Cavaliers:
Well, the first season post-LeBron has come and gone, and honestly, I'd call it a success (in my eyes at least). I know a lot of Cavs fans wanted to see the Cavs do everything they could to make a run at the playoffs this year, and hope to build the team through deadline deals similar to the way they've worked over the past couple years, but I was 100% against that. At the beginning of the season, I said this season would be considered a 'success' (I use the term loosely) if the Cavs managed to do three things: 1.) Manage to trade away some of the older veterans for either draft picks or young players, 2.) Lose as many games as possible to get the most ping pong balls for when the Draft Lottery comes around in the summer, and 3.) Find a way to beat LeBron and the Heat just once.
All three things were accomplished for the most part. They got rid of Mo Williams and Jamario Moon for a top-10 pick from the Clippers and Baron Davis. Davis wasn't that big of a deal, but the top-10 pick is. I said on this blog when the season started that I was hoping for a 16-66 record. The Cavs finished at 19-63, good for 2nd worst in the league. That should land us a top-3 pick in the draft. And lastly, they not only found a way to beat the Heat, but they went wire to wire on them, leading for ALL 48 minutes of the game.
Going into the off-season they now have two top-10 picks in the draft, and have found some young players that could be contributors in the future for this team. Varejao and Hickson are both big time players in their own right, so that's a nice cornerstone to build off of. Add in two top-10 picks, and the continuing progress of guys like Ramon Sessions and Christian Eyenga, and you might just have a young nucleus that can contend in a few years.
Thankfully for all of us Dan Gilbert realized he needed to go all-in with the rebuilding process, and so far, it looks like this might take less time than everyone thought--and in Cleveland, there's nothing better than hearing that.
Browns:
Even though there's a chance the 2010 season doesn't happen (which would be awful), the draft is coming up in a little over a week. As usual, the Browns have a top-6 pick, and I'm kind of torn between what I want to see the Browns do. On one hand, the thought of adding Patrick Peterson into a secondary with Joe Haden, TJ Ward and Sheldon Brown sounds amazing. That would instantly become one of the toughest secondaries in the NFL to throw on. On another hand, we need a dominant pass rusher that can get to the QB on a consistent basis and cause havoc. On a nonexistent third hand, adding a playmaking WR would really help Colt McCoy, Peyton Hillis, and the rest of the offense.
Sadly, we don't have three top-6 picks, so we can't fill all of those holes, but on the bright side, we should be able to address one of those three, regardless of who gets drafted before we pick. I'm leaning towards wanting a nice WR the most, but as long as the Browns address one of the three mentioned above, I won't be able to complain. Also, if they do go defense in the 1st round, I'd love to see a nice WR like Jonathan Baldwin (from Pitt) fall to them in the 2nd round, and then hope that a guy like Casey Matthews (Oregon) is available in the 3rd. It would be awesome to see one of Clay's sons rocking the Brown & Orange just like daddy did.
Indians:
Somehow, this team has managed to start the season off 10-4, and currently sit tied for the lead in the AL Central. Now there's about a 99% chance that the Indians can't keep this up for the whole season, but that's fine. No one expected the Tribe to win more than 70 games anyways. What I do like, however, is the fact that this team is 10-4 without their top two hitters doing anything so far. Carlos Santana and Shin-Soo Choo have both been virtually nonexistent this entire season, and yet the team is still winning. Also, the lineup should only get better once we can add a (relatively) healthy Grady Sizemore to the lineup, as he's clearly a huge upgrade over the current platoon of Austin Kearns/Travis Buck.
But as I've mentioned before on this blog, once we get some of our top of the line prospects in Cleveland, there's no reason to think we can't make a run at a World Series. If Lonnie Chisenhall and Jason Kipnis are as good as they've been in the minors, they make the offense 10x more powerful. If Alex White and Drew Pomeranz are those front-end-of-the-rotation guys everyone expects, the pitching staff looks 100x better. If these four guys all pan out the way they're expected, I'm 100% convinced that the projected 2012 (2013?) Indians team as a whole is much better than the 2007 Indians that were one win away from making the World Series.
There might not be much hope in Cleveland right now for any of the teams, but if we can get two good drafts this spring/summer out of the Browns & Cavs, all three teams will certainly be looking much better than they all did the year before. And you can't ask for much more out of Cleveland teams than forward progress, opposed to the backwards progress we've been so accustomed to over the past decade or so.
All three things were accomplished for the most part. They got rid of Mo Williams and Jamario Moon for a top-10 pick from the Clippers and Baron Davis. Davis wasn't that big of a deal, but the top-10 pick is. I said on this blog when the season started that I was hoping for a 16-66 record. The Cavs finished at 19-63, good for 2nd worst in the league. That should land us a top-3 pick in the draft. And lastly, they not only found a way to beat the Heat, but they went wire to wire on them, leading for ALL 48 minutes of the game.
Going into the off-season they now have two top-10 picks in the draft, and have found some young players that could be contributors in the future for this team. Varejao and Hickson are both big time players in their own right, so that's a nice cornerstone to build off of. Add in two top-10 picks, and the continuing progress of guys like Ramon Sessions and Christian Eyenga, and you might just have a young nucleus that can contend in a few years.
Thankfully for all of us Dan Gilbert realized he needed to go all-in with the rebuilding process, and so far, it looks like this might take less time than everyone thought--and in Cleveland, there's nothing better than hearing that.
Browns:
Even though there's a chance the 2010 season doesn't happen (which would be awful), the draft is coming up in a little over a week. As usual, the Browns have a top-6 pick, and I'm kind of torn between what I want to see the Browns do. On one hand, the thought of adding Patrick Peterson into a secondary with Joe Haden, TJ Ward and Sheldon Brown sounds amazing. That would instantly become one of the toughest secondaries in the NFL to throw on. On another hand, we need a dominant pass rusher that can get to the QB on a consistent basis and cause havoc. On a nonexistent third hand, adding a playmaking WR would really help Colt McCoy, Peyton Hillis, and the rest of the offense.
Sadly, we don't have three top-6 picks, so we can't fill all of those holes, but on the bright side, we should be able to address one of those three, regardless of who gets drafted before we pick. I'm leaning towards wanting a nice WR the most, but as long as the Browns address one of the three mentioned above, I won't be able to complain. Also, if they do go defense in the 1st round, I'd love to see a nice WR like Jonathan Baldwin (from Pitt) fall to them in the 2nd round, and then hope that a guy like Casey Matthews (Oregon) is available in the 3rd. It would be awesome to see one of Clay's sons rocking the Brown & Orange just like daddy did.
Indians:
Somehow, this team has managed to start the season off 10-4, and currently sit tied for the lead in the AL Central. Now there's about a 99% chance that the Indians can't keep this up for the whole season, but that's fine. No one expected the Tribe to win more than 70 games anyways. What I do like, however, is the fact that this team is 10-4 without their top two hitters doing anything so far. Carlos Santana and Shin-Soo Choo have both been virtually nonexistent this entire season, and yet the team is still winning. Also, the lineup should only get better once we can add a (relatively) healthy Grady Sizemore to the lineup, as he's clearly a huge upgrade over the current platoon of Austin Kearns/Travis Buck.
But as I've mentioned before on this blog, once we get some of our top of the line prospects in Cleveland, there's no reason to think we can't make a run at a World Series. If Lonnie Chisenhall and Jason Kipnis are as good as they've been in the minors, they make the offense 10x more powerful. If Alex White and Drew Pomeranz are those front-end-of-the-rotation guys everyone expects, the pitching staff looks 100x better. If these four guys all pan out the way they're expected, I'm 100% convinced that the projected 2012 (2013?) Indians team as a whole is much better than the 2007 Indians that were one win away from making the World Series.
There might not be much hope in Cleveland right now for any of the teams, but if we can get two good drafts this spring/summer out of the Browns & Cavs, all three teams will certainly be looking much better than they all did the year before. And you can't ask for much more out of Cleveland teams than forward progress, opposed to the backwards progress we've been so accustomed to over the past decade or so.
