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Cleveland Cavaliers: This season has an eerie feeling

By Duane Rohrbacher

SAN ANTONIO, TX - JANUARY 23: (EDITORS NOTE: This image has been converted to black and white) LeBron James
SAN ANTONIO, TX - JANUARY 23: (EDITORS NOTE: This image has been converted to black and white) LeBron James /
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Do you ever get déjà vu? It’s the phenomenon when you know you’ve seen something before. You can’t really put your finger on it or articulate it, but you’ve seen it before. This Cleveland Cavaliers team feels like we’ve seen it before. And the results weren’t great.

By reading the title of this article, you might have thought about the 2009-2010 Cleveland Cavaliers that lost to Boston in the Eastern Conference Semifinals when LeBron James visibly gave up in Game 6.

It was the beginning of the end, and the beginning of something else. Unfortunately, this Cavaliers team does not remind of that team. That team was filled with happiness, overachieving, and a great regular season. No, this 2018 Cleveland squad reminds of the 2014 Miami Heat, and we know how that ended.

Playing for an extra two months wears on a team

While the 2014 Miami Heat’s continuity was higher than the current Cavaliers team, who sees only Tristan Thompson as the Lone Ranger from pre-Lebron part 2, the feeling remains. In 2014, the Miami Heat were headed to its fourth consecutive NBA Finals. The team was getting a little older, and they seemed more tired by the day. After coasting to a 2-seed and 54 wins in a mediocre Eastern Conference, the Heat swept Charlotte in the first round.

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The signs were there all along

After beating up the even older Brooklyn Nets in the second round, the Heat faced 1-seed Indiana in the Eastern Conference Finals. Other than the insane amount of memes that came out of that series, a tired Heat also came out. Even though the Heat prevailed 4-2 in those conference finals, the two losses were uncharacteristic. The wins didn’t resemble the Heat we came to know either. Even with playoff basketball maintaining lower scores and a slower pace, the Heat eked out an 87-83 win in game 2, which was a sign of things to come.

They ran out of gas

Finally, against an upstart Spurs team out for blood, the Spurs blew the doors off the Heat, winning the Finals 4-1 with four blowout wins. It wasn’t really that close. The moral of the story is that four trips to the Finals exhaust a team, even if only a handful of players on that team have gone to each Finals series. And when your best player, LeBron James, is looking at his eighth final, it’s even more worrisome.

The Cavs have what the Heat did not

Instead of the usual veteran minimum signings and post-trade waiver signings of vets, the Cavs did something unusual. They received three players at 25 or under. This injection of youth and jettison of old vets might be the secret ingredient in overcoming the Finals fatigue. Whether they face Toronto in the conference finals or Houston or Golden State in the finals, the Cavs have some edge with Hood, Nance, and Clarkson’s youth and excitement.

Must Read: Playoff LeBron Has the Switch. What About the Rest of the Cleveland Cavaliers?

I’m not getting my hopes up, but it’s a positive sign that Altman went way against the grain with the massive trade that we will write about for years to come.