Fate Comes to Believeland

Tomorrow night, Believeland will be tested once again.

On its face, it seems this is a paradoxical form of identification for a city that's often labeled as a mistake. A city whose best days are widely believed to be trapped in the past. A city that houses the honors for the best musicians of yesteryear. A city that makes you wonder for much of the year if Mother Nature is encouraging you to find a reprieve from its weather. A city that has its own Wikipedia page and ESPN movie for the failures and apparent curse of its professional sports teams. A city that quite frankly hasn't offered much to believe. Very few places on the planet, though, will you find a group of people who believe more than fans of the Browns, Cavaliers, and Indians. They believe so ceaselessly an outsider might wonder if Journey's most popular song plays on a loop in city hall. They believe in such a fashion Einstein would dub the whole city mad.

In a terrifying twist from the status quo, however, the outsiders are believing in Cleveland now. They see a destroyer of worlds playing with a determined ferocity to prove he's more valuable than the league MVP and willing his teammates to believe in his mission. They see an opponent who's battered with injuries, mentally agitated, and on the cusp of never before seen failure.

This reactionary xenophobia to the support isn't grounded in a fear of the geographically or culturally foreign, though. It's derived from the widely feared, yet impossible to anticipate, unknown. A fear of what today foresight would deem an impossible play manages to happen and swings the game the wrong way tomorrow. A fear of once again having to weigh whether giving into nihilism about winning a championship is a better option than following down the path of belief created heartbreak in the seasons to come.

Whether it's a stroke of fate and dynasty or cruel misfortune is to be determined, but Game 7 against the Golden State Warriors will fall on Father's Day. Across the state of Ohio, especially in its northeast quadrant, fathers and sons will watch the game together wondering if decades of suffering will come to an end. Grandfathers will root with their grandsons hoping the next generation of fans will escape the misery they've had to endure. Members from every generation will believe, and if things don't go well, the history will be rehashed by the elders to make sure the faith never fades away.

Throughout this series, I'll admit my belief wasn't always strong. It looked like the quest to win a title was going to end before it got started. Since then, I've shifted from no hope, to subdued levels of pessimism, to what I would describe now as mild optimism. A Cleveland championship hasn't happened in 52 years. No team has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals. The Cavaliers' opponent is a team who compiled a historic 73-9 record, whose coach laid out a list of grievances with the refs that would make it seem any close call will go their way, who's led by the league MVP motivated by attacks on both him and his wife, and who will be playing in a building where they are 50-4. Many would say I am stupid to get my hopes up now.

I say we might look back on June 19, 2016 and realize it was the perfect storm and the most satisfying reward Believeland deserved.

J. Nave