The verdict

Are we ready to brand this a collapse yet?
The Cavs have lost four in a row following a home-and-home sweep by the Pistons the past two days. Both losses came by 12 points.
I'm sure there are thousands of Clevelanders that are already gearing up for the slide, even as the team still stands in fourth place in the Eastern Conference and seven games over .500. The Cavs have 25 games left and stand at 32-25.
So what will their final record be? 35-47? 32-50? C'mon. It's Cleveland. There is no such thing as "it can't get worse." Right?
So, will LeBron tear his ACL during the month of March? Will he suffer a more debilitating knee injury that requires career-jeopardizing microfracture surgery?
We're waiting with baited breath.
Will Zydrunas Ilgauskas' feet finally give way? What about his knees? His back? We need to get more creative. How about a heart murmur?
Will Larry Hughes' finger heal just in time for him to accidentally sever it chopping vegetables? I'm trying to cover all my Cleveland bases here.
How about Donyell Marshall and Eric Snow, who are magically turning into George Burns before our very eyes? Whose kneecaps will fall off first?
If the Cavs and Pistons traded rosters, Marshall would be the top three-point marksman in the league, Damon Jones would be second, Hughes would be healthy, Z would be bound for the hall of fame and LeBron would already be the greatest player in history. The Pistons would be 54-2, and only because they have to play those pesky Spurs and Mavericks four times.
Meanwhile, Chauncey Billups would be a selfish, underachieving player in Cleveland. Rip Hamilton would be injured, Ben Wallace would be a stiff and Rasheed Wallace would be demanding a trade.
We're cursed. We suck. Why do we even have sports in Cleveland? Heck, why does this city even exist at all? Can we hire Halliburton to come in here, bulldoze the whole place and turn it back into forest and farmland, so that this miserable tract of land can actually do some good for once?
We know it's true. We make it true by our attitude. We believe it so. When the dam is about to crack, Clevelanders don't plug it. We take a hammer to it because it was going to break anyway. Then we sit in our rowboats and whine about how miserable life is.
Cleveland has got to be the most inanely self-defeating place on the planet. Sports and otherwise.