Cleveland Cavaliers: Eastern Conference Repeat?

Close your eyes and imagine another time and place. Cleveland: early last December, stuck in the lull between the Indians almost-was in the American League playoffs, to the impending disaster for the Buckeyes in their second straight national championship game, one story could prevail above the rest.

King James is in street clothes, watching his teammates stumble to a fifth straight loss, dropping the defending Eastern Conference champions to a dismal 9-12 through the first quarter of the season.

As in most cases, the stories began to surface on whats wrong with Cleveland. This is a team led by arguably the best young star in the league, on the rise, fresh off their first finals berth. LeBron and the Cavs seemed to be squandering a chance to begin their push to greatness.

Fast Foward to the present: the trade deadline has come and gone. James has missed just one game since a 101-95 loss to the lowly Sonics, while carrying Cleveland up to the fourth position in the Eastern Conference.

To make matters better the Cavs pulled of a monster three team 11 player deadline deal, bringing in a scorer in Wally Szczerbiak, point guard Delonte West, to go along with front court help in four-time defensive player of the year Ben Wallace and former #1 overall pick Joe Smith.

This forced them to give up little more than the trigger happy Larry Hughes, and banger Drew Gooden the Cavaliers appear to have added adequate depth to their equation.

So after 250 or so words, lets start the controversy. It's time to pencil in Cleveland as the favorite to come out of the East.

Back to the Cavs, barring any unforseen injuries over the season final six weeks the Cavs figure to finish as the four or five seed in the Eastern Conference, setting the table for a first round matchup with the Toronto Raptors.

Buried in the land to the North, GM Bryan Colangelo has put together an impressive bunch of players capable of competiting with any team on any night. The continued emergence of big man Chris Bosh along with pure point guard Jose Calderon being thrust into a starting role give the Raptors a strong one-two punch.

Looking beyond the cover however, question marks surround the rest of the Toronto roster. With roleplayers such as Anthony Parker, Carlos Delfino and Jamario Moon not proving consistent enough to carry the load, coupled by TJ Ford's ongoing injury troubles and Andrea Bargnani's disappointment in what could have been his breakout year, the Raptors seem to be easily overmatched in the opening series.

On the the second round, and the three-headed monster that is the Boston Celtics. We've already gone over what the Celts bring to the table, so looking at the matchup, you can see where the Cavs can exploit the Eastern Conference champions.

Against Boston, the acqusition of Big Ben figures to prove its value the most. In Wallace, the Cavaliers have a man who on top of his game has always proved able to slow down the best big men in the league.

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