Little Future right now.

[Harper4Ferry?]

I've tried to watch this team this year, but I'm just so disgruntled with many of the "players" that we have on this roster. Perhaps it's a deep seeded hatred of Jamison and Gibson, both of which are the final lovechild remnants of the rape from LeBron's departure.

So anyways, looking at the roster right now for 2012-13, and i see the following

Staters-
Irving-No doubt a special player, and the only reason I even tune into the Cavaliers. He's going to have to take it to the next level with his wretched supporting cast if this team is ever going to be good. Something like 25ppg or more.
Andy-He's a really good player, but his inability to stay healthy is troublesome. Ideally you'd want him playing like 20-25 minutes per game and hope that he can help you steal several games a season you shouldn't win.

Bench-
Gee-Possibly good enough that he should be a rotation player on most lower tier teams. He's obviously miscast as a starter on our squad. I think there's a place for him in this league, and I would hope we attempt to retain him on a reasonable bench player type deal. Something like 3M a year for 3 years.

Thompson-I'm not convinced that he will ever be anything more than just another guy. The signs are certainly there for him to become a great defensive player. But he is only shooting like 40% and his free throw percentage is a liability. Maybe it was lack of a camp, but he better take a giant step forward next year.

2013 Rookie(our pick)-Whomever we take needs to be able to contribute from day one, and will most likely be thrust into a starting role.

2013 Rookie(Lakers pick)-We need to get this one right. Even if it's an undersized big in the mold of a Blair, Faried, Boozer-type that gets passed over a bunch of times. Gotta hit on this pick

The Rest
Boobie-He's not a good player. He had one good game vs. Detroit, and we've overpaid him for the past 4 years because of this. I pray we won't pick up his option(should be a no-brainer to decline) and also pray that they won't offer him a contract.

Jamison-He can score the ball, but he's really aging. In many ways, he's probably hurting us this year because we stay in games we normally wouldn't. Hopefully we don't bring him back, as the 2012-13 cavs won't be playoff caliber

Parker, Samuels, Hollins, Harangody, Erden, Casspi, Walton-
None of these guys are even rotation players. I don't see the upside in bringing any of them back, but surely we will end up seeing at least a few of them next year.

Conclusion-
I don't really see much of a future here. We basically have to pull another ace out of our asses and get someone like Davis by winning the lottery. Even then, we'd still be at least one more excellent rookie away from making a step towards being an upper division squad. We will have some cap space this offseason, but I don't know if that will even matter. I don't think anyone will even want to play here.

Our best strategy might be to target some of the Restricted Free agents, and attempt to overpay them in order for us to cause their team not to match-

Eric Gordon-Scary injury history. But he's conceivably worth maxing out and praying that the league owned Hornets pass. He can score, and would give us the type of backcourt that you can easily see evolving into an elite level team.

OJ Mayo-Perhaps worth attempting to obtain on an above market deal, but on one that isn't going to destroy future flexibility. Memphis is at or near the spending limit, so I'm betting he would be available.

Nic Batum-He appears to be a pretty solid player, but ideally I'd like to see more scoring if I'm going to overpay for a guy. Looks likely to want to continue in Portland.

Aaron Brooks-He would make for a very undersized backcourt with Kyrie. But he's an established scorer that we could possibly obtain for an above midlevel offer. We would need some elite defense behind this configuration of a backcourt, but it's certainly possible that it could work. Phoenix seems to be playing hardball with him, but if we were to offer like 4/30, I bet we could snag him.

I hope that we can take the steps forward and build this team into a playoff squad. But as of now, I'm not convinced that next year is going to be dramatically better than the past couple.

[Rise Against]

Yeah, we are a pretty terrible team. If it weren't for Kyrie, I think we would probably be near the Wizards, Hornets, and Bobcats for the worst record in the league. Let's look at it this way though. There are quite a bit of players on the roster right now who will not be on the team next year. Jamison, Parker, Hollins, Samuels are those who comes to mind.

Thompson has been a bit disappointing so far, I am going to admit. But we should not give up on him so quickly and easily. He still has a lot of learning to do. With the Cavs expecting to lose more with Sessions gone, let's hope that we end up with a higher pick. Let's not forget we have the right to swap picks in the 2013 draft, which I think will help us out tremendously.

[BSM]

That's pretty pessimistic. I suppose I shouldn't expect anything better from a Cavs fan but, cmon, under this ownership I'm pretty excited.

[TheOUTLAW]

Yeah, this is pessimistic. I do think that Jamison has helped us win games we shouldn't have. But wins are valuable especially when you have a special young player. But I think anyone that thought we had a lot of talent just flat out wasn't looking at this team last year. What we do have is a lot of picks and hopefully we'll find some good rotation players and maybe a nother star in there. The way I'm looking at it is that not only are we bad this year, but we should be bad next year as well. And, we should have cap space next year. Picks and maybe a free agent (if one can be lured here) should make us pretty darn competitive in 2 years.

[gflem]

If you look back I think most of us here were expecting 15-25 wins this season, so I dont think too many of us thought there was a lot of talent on this team. Kyrie has been better than expected, Samardo has been worse than how he finished last season before his wrist injury. Nobody knew for sure if Andy was going to return to form, but he came back better. Gibson and Antawn are what I think most of us expected and Gee has been much improved so I dont get the pessimism either.
My expectations start going up from here though, Grant has done a good job imo in regards to adding picks which is critical here to any improvement, now he has to pick the right players, which brings me to TT. I dont think we will get a good read on him this season, too young and raw. He really needs to improve in almost every area to start to look like a #4 pick. We took a flier on Casspi and it hasnt worked out but even in that deal we can still come up with a decent pick in the future.
Reasons for hope, they start with Kyrie and Coach Scott. We will be more athletic next season with the incoming draft picks and the departure of Antawn, Hollins should be on the move and we will have some cap space as well. Luke worthless may turn out to be a semi valuable expiring next season and with the 4 picks this year in a strong draft it isnt out of the question that we could move up some and grab 2 quality starters.
Yes, we will be getting younger but to me that doesnt mean getting worse, in fact if I dont start to see real improvement by the middle of next season I will really begin to question the direction of the team then. But it takes time to totally rebuild a franchise in a small market like Cleveland.

[Cavsfan9000]

I haven't felt much pessimism this year.

The number one pick has proven he is the best player from that draft.

My feelings about Thompson are fairly neutral right now. Going to give him some slack until we are well into next season.

Gee's improvement has been a highlight for me. Yeah he isn't a starter on a decent team but we yanked him out of the D league. I don't know how someone could not be happy with him.

As for me being happy next year it does revolve around us hitting on the draft this year. Since we aren't a desirable free agency destination we NEED to get a solid one-two punch through the draft.

If whoever it is ends up looking mediocre or worse then I am going to start feeling pessimistic. If the team starts looking like Kyrie + "those other guys" by the end of next season I will start thinking of a lebron like scenario and my feelings toward the team will change.

As for tossing money (and overpaying by a lot) for someone this off-season Im not for it. Get our picks, take them and our other young players and make them work their asses off and then the following year try and make a big move depending on our needs.

[Triumph36]

- eric gordon is made of glass and will come with an lol high asking price because he was the "centerpiece" of a cp3 trade

- oj mayo sucks

- portland probably won't let him go and not worth the cost it'd take to get him away

- not starting 2 PGs and most certainly not paying him >$7M a year. oh and he sucks.