If you consider every negative comment made about a team some universal hate...then I now know why you guy's believe the world hates Miami. Me being from Ohio kinda proves my point, I haven't heard any special treatment type negativity about ANY Miami team other than the early 90s Canes and the 10-14 Heat. This is how it looks from my house, and by the way...I despise Ohio pro sports teams....no really I do and always have.
I make fun of the Indians atleast once a week to the people here in Cbus, the ones that are left anyways.
Well I'm not making any statements about that. I just think it shows a lack of moral integrity for a city to care so much about a singular person. It isn't pride, its sad. If the city sucks they should work to change it, not live through a basketball player.
If every "negative comment" means 4,000 word dissertations by ESPN's top writing property about how the Heat were the worst thing to ever happen to basketball..then yeah...they don't get hate...or how bout Mike Lupica's weekly column about how Pat Riley is a scumbag, and his common snide remarks on Sports Reporters every damn sunday? You just don't care enough to pay attention.
Cleveland teams and fans are treated better by the media pretty much out of direct opposition to how the fans of every team in every sport outside of Cleveland regard the city, its teams and its fans. Lets be honest here. You see all kinds of jokes out there from completely uninterested parties about how Andrew Wiggins avoided hell or purgatory or some fate worse than death by not having to go to Cleveland. You see all kinds of jokes about how the women of Cleveland are indistinguishable from the men. The city hasn't had a champion in ANY sport in...how long, now? I think there literally may not be a more collectively shat-upon city and fanbase in the known universe than Cleveland. I think that's actually a true statement, not an exaggeration. People can "hate" A.C. Slater, because they know he can handle it. Nobody really hates Screech.
Thank you - I've been trying to explain this and failing. People the hate Miami has seen is mostly jealousy or a response to arrogance (old Canes and Big 3 Heat.) It's all sports related and more or less nothing about the city. People say things about Cleveland that are REALLY nasty. It's not like "Hey I don't like your sports teams" it's like "You're ugly and poor and the place you call home is a piece of crap that no one would ever want to visit." As someone not from Cleveland who moved here in my 20s - I never really understood why it got such a worse rap than Milwaukee or Pittsburgh or Detroit, to be honest. I love it here.
Although I will say Cleveland sports fans don't deserve their reputation as being great fans. They've been through a ton of heartbreak, but that isn't the same as being over-the-top in supporting their teams.
Pittsburgh is a great city. Can't even compare it to those other places. And if you like Cleveland than great. Good on you and your happiness. But what annoys me about Clevelanders and midwesterners in general is their "real Americans" salt of the Earth BS. That is not directed at you by the way, you don;t do that. Take LeBron's letter. It was filled with 1950's conservative middle America romance language. And it's not only disingenuous coming from him, it's nonsense in general. All of that "nothing is given, everything is earned" foolishness as if degrees and six figure jobs are just being handed out on the coasts. You see it now. Somehow Cleveland "deserves" their super team but Miami didn't. Why any city "deserves" sports success is beyond me as it's meaningless.
I think of Detroit as being even lower than Cleveland. I think in the 80's to 90's those two were neck and neck for pop culture jokes about how crappy a city the two are, but Detroit is what Cleveland would be if the economy took a major dump on Cleveland and turned it into a scene from 12 Monkeys. Like if you lived in Tampa and introduced yourself and said you're from Cleveland, the person you're talking to might cackle and make some snide comment like I bet you're glad you moved away. If you lived in Tampa and introduced yourself and said you're from Detroit, the person you're talking to would get sympathy eyes and ask if you're OK.
Detroit is definitely worse than Cleveland in that it has major social/political/economic problems that don't have easy solutions plus a ton of corruption. Cleveland is just miserable, Detroit is post-apocalyptic. They are even having problems getting water. It's like a war torn country.
Now that I think about it, Buffalo has a similar reputation as Cleveland. Not quite as bad, but like nearly so.
Yeah I totally get this - just find it weird how much Cleveland gets targeted specifically. Like the Daniel Tosh tweet about thank god Wiggins doesn't have to live in Cleveland. I think Minnesota is probably a really cool city - just not sure why places like that don't seem to get the same amount of jokes.
The people. Not the city. The People of Cleveland are rarely attacked, and are actually propped up. Just this morning, Stephen A Smith called the people of Miami "Plastic, seemingly fake, twin sisters of the people from Hollywood." he then called us "Baby Hollywood." That is just this morning. Tomorrow will be another attack..and so on and so on.
I love this city and I know I get defensive about it. But this is not a great sports city. People mistake all the heartbreaking moments for meaning there are great fans here. That's not the truth.
Exactly. But even keeping it to sports, we're apparently the only people who leave early, show up late, come in less numbers when teams are bad, etc. I hope somebody keeps track of Cavs fans leaving early and arriving late, but I'm sure that won't happen
Buffalo has a pretty bad rep as well although that seems more directed at the fans. I saw a blog or something the other day that singled them out as the most inebriated NFL fans. Also Buffalo was on some list as the top 5 (worst) effect on ticket prices as a visiting team. I think they were second after Jacksonville.
I think the only reason people like him is because of the contrast he provides with Bayless, but they are both clowns.
You basically just have several media blowhards who repeatedly attack Miami fans regardless of the facts. Forbes just recently rated the NBA fan bases in terms of loyalty. (This was obviously a business measure rather than an abstract perception) and ranked Miami as the most loyal NBA fan base. I regularly hear about the fans who left before the Ray Allen shot, but if you see the commonly shown pic of Allen as he let go of the ball, the arena was clearly packed. They seem to base it on the 200 or so fans who were shown outside the arena. With a little more than 20,000 in attendance, you're talking about less than 1%. The media doesn't control the facts, but they largely control perception and they do that by ignoring the facts.
I love Pittsburgh - super cool city - just not sure that it's doing anything so much better than Cleveland that makes Cleveland the butt of every joke.
.......and those media blowhards just happen to be on the highest rated shows on the most watched sports network in America. A few others just happen to inhabit the Pre/Post game shows for every NBA media property.
It is right now. Detroit used to be "the Paris of the Midwest", however. Cleveland has always been this sort of gloomy, low-middle income city that's trapped between the larger Chicago and Philadelphia. As a municipality, here's Cleveland's problem: what does it provide? What is it known for? Detroit has the Big 3 automakers. What does Cleveland do? You also mentioned Milwaukee. Milwaukee has manufacturing and brewing. It's also more populated than Cleveland.
The weird thing about Cleveland is that it has a top 5 orchestra, the 2nd largest theater district, and top hospital in the country. But for whatever reason they've done an awful job of tying themselves to those any of those things. Instead of being known for all the high-end stuff they're good at, they always get lumped into manufacturing or blue-collar jobs that left a long time ago.
Can't wait for the first time he extolls the virtues of the Cavs bench which includes all the guys he said were dead weight when they played for the Heat and Shawn Marion who is a lesser Battier.
Bill Simmons pretty much said the Cavs were complete idiots for taking Kyrie over Williams and doubled down on it recently saying that since Kyrie hadn't made the playoffs he isn't ready to admit he was completely wrong. And that's the problem with Bill Simmons - when he's writing about an event or providing historical context, he can be riveting. When he tries to be an expert, he comes off as an idiot. He's supposed to be a FAN - and it drives me nuts that he rarely writes as one anymore. But the 30 for 30s have been great and Grantland provides a platform for some of the best NBA writing out there. Taking Simmons out of a role he was never going to be good at and giving him creative control over something new could work out well.
and............... it turns out the Joy was only temporary.... Bill Simmons will launch "The Grantland Basketball Show" on ESPN with 18, 1 hour episodes to go through the entire season. and Stephen A Smith is the leading candidate to replace Bill on Countdown. I told you so...it would be worse.
Those are things to occupy you when you happen to be in Cleveland, not reasons to visit or live in Cleveland in the first place. Why would I move to Cleveland to visit a Cleveland Clinic? Especially when I pass by one every day during my work commute.
Per Barry Jackson, NBA has removed Heat-Wizards from TNT's opening night schedule and replaced it with the Cavs. Get ready for Cavs overload. Guess this is how the rest of the country felt the last 4 years. I'll have to pony up for League Pass this year. There were always enough national games to satisfy me, but not so much anymore.
I would rather watch Stephen A Smith than Simmons. At least SAS makes me laugh from time to time unlike that biased pompous windbag from Boston.
Yeah, and Stephen A. is a reporter with some interesting nuggets from time to time. Both are festering diseases, but Smith is manageable, Simmons is uncurable.
Look at it this way - if Simmons is getting his own show, it's probably going to focus on Zach Lowe and all of the other NBA writers. It'll be another platform for those dudes. I don't love Simmons, but he's completely committed to NBA coverage. If he has his hands on it, at least it won't just be another NFL talking head show.
Cavs at Miami Christmas game!! http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/1...it-miami-heat-christmas-day-according-sources
