Dan Gilbert Compares The Cavaliers Injury Situation To Ohio State Football

USA Today- "Obviously Kyrie brings a huge amount to our team, but all year they've found ways just like Ohio State found ways with their new quarterbacks," Gilbert said Friday evening at a tech summit called Chat Sports: The Minds behind the Game featuring Gilbert and Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob.

"There's just something about this team that they just seem to rise to occasion."


You know, the funny thing about this is that Cleveland might have a better chance in this series if Kyrie Irving was being replaced by a healthy J.T. Barrett or Cardale Jones. Forget that basketball and football are drastically different sports. The fact that we already know who is taking Kyrie Irving's spot makes the parallels insignificant at best. Yeah, Ohio State was able to overcome losing two starting quarterbacks to win a national championship, but they also had two backup quarterbacks that could have started for 95% of the teams in the country. Without doing much research I can say that the only teams that would benefit from starting Matthew Dellavedova are in the D-League. Cardale Jones best assets are his arm and athletic ability while Delladevedova's best assets are his career ending injury attempts and his ability to be a complete nuisance.

I actually love this move from Dan Gilbert. What was he going to say? "Welp, we're fucked". That probably wouldn't have gone over too well. He went with the more audience friendly choice if you ask me. The professional sports franchises in Cleveland haven't seen a championship in like 80 years. If you are talking about a situation that is in dire need of perseverance you might as well compare it to one of the most inconceivable championship runs in recent memory. You might as well compare your team to the last successful sports organization Ohio has been able to celebrate.  Cleveland doesn't know any better. They have nothing else to relate it to. Does it seem improbable that these two situations could have anything in common? Sure does, but you can't possibly know without the series playing out. May as well give Cavaliers fans a soundbite to help them sleep at night instead of leaving them standing out on the ledge before game 2 even starts. No GM wants to admit defeat before it is imminent. No fan wants to accept failure before it's inevitable. It might be the smallest sliver of false hope, but it's still technically hope nonetheless. You know, if you're able to ignore that your backup is an racially limited Australian and not a 6'5, 250 pound freak of nature. That's an impressive feat in itself...