Team of Destiny

Every year in each sport, there seems to be a team that shocks everyone by transforming from perennial "bottom feeder" to "championship conteder". For instance, this past season in football we saw the Arizona Cardinals come within 34 seconds of beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Superbowl. Then there were the Tampa Bay Rays, who had never had a winning season until this year, but somehow ended up in the World Series and in the process allowing every baseball article in America to change their name to the Upstart Tampa Bay Rays (from now on I will refer to the Tampa Bay Rays as the Upstart Tampa Bay Rays). Now, as the second half of the NBA season gets underway, the Cleveland Cavaliers have surprised everyone (or at least most)by jumping out to the 3rd best record in the NBA. Now, the Cavs do not belong in the same boat as the Upstart Rays or the Cardinals, they made the playoffs last year and gave the Celtics all they could handle while they were at it, but honestly, who woulda thunk Lebron and the LeBronettes would be in a position where they could contend for a NBA title. In past seasons, the Cleveland Cavs (ok enough of the Cleveland Cavs--theyre now known as the LeBron's) have been a solid defensive team and gave the offensive responsibilites to LeBron. This allowed me to correctly predict come playoff time the LeBron's would be "two and through" (except for two seasons ago where Detroit forgot that they had to win the conference title to go to the NBA Finals). Nevertheless, with the addition of Mo Williams, the LeBron's have changed their playbook and become more innovative on the offensive end. Their playbook instead of consisiting of three plays "LeBron 23 heave" (LeBron heaves a contested 23 footer as the shot clock expires) not to be confused with "LeBron 17 heave" (same idea just 6 feet closer) and last not least "LeBron to the Hoop" (LeBron drives to the hoop and either dunks, gets fouled, or throws the ball through one of his teammates' hands) now has about ten. Still, the LeBron's are an average (at best) offensive team and need a little more innovation if they truely are going to become the NBA's team of destiny. This was extremely evident in their last match-up against the Lakers. In the second half, L.A. held Cleveland to 30 2nd half points while holding LeBron to 16 points on 5-20 shooting (over the entire game). With LeBron not shooting well and struggling to get to the hoop due to the Lakers length, Cleveland lacked movement (both ball and player) on offense thus making it more difficult to move the ball via the pass. If the Lakers can hold the LeBron's to 30 2nd half points, how are they going to score against Boston in the playoffs? Lastly, to obtain the name team of destiny you must a) make a surprise run through to get to your sport's championship and b) make unwarranted references to god to explain why you are winning. Still waiting for a member of the LeBron's to thank god for their run.

PS: Baseball's Team of Destiny- Pittsburgh Pirates (possibly more to come on this one)