Here comes the second half

After a pretty mediocre 29-23 first half, our Cavaliers open the second half tonight with a home game against the streaking Houston Rockets, who have won eight in a row coming in. Yao Ming's boys are five-point favorites.

But this post is not about tonight's game, it's about the rest of the season. "Second half" is a bit of a misnomer, since there are 52 games down and 30 to go, but anyway, if the season ended today, the Cavs would be the Eastern Conference's fourth seed. If they were in the Western Conference, they would not be a playoff team right now. Thank goodness for geography!

What can we expect the rest of the way? Well, the Cavs open the second half a bit short-handed, just as they opened the first half -- without Sasha Pavlovic and Anderson Varejao. And they have failed to pull off a trade for a fellow star, with Mike Bibby and Jason Kidd (apparently) going elsewhere. Too bad. We could have had Bibby and Boobie at the same time.

If you look at recent championship teams, you'll see they all have two superstars, or at least two All-Star-caliber players. The current defending champion Spurs have Tim Duncan and Tony Longoria Parker; the '06 Heat had Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal; the '04 Pistons had practically a whole starting lineup of All-Stars; and the Lakers won three straight with Kobe and Shaq. And we all remember how the Bulls dominated with Jordan and Pippen. When Danny Ferry signed Larry Hughes in 2005, he was hoping Hughes could be that second superstar, but he hasn't been anything like that. Zydrunas Ilgauskas has been an All-Star, and I'm darn glad he's on our team, but he's not that kind of player. Until we get a second superstar, we're not going to win a title. It's as simple as that. LeBron is the best player in the NBA, but nobody's good enough to win a title by himself.

In this year's Eastern Conference, our boys could conceivably get back to the Conference Finals. But unless we're healthier than the Celtics at that point, there's no way we're getting past them. They've got three superstars to our one.

This blogger predicts that very scenario, and that LeBron will be the MVP. He also predicts an injury to one of the Pistons' big four, which of course we can't count on. But LeBron managed to carry us past the healthy Detroiters last year, and there's no reason to believe he can't do it again.

This blogger thinks the Cavs cannot knock off Boston, Detroit or Orlando without another piece. I disagree, but then again, I'm not exactly unbiased.