Cleveland Is A City Of Champions Once Again After The Summer Cavs Claim The Vegas Summer League Title In Dominant Fashion

Bart Young. Getty Images.

It took the city of Cleveland 52 years before LeBron ended the title drought and the Cavs won the 2016 NBA title. Since that epic comeback, nobody else had been able to bring another title to that city.

Until tonight.

This time, the Summer Cavs did not need LeBron James to save them in order to secure their championship. Who needs LeBron when you have the other Mobley brother and Sam Merrill? The fact that a sentence like that even exists is why Summer League will always be the greatest. Every July you hope for a few things once the games start out in Vegas.

1. Health

2. Second year players making a jump

3. Rookies looking legit

4. A title

In tonight's Final between the 5-0 Rockets and the 5-0 Cavs, we had a little bit of everything. There was the Summer League MVP Cam Whitmore for the Rockets

who made a fairly strong case that a handful of other teams made a mistake by passing on him on Draft night. Both side will All Summer League Team members, each with one First Team guy (Merrill, Whitmore), and one Second Team Guy (Bates, Smith Jr). Now you could also say this game has an asterisk because Jabari Smith Jr didn't play and he was a legit monster over these last 10 days, but that's life. I will say it was interesting to see that the MVP curse when it comes to winning a title is still thriving. In the NBA it hasn't happened since 2015 and tonight showed that maybe winning the MVP is actually the kiss of death.

In terms of tonight's game, the Summer Cavs were pretty much in control from the start. They got off to a 28-14 lead and never really looked back. The Summer Rockets tried to make some noise with a little 9-0 in the 2nd quarter 

but the Summer Cavs closed the game on a 48-34 run, never allowing more than 19 points in either quarter of the second half. They got two absolutely dominant performances from Isaiah Mobley (28/11/3) and Sam Merrill (27,4,2 w/ 6 3PM) not to mention a solid 19/5/4 from Emoni Bates. 

For a player taken 49th, Bates had himself one hell of a summer. At the very least he showed he belonged, which is basically the only thing that truly matters with summer league basketball. Bates averaging 13.8/6.2 on 43/41% splits certainly proved that, and who knows what he looks like with some additional development in the G League. Again, he was a late second round pick, so the fact that he's already looking this good is something that would have any fan excited.

Not only that, but the way Sam Merrill shot the ball in Vegas almost makes you wonder why the hell the Cavs shelled out $80M+ for Max Strus and Georges Niang. I mean this dude was on fire during this whole Vegas run. Merrill averaged 4.8 3PM on 11 3PA (43.2%) heading into tonight, and he finished 6-12 from deep to help secure the title. Guy was the very definition of automatic

Every team in the NBA could use shooting, especially cheap shooting. I'm not sure the Cavs can let him leave the building if he's going to be a 40%+ shooter. Finding elite shooting at pennies on the dollar is what every team is going to need to do with this new CBA bullshit, and Merrill's shooting is as legit as it comes.

I also don't know how many people had Isaiah Mobley winning a Finals MVP before his brother, but that's now happened as well

Shoutout Ante Zizic, love that guy.

Who knows if Mobley ever plays meaningful minutes for the Cavs, but it's not like this is a charity case player who only has his spot because of who his brother is. There's real game there with Isaiah Mobley. Let's not forget the Summer Cavs don't even win this title of not for Mobley

then he backs that up with an MVP caliber performance in the Finals. Not too shabby if you ask me.

And with that, our time in Vegas has ended. What a fun 10 days it was. Wembymania, Jabari Smith's buzzer beater, everything Chet Holmgren did, strong rookie performances, it was all great. 10 out of 10 can't wait to do it again next summer. The hard part is now we have nothing to look forward to until preseason starts and that shit isn't until October. Now all we have is annoying ass Dame trade updates that aren't even really updates combined with James Harden drama. Even though Summer League basketball is about 63% disgusting basketball that sets the sport back decades, at least it was actual basketball. With that now gone, it's going to be a long few months until the next wave of fake games starts. 

So until then, I say enjoy the title if you're a Cavs fan. Sure some may mock you for it, but fuck those people. They're just upset their favorite team didn't win the Summer League title. At the moment, it's the best thing we've got and after a dominant 6-0 run, the Summer Cavs were certainly worthy champions.