46 years and counting . . . .. . siiiiiiigggghhh . . .

Unless Ferry miraculously gets an athletic big of all-star caliber in this offseason, I'm afraid Cleveland is never, and I mean NEVER going to win a championship in any sport, EVER.

The Indians simply cannot compete in a setting where the largest teams pretty much use the rest of the league as their personal farm clubs. "Little ball" only works when your pitching does. And the Indians haven't seen good pitching since 1995 (you know, the year they lost to Atlanta in the WS).

The Browns are in constant rebuilding mode, and hey, why not? It's not like their ever-drunk nutjob fans are boycotting this consistently lousy product despite having to watch soccer-score offense in sub-arctic temperatures and supposedly professional players drop more balls than golfers. Why CHANGE? They're making bank!

Many people, including myself, think LeBron is pretty much this city's last and only hope to bring home a title. But whatever the Cavs do, whoever they surround him with apparently is just never, EVER enough. True, the Magic merely outscored the Cavs moreso than out-playing them (sorry, I didn't see a shred of defense from either team this whole series). True, they inhumanly and regularly drained threes without a hint of dry spell.

But the Magic did this without Jameer Nelson. They did this with bench players and journeymen banking threes like they were Peja in his prime. Most importantly, they emphasized how important it is to have an athletic (or at least someone who doesn't have his feet cemented in hardwood, (Z)) big or two and surround him with deep threats.

The Cavs have "finesse" bigs, which sadly, ain't-a gonna cut it against the Dwight Howards of the world. Their backcourt picked a HELL of a time to lay bricks with regularity.

You know this is going to fire up the "LeBron to the Knicks" chorus even further unless Ferry is able to pull something out of his hat, and fast. The Magic, Celtics and Bulls are going to continue to get better and better and Cleveland's chances for a title are getting slimmer and slimmer with each passing year.

They need to use their expiring contracts wisely and they could land some big talent. Maybe the Clips would give up Baron Davis and Kaman for Mo Will and Wally or Ben's expiring contract.

Ferry has a lot of trade bait in that Wally and Ben Wallace are owed huge money and have expiring deals, which is especially valuable the season before the 2010 extravaganza.

I think the Cavs should start non stop calling the Raptors and beg for Bosh; wouldn't likely work though.

If the Cavs don't make a big move this summer, they better hope Shaq is healthy and Phoenix wants to unload him.

years ago and come to acceptance that the new Indians owner is a cheap bastard (in fairness, Jacobs fleeced this idiot and the city for too much money:see public stock of Indians "deal"), Shipiro is a snake oil salesman and Wedge is a company yes-man hack. As for the Cavs, well, I don't care for the NBA.

I think the underlying problem for this whole town since I have lived here is that it has a county wide self-esteem problem, that is a hold-over from the days of default, riots, and burning rivers. Unfortunately, this town seems to think that the only way to not be a national laughingstock is to win a professional sports championship. Guess what, Detroit has won a few since 1964 and THEY ARE "STILL" DETROIT. What this town really needs to do is turn the corner and come to terms with the fact that it will never be "hip" to the rest of the nation and start to make its neighborhoods better for those who live here instead of the "tourist" we want to come here. Look, you could paint the streets with gold for out of town visitors and it would never make Cleveland a "tourist city" versus New Orleans, Miami, SF, LV, etc.

To hell with the sham "quick-fixes" of medical marts and casinos, rebuild every block brick by brick with low interest, community based loans and put people back to work, versus tax-payer funded shams for big corporations.

Some day the law of averages will catch up with Cleveland and a pro franchise will produce a championship. I hope it happens in my lifetime.