It’s not the worst time to be a Cavs fan.  

This team isn't particularly good, and the majority of people would agree they're not going anywhere—at least not this year.  But despite this, Cleveland is witnessing one of the more entertaining team's in franchise history.  Going forward, this team has given themselves options.  A lot of options.  Like, an obscene amount of options.  Ultimately, that's what makes the Cavs experience so exciting.  In the NBA, options are everything, and the Cavs are compounding their options at a staggering rate.   Basically, options are hope—the legitimate kind, not the kind the Indians and Browns can offer.  Especially right now, as we're approaching the advent of the NBA's new luxury tax penalty.  

Here's what hope looks like:

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Just two days after watching a young, inexperienced Browns team unravel in crunch time, it was somewhat therapeutic to see a pair of 20 year-olds step up like stone cold assassins in the final minutes of a surprising 108-101 Cavalier win over the Clippers tonight at Staples Center. Even the staunchest Dion Waiters haters might find themselves a little tongue-tied after this one. 

Four games into his NBA career, the kid who famously never started a game at Syracuse seems to have adjusted pretty well to his first unit status. Exhibiting an icy confidence that only occasionally tiptoed into recklessness, Dion Waiters just plain shot the lights out tonight, shooting an efficient 10-17 from the field and a bonkers 7-of-11 from three point range. All told, the rook finished with a game-high 28 points, complementing Kyrie Irving’s 24 points and thoroughly outshining the far more high-profile duo on the other end of the court. 

The Cavs (2-2) have now beaten the Clippers (2-2) 11 out of their last 12 meetings, but it’s kind of a deceiving stat. A good chunk of those triumphs involved LeBron James walking all over the likes of Baron Davis and Cuttino Mobley. Tonight—on the road and fresh off that heartbreaking loss in Milwaukee, no less—Cleveland’s youngsters were mostly getting their first ever looks at Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and the supposedly title-contending Clips. This included Kyrie Irving, who was matching up with CP3 for the first of likely many, many times to come.

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Aside from one stretch of horrendous basketball spanning the first and second quarters the Cavaliers held up pretty well Saturday night in Milwaukee’s home opener. Cleveland started out fast, fell behind, fought back in the second half and nearly pulled off a Kyrie Irving-led miracle comeback in the final moment before Brandon Jennings ended the festivities with a shot that blew the roof off the Bradley Center and the wind out of the sails of the Cavaliers.

Not good to lose the first game of a six-game road trip, but this was fun to watch nonetheless. When you’re young and on the road in the NBA games like this happen. What can you do?

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Honeymoon’s over, folks. Despite the warm fuzzies we all got from that win over an anonymous, shorthanded Wizards team on Tuesday, your 2012/2013 Cavaliers revealed that they may in fact have some obstacles still left to overcome on their way to an NBA title this season. In quite possibly the lowest cumulative decibel game in the history of the Q’s “Get Loud” meter, it was Chicago 115, Cleveland 86.

Man it was quiet! In fact, just exclaiming, “man, it was quiet” feels like painfully abrasive noise compared to the ambient Eno album that was Quicken Loans Arena during this entire ballgame. Credit the Bulls (2-0). They muzzled the crowd from the jump ball (it was 7-0 before most people sat down) and held that sucker on there for the next 48 minutes. Yes, Derrick Rose is hurt. Yes, this makes Chicago a less intimidating team. But if you really thought the Cavs (1-1) could roll up on proven pros like Noah, Boozer, Deng, and Hamilton like they were the equivalents of the bum parade out of Washington, you were playing a cruel joke on yourself. 

It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than 2 games to determine if the much criticized Dion Waiters pick was a Dajuan Wagner caliber disaster or not. But tonight, it’s probably enough to say the youngster didn’t distinguish himself. After stroking a three-pointer to cut the lead to 11-10 four minutes into the game, Waiters only managed two more buckets the rest of the night, finishing 3-for-7 with 7 points and 4 assists. Meanwhile, Chicago replied to that Waiters triple by outscoring Cleveland 25-6 for the rest of the first quarter—absolutely massacring the Cavs on easy scores off turnovers. Cleveland only wound up with 17 turnovers on the night, but more than half of those came in the first frame, and they pretty much determined the course of things in short order.

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