bumsquare

You have to have people living somewhere before retail can operate. Most Cleveland neighborhoods have half or less of the population they once had. Districts that have retained more population (Cleveland Hts., Lakewood, West Park) have more well populated commercial corridors.

I spent most of my work day looking at mock drafts after the lottery last year.

I'm sooooo glad Sullinger didn't come out for the draft last year. I think there would have been some pressure on the Cavs to draft him. Fat 20-year-olds can stay the hell away from my basketball team.

That's definitely true. Doesn't it also seem like there's a high number of rookies making an impact this season? Not a lot of superstars, but some very solid contributors from this supposedly "weak" draft. Or maybe I'm just paying more attention than usual because of Kyrie and TT.

Here's a cool link I just found that illustrates exactly how much of a crap shoot the draft is. http://www.mynbadraft.com/nba-draft-picks/20th-overall/200509/ It looks like a #1 overall generally gets you a pretty good player. After that....yeesh.

Here's a hypothetical fake GM question: Let's say you're sitting at No. 5 in the upcoming draft. The Cavs are sitting at number 8 and also have the 20th pick (via Los Angeles via Dallas via Ramon Sessions). Would you take 8 and 20 for number 5? If you're the Cavs' GM would you make that trade?

Carmelo has been a disaster in NY and Chris Paul wasn't involved in a sign and trade. The Garnett trade was a once-in-a generation trade, and it wasn't like Garnett went to Boston because he wanted to play at TD BankNorth Garden; he only agreed after Boston was able to turn it's wealth of assets into Ray Allen.

I don't think anybody has built a champion through free agency except the first Lakers 3-peat. Everybody else built through trades. The Cavs are on equal footing when it comes to the ability to make trades.

It was foolish on my part to claim anyone needs to be savvy when dealing with the Clippers.

Sorry, forgot about the Spurs. They did it with late draft picks.

I agree that you need that centerpiece. I guess I'm banking on Kyrie being that player. The picture gets much murkier when you talk about the second best player on a team. These tend to be high picks not drafted by the team they won a championship with, and acquired very late in their careers. Jason Terry, Pau Gasol, Kevin Garnett/Ray Allen, Shaquille O'Neal, Clyde Drexler, Adrian Dantley/Bill Laimbeer, Kareem (pulled a reverse by acquiring Kareem first, then drafting Magic). The only exception to this rule are the Jordan Bulls and the Hamilton/Billups/Prince/Wallace/Wallace Pistons.

Doesn't hurt.

That's not to make the claim that low picks are better than high picks. But I think the record shows at least fairly clearly that intentional tanking isn't as successful a strategy for contention as determined and intelligent management.

It's AN option. A savvy front office will trump high draft picks every time. Remember how we got Kyrie? (I mean besides drafting him with the first overall pick.)

The point I was trying to make (by pointing to the point that somebody else was making) is that none of the recent champions have gotten there by having successive lottery picks. It does seem quite important to have 1 grand slam lottery pick to start with. Granted, Boston did turn two lottery picks into a championship, but that's not a model I would want to follow. They completely mortgaged their future by essentially rolling the dice with three 30+ year-old players on the downside of their careers. It happened to work in their case. San Antonio won their first championship in David Robinson's 10th season in strike-shortened 98-99. I don't see how either of these cases apply to the Cavs' current situation, unless you want to add another lottery pick in 15 years when Kyrie's dirt stache starts to turn silver. Other recent champs: Lakers (Kobe, fantasy free agent addition, then trades); Detroit (free agency, trades, smart late round drafting); Miami (Dwyane Wade, trade (which did include a recent lottery pick)); Dallas (Dirk Nowitzki, time).

There was a good series of articles on cavstheblog (article here http://www.cavstheblog.com/?p=8062). The writer goes through the way each of the winningest teams of the past 20 years became winning teams. Very few of them accomplished it with multiple lottery picks of their own. Oklahoma City is the current darling of the league and the model everybody points to, but last time I checked they had 2 winning seasons under their belt and 0 championships.

Definitely excited for Jamison to be gone. He needs too many shots to be productive, and I think he's a big part of the reason that Kyrie has started recent games relatively slowly. TT is obviously very inconsistent, but he's also only 20 years old. Give these young fellas some run! Oh, and please trade Ramon to the Lakers for a first round pick. I don't want to watch him and Kyrie try to play together anymore.

61-28th and Franklin at Franklin Circle.

Jack Frost Donuts!

Like I said though, it's all very preliminary.

The Baker Building is the one with Moriarty's, Teahouse Noodles, etc. The Garfield is the building west of the Holiday Inn Express. Both have most of their frontage on East 6th.

VERY preliminary but the Garfield and Baker buildings are being looked at for conversion.

Planned. From what I've heard, the project already has financing in place. Also, the Apartment building and surrounding homes have been completely vacated, with windows knocked out, etc. Feel free to insert inner-city Cleveland joke here.

I believe this may already be/was a garage? That is, the back of the building facing Prospect.

I've definitely had weird service at L'Albatros.