Cleveland Cavaliers

I’ve never been a big fan of the NBA. Generally, I would much rather see a college game, which is pure basketball, or even a game between two good high school teams. Nevertheless, I can appreciate the extreme talent that NBA players have, and it can certainly be highly entertaining to watch them exercise their skills. But that’s what it is, entertainment. It’s not actually basketball as played by the rules. I don’t know of any other sport where the rules take a back seat to the entertainment value.

Having said that, I have watched more games this year than probably the last 10-15 years combined. I am, after all, a Cleveland fan, and when Cleveland teams do well, I pay attention. And no Cleveland team in my lifetime has accomplished what the Cavs are accomplishing this season.

So now that the regular season is over, how will the Cavs fare in the playoffs? I would say that if they do not win the NBA championship, I will be more disappointed than I was in 95 when the Indians lost the world series.

The 95 Indians were a special team. There were a number of players who had career seasons that year. They had the enthusiasm of skillful youngsters combined with the maturity of seasoned veterans who had been there before. These three things combined to give us arguably the most exciting Indians team in history. But they were not the best Indians team in history. The 95 season was a magical season in which so many things came together at all the right times. The walk off home runs became infectious, and the players started to believe they could do it whenever they needed to. Who could ever forget Dennis Eckersly’s big “Wow” as he walked off the mound, having just been the victim of one. But when it came right down to it, the Braves proved to be better in crunch time.

The Cavalier’s team that reached the NBA finals two years ago also played over their heads, very much like the Indians that year who came within a game of going to the World Series. They played with more talent than they actually had, and they really had to reach back for something extra in the Piston series to even make it to the finals. So although it was very disappointing that they didn’t win a single game in the finals, just getting there was a great accomplishment.

This year’s team is different. They truly are the class of the league. They match up well in every position and they have a very strong bench. But the biggest thing they have going for them is their cohesiveness. They truly seem to love and respect each other, and there doesn’t appear to be a bit of selfishness in any of them. Labron won’t allow it. They mesh well together and they all seem to want to learn from each other. There have been a number of times in recent weeks when I have seen other players, such as Mo Williams and Anderson Varajao, split seams with Labron James like passes that had me rubbing my eyes to see if I had seen correctly.

They have only one glaring weakness. Whenever Ben Wallace is not in there, they have no one to guard the paint and other teams are able to drive on them at will and get a lot of easy layups. They were able to overcome that when he was injured by using a swarming type of defense and staying hot offensively, but it could be a problem in the playoffs if he is not healthy.

It’s foolishness, of course, to predict that the Cavs will win the championship. There are too many variables in a postseason that stretches to more than 8 weeks. But right now, there is no team that can beat them in a seven game series unless there are major injuries or they somehow lose their focus.

Rewritten Tax Code

Today president Obama promised to rewrite the tax code to make it simpler. He has appointed a committee to "study the problem" and report back to him by the end of the year. Really??? Why should it take that long to make something "simple?" There are already 1000 good plans out there to simplify the tax code. So even if he does come up with a plan, all that will be accomplished is that there will be 1001. (Note to literalists: I use the number 1000 to make a point, not because there are exactly 1000 plans.)

Personally, I favor a flat tax with absolutely no deductions for anyone for any reason except a healthy personal exemption for each person. And I only agree with that so that the poor would pay no taxes, as was originally intended when the constitutional amendment was passed. And if you're going to give an exemption to one, you have to give it to all if you really believe in fairness.

So every person in the country would be entitled to a personal exemption of, say, $10,000-$15,000. But every nickel above that would be taxed, No Exceptions! I think 10% would be a fair number. I imagine, but can't prove, that if every penny above the personal exemption were taxed at 10%, the government would probably take in at least as much money as it does now with its myriad deductions.

Of course, we need to be fair. The current tax monster would need to be phased out gradually since so many people have planned their expenses around the current system. So eliminating things like the mortgage deduction would cause more problems than it would solve if done cold turkey. But if say the current system were phased out a portion at a time over the next 5-7 years while the new system is phased in, people would have time to readjust their lives if necessary so as not to be dependent on the deductions currently available.