from days past with the Mark Price,Larry Nance etc teams.
The passion that I once had just was not there.
I have been slowly losing interest in the NBA,although I still consider myself a Cavalier fan,but my days of being a hardcore fan have slowly receded into memory.
If this would have happened 10 or 15 years ago,I would have been out of my mind right now.
Instead I am very happy for myself,but more for the long suffering Ohio sports fans.
Cleveland teams have been bad for so long,they deserve a winner and I am thrilled for them.
As I age,things that seemed so important in the past don't seem so important anymore and things I once thought frivolous or never thought about seem really important to me now.
I guess this team has ,as silly as it sounds,brought a final closure to my youth.
As this series progressed,I found myself thinking about the few good and many bad events in Cavalier history.
Thinking about where I saw them and who I was then and how one remembers things.
The 8 year old going to Ohio,listening to the radio signal getting stronger as each wheel turned closer to our destination as Joe Tait called Bingo Smith's long jumper to win Game 2 of the Eastern Semis in 1976.
The 12 year old trading Julius Erving and Elvin Hayes cards in school for Mike Mitchell and a bunch of journeymen,so I could complete a team set of my team.
After all,no one in this area was a Cavalier fan.......
The early teenager that fiddled with the radio dial to listen to a signal from 300 plus miles away to follow a team that never was on TV,spending his time throwing himself into sports to avoid dealing with the actual issues of his life.
Mainly that the male role model to base himself on was the Magnificent Muraco,because there was no positive role model.
The 17 year old,that already knew the woman that he was destined to marry(even if she didn't) that was convinced that Keith Lee would take Cleveland to the promised land.
Lee was gone from Cleveland in 3 years....
The 22 year old young father that watched Michael Jordan (who I cannot stand to this day) rip my heart out and the resulting tantrum that destroyed anything that he was pictured on.
I think my head was buried for a few hours!
Funny how these things pop into one's mind over a basketball game.
You ponder if any one of those people that I was then was here now,how would they react?
I imagine far differently than I am now.
So,here's a salute to each of those people mentioned above, I think they deserve it far more than I,but I will celebrate for each of them-I owe it to each of those people that made me what I am today.
Back later with a normal coverage post and my mock draft results.
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