In case you haven’t noticed, the Cleveland Cavaliers are the hottest team on the planet.
They have finally come together the way we imagined when that tall Bath Township resident announced, “I’m coming home.”
LeBron is surrounded by all the right pieces, pieces he has helped mold, and the Cavs have become a well-oiled machine.
They are every bit as well-oiled off the court, at least when it comes to dealing with the media.
Unlike days of old, when people like me could just walk right up to people like Mark Price, Brad Daugherty and Larry Nance after a practice, interaction between players and reporters is tightly choreographed.
One of the games played in the media workroom at the Cavs’ practice facility — the Cleveland Clinic Courts in Independence, centered on a gorgeous leafy campus not far off Rockside Road — is guessing which players will be “made available” to the media on that particular day.
Sometimes, it’s singular — which player.
When the doors between the workroom and the court swing open, the people with cameras and notepads zoom to a corner of the huge gym where a blue hanging backdrop carries not only dozens of Cavs’ logos but also an equal number of Cleveland Clinic logos, the better to turn an interview into countless free plugs.
The reporters self-arrange in a semicircle. When a player approaches, the seas part — but barely long enough for the player to assume his position.
Some players are a lot more comfortable with the process than others. LeBron has become an absolute master of the art, on most days giving detailed, thoughtful answers to reasonable questions. Some days he’s a bit grumpy. Who isn’t?
Watching all of this is a lot more fun for me than for people who actually cover the Cavs, such as Jason Lloyd and Marla Ridenour. As the team soars higher and higher into the NBA stratosphere, the semicircles grow bigger and bigger.
Says Marla: “I had to go to Target and buy a $5 selfie stick only because, as the crowds of media get larger and larger, you get farther and rather away from these guys and you can’t hear.
“Sometimes you can’t even hear the answers or the questions. So … I resorted to [attaching her cellphone to the selfie stick using a blue rubber band]. If you see the rubber band on TV, you know it’s me.”
The semicircles will grow far bigger this week, and, assuming the best, will balloon to record proportions when the Cavs reach the NBA Finals.
At the games themselves, the media are given limited pregame access to the locker room. Some players will talk before a game, some won’t. After a game, the locker room is open for an extended time, but the day’s top stars are marched down a hallway to a large interview room where reporters sit in rows and take turns firing questions.
That certainly makes sense logistically, given the relatively small size of locker rooms. But that also means everyone is getting exactly the same quotes.
Which is just the way the Cavs and the NBA like it.
Kinda sad from my viewpoint. I can no longer sidle up to a player like Michael Jordan as he was walking toward the team bus at the Richfield Coliseum and ask him what music he was listening to through his headphones. (Janet Jackson.)
There’s another difference between Marla & Me: When it comes to the Cleveland Cavaliers, she and others who actually cover the team can’t be fans. Their job requires a professional detachment. Not mine. At this point, I’m free to be “All In,” as the T-shirts and banners say.
And I am.
I’m also trying really, really hard to just enjoy the ride, rather than hold my breath about whether this will finally be the year that blah blah blah blah.
I’m so tired of talking about it.
As one of LeBron’s sponsors so succinctly says: Just Do It.
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com. He also is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bob.dyer.31