By Brian A. Lester

The Cleveland Cavaliers are playing for ping-pong balls, and quite frankly, making a joke of themselves in the process.

It seems that all the Cavs care about these days are rounding up the best odds of winning the Lebron James lottery. They don't care about winning, about running a fundamentally sound offense, about playing good defense or about the fact that they got their coach fired on Monday.

All the Cavs want to do is lose, and boy, they sure are doing one fine job of that.

They are a miserable 8-34 as of Jan. 20, and their last four losses have been by 27 points or more.

Cavs fans have to be wondering what in the heck happened to their team that looked somewhat promising when the season began in November.

Ricky Davis was coming back and so far, he hasn't done that bad of a job, averaging a team-best 22.6 points per outing. Zydrunas Ilguaskas is dropping in 17.7 points per game and rookie Dujuan Wagner is pumping in 14.8 ppg.

But Darius Miles has hardly lived up to expectations. Injuries haven't helped, but he bragged all through the preseason how he was going to be the man in Cleveland. So far, he's been nothing of the sort.

Hope is indeed a foreign word in the city by the lake at the moment, and the future doesn't exactly look bright.

Let's face it, there is no guarantee the Cavs will even get James if they finish with the worst record in the league.

But tortured Cleveland fans aren't using a glass half-empty style of thinking when it comes to James. They expect the Cavs to end up with the top pick and bring the prep phenom in to save their team the way Michael Jordan saved the Chicago Bulls way back in the day.

It's crazy talk if you ask me. James might very well be a great player, but even Kobe Bryant needed a few years to develop into the star he is now.

So even if James does get drafted by Cleveland, his rookie contract will be up by the time he becomes a mega-star, and by then, he'll want the hell out of Cleveland in the hopes of signing with a real contender.

That's if the miserable Cavs don't screw up his career first.

Brian Lester is a sportswriter in Ohio and can be reached via email at BAL4@hotmail.com.


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