In 2010, the Cleveland Cavaliers were a top team in the NBA. They won 61 games on the season, were heading into the playoffs again. Their pride and joy, LeBron James won his 2nd consecutive MVP award, putting up awesome numbers again.

The Cavs were a team to reckon with every night they stepped out to play. They were scoring 102/night, playing strong defense, only giving up 96 to opposing teams.

They were difficult to beat at home, putting up a 35-6 record at Quicken Loans Arena, and tough to beat on the road as well, with a winning record of 26-15.

They made the playoffs 5 years in a row, getting to the finals in 06-07, LeBron’s 4th season with Cleveland. Although they never returned since that year, they were always a steady threat to get there.

But the next few years afterwards were hard in Cleveland, getting beaten in the Semifinals 2 times, and making the Eastern Conference Finals in 08-09, by getting beat by Boston last season, ending the series in 6 games.

Cleveland would hold it’s breath, after that loss, because Ohio wasn’t sure what was going to happen to their team.

The Decision 2010 happened. Shaking the very foundation of the NBA franchise forever. Their homegrown boy, departed and left them in a sad state of affairs. He decided he had enough, Cleveland was going nowhere. How right he was. The Cleveland Cavaliers were never a great team in the NBA. They had a few decent years in the early 90’s but overall, a despondent organization that typically resided comfortably in the bottom half of the Eastern teams.

Fast forward to this season, the Cavaliers team is led by aging veteran Antawn Jamison, whose best years are 5 years behind him. They are sitting at 9-46, dead last in the Eastern conference, had an outrageous losing streak of 26 games in a row. No team deserves to be demoralized like that, night in and night out. But they dealt with it. Ironically, their losing streak was finally halted, by beating none other than the perennial joke, the LA Clippers.

They lack leadership terribly. Mo Williams, who looked pretty nice when LeBron was there (17 ppg, 43% from three in the 2 years he played with James) has become an average player, putting up 13.6 ppg and without the threat of James; his 3 pt shooting has plummeted to only 27%. The entire team is falling apart at the seams. Through all of this, it really makes LeBron look that much better as a player. James still had them winning 61 games, with basically the same team, they won 272 games over last 5 years with the supporting cast of glee wearing Cavs uniforms. At the current rate they are going, they would need another 20 years to win another 272 games.

So how bad is bad? Scoring the ball, they rank 25th, with 95/game. There defense is awful, giving up 106/game, which puts them at 28th in the league. 43 times over the season, opposing teams have lit them up for 100+ in a game, including 21 allowing over 110.

They have been beaten by 10+ pts, 28 times this year. And they have strung together a winning streak of 3 just one time this season. They are in severe trouble and going nowhere fast. A player like LeBron comes along once in a blue moon, so landing another like him seems highly unlikely. I feel bad for them, what was once a powerful team with promise, miserably diminished to cellar dweller again, in a span of 1 hour.

The 1 hour from “The Decision 2010”
 

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