Should the Cleveland Cavaliers Look To the Future or Play for Today?

Inevitably at some point throughout the upcoming Cavaliers season, the team's management will have to decide what the point of this season is.

Obviously, the knee-jerk reaction to this question is to win as many games as possible. But, as the team stands now, we have no clue what kind of team this is.

Speculation has run rampant over the past few months of what the Cavs have to look forward to this year. Predictions have run the gamut from a paltry 12 wins (a seemingly ridiculous prediction from Yahoo! Sports) to the average level-headed guess of somewhere in the 30-range, and even on the crazy end of the spectrum is Terry Jones' 45 to 50 win prediction.

So there is obviously some difference in what people around the country think is possible for these Cleveland Cavaliers, but the only real answer right now is that, quite simply, nobody knows.

Because nobody knows exactly what the deal with this team is, nobody knows what stage they are in as a basketball team.

Their young guns could constitute putting them in the up-and-comer category. Their major offseason loss could put them in the rebuilding category. Their completely revamped front office and coaching staff could qualify them as a team that is a year off, one that needs to find their groove to be an effective team.

At any rate, the best we can say for now is that this season can only be categorized as TMBLTPTD (too much basketball left to play to determine).

It seems that the cutoff point in which to determine the plans for this team will be somewhere around the end of December.

The cutoff game that seems important is December 29 at Charlotte. It is just past a rigorous nine-game stretch which includes seven road games and the ever-anticipated Miami game mixed in.

The Cavaliers season will be 32 games in and much easier to analyze at that point.

By then, we will have a good idea of what this team is capable of and what we can expect come by the end of the year.

At this point, it must be determined what the point of this season is: play for today, or play for tomorrow.

Play For Today

The play for today notion is one that obviously calls to play the optimal lineup and improve the team by any means to make the playoffs.

The Cavs should not stop to think about anything else than playing their optimal lineup for the best possible results for the 2010 portion of the schedule.

After the first 32 games, anything above 15 wins will be sufficient enough to justify a playoff push.  Although depending on how some of the games go, fewer than that would be enough if the games were close and hard fought.

The problem with playing for the current season, however, is the damaging effect on the future.

Is a seventh or eighth seed playoff spot worth a mid-level draft pick?

Now, I am in no way saying they should tank the season to get a high lottery pick, but should they find themselves in a struggling situation they should begin to think about the future and scrap the original plans.

There are plenty of ways to improve a team's future without laying down for a lottery pick.

The play for the future model goes a bit like this.

Play For Tomorrow

If the first 32 games should go awry for any reason from injuries to bad play, the Cavs should not think about twice about how to handle the season at hand.

Were the Cavs to play for the future, the should leave no stone unturned.

Play the young guys to get them more experience. Hand out minutes to Christian Eyenga, Daniel Gibson, Danny Green, JJ Hickson, Samardo Samuels, and Ramond Sessions by the handful.

Begin to shop some of the expiring contracts and veteran players for draft picks, young players, player rights, and trade exceptions.

In other words, fire sale. Get rid of any piece possible that will probably not be around for the long run.

If, when these tactics are implemented, the team starts winning then it's just icing on the cake.

The fans have suffered through enough in the past to realize that sometimes a losing season is not as bad as it seems and it can even be a precursor to the good things to come.

The best way to improve a team is through the draft, as superstar free-agent signings are not the norm, this past year has of course been the exception.

With the draft, more picks are better and lower numbers are exponentially better, especially in the NBA, where with only five guys on the court at once, one player can make a huge difference.

This is a situation that I would hate to see happen, but were things to go bad, it may be better to play for 2012 rather than for 2010.