Which Cavs are most likely to crash through the Spanish Announcer’s Table?

The Cavs announced Friday that all of their games will be broadcast in Spanish on 87.7 FM La Mega. This marks the first time in Cavs history that their games will be carried in a second language. The Cavs are the sixth team to provide Spanish live coverage of all their games, joining the Heat, Magic, Mavericks, Rockets, and Spurs.

This is an exciting development, and is indicative of both the Cavs’ drawing power and owner Dan Gilbert’s desire to expand the Cavs’ fan base. No hablo español myself, but it’s good to know that Spanish speakers will be able to enjoy this team as much as Anglophones.

Okay, the good news is out of the way. There’s bad news that comes with this. If you dug my piece on “marking out” for the Browns, then you already know what I’m talking about.

The Spanish announce table is the most vulnerable piece of real estate on the planet. A wrestler crashing through it during a big match is a staple spot in WWE, and has been for years. Slamming through the Spanish announce table is like tweeting in caps or your aunt getting too drunk at Thanksgiving—it’s an attention-getter that indicates that business is about to pick up.

The question, then: Which Cavaliers are most likely to crash through said table during the season? Having written one Cleveland sports column based on wrestling and having spent a number of hours that I would prefer not to disclose playing Wrestlemania 2000, I feel uniquely qualified to answer this question.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ij__eFwr0Js

Without further ado, a legitimate and serious and unquestionable and important ranking of which Cavs are the best bets to go through la mesa del anunciador español this year.

17. LeBron James – Please. LeBron hires people to do this kind of stuff.

16. Ray Allen – Just keeping a spot warm for him.

15. Kyrie Irving – I think Kyrie might act a little too cool for school this year, and that drops him way down in these rankings. Plus, Duke men don’t like breaking things. It’s unseemly.

14. Mike Miller/James Jones (tie) – They’re boys with LeBron, so they don’t have to exert themselves more than absolutely necessary. Plus, they probably want to stay on good terms with all the Cuban sandwich joints in Miami.

13. Dion Waiters – This is kind of a gut call.¹ I wouldn’t normally expect this kind of mayhem from Dion, but there will be times this year when he gets heated and his South Philly upbringing comes out and there is literally no way to project what might go down in that scenario.

12. Kevin Love – This depends heavily on where the table is located. If the powers that be put it behind one of the baskets, move Love up about five spots. He lives to throw shoulders in the paint, and he’s going to get tangled up with guys a lot this year. If he goes through that table, he’s taking someone with him.

11. Tristan Thompson – Tristan will be jumping around like a mad man all year long, and it only takes one little bump on one of those jumps to put the Spanish announce table and everything else in the arena in jeopardy.

10. A.J. Price/Shane Edwards/Steve Holt (tie) – Are you guys ready to plow into a table in the name of victory this year?

7. Brendan Haywood – The late 90s/early aughts North Carolina teams were among my favorites when I was younger, and they still hold a special place in my heart. I still believe there’s time for Ed Cota to make the NBA. I believe that Julius Peppers should have stuck with basketball. I believe Joe Forte could still turn it around.

I don’t have any real insight on Haywood. He seems clumsy, I guess? Mostly I just miss those Tar Heels. I wrote a paper in middle school comparing Vince Carter to Michael Jordan. That paper almost certainly had a WordArt title. I haven’t changed much.

6. Joe Harris – Everyone’s favorite generic player is a white American, so we can only assume that he gets by on hustle, heart, and sneaky athleticism. You know who else played with hustle and heart? Larry Bird. Bill Bradley. Jerry West. George Washington. They would’ve crashed through the Spanish announce table. Joe knows what he has to live up to.

5. Shawn Marion – He’s a veteran, so you might think that he would prefer to save himself from wear and tear. Don’t forget, though—he’s The Matrix. We haven’t seen his final form yet. He’s been Mr. Anderson in the preseason, but there will come a time when he transforms into Neo and does some weird shape-shifting thing that we’ve never seen before. The normal rules of physics don’t apply to him. He’s going to teleport straight through Matt Barnes, and all bets are off when that happens.

4. Anderson Varejao – His playing style and penchant for winding up on the floor would make him a good choice for number one. So why is he way down here?

Andy is just too nice. He would feel bad wrecking a table that someone took all that time to assemble with those little Ikea wrenches. Cavs games broadcast in Spanish are a step closer to Cavs games broadcast in Portuguese, and there’s nothing Andy would like more than for his folks back home to listen in.

But yes, he’s going to wind up in the front row at least 10 times this year, so he still gets a top-five ranking.

3. Alex Kirk – There are some guys you hate to practice against. Some are straight up better than you, and some aren’t even that good but just have your number.

Then there are guys who seem to have more elbows than Goro and think they get 20 bucks every time they nail you with one. Alex Kirk seems like one of those guys. He moves with all the grace of a Panzer IV. I wouldn’t expect him to fly through the table, but to stumble for 30 feet before collapsing into it.

Man, I hope he makes the team.

2. Lou Amundson – I need to review the tape, but I think Lou has spent more time flying through the air than standing this preseason. Lou is scared of no man.

He and his ponytail will dive into any fray. He plays by Dr. Naismith’s original rules, in which any ball out of bounds is the property of whichever gentleman touches it first. If he scores a point for every time he gets punched this season, he’ll be an All-Star.

1. Matthew Dellavedova – Delly plays basketball how Clubber Lang trains, Dom Toretto drives, and Dutch hunts Predator. Going half-speed is not an option. A life at less than 110% is no life at all. Beneath that koala bear exterior lies a Tasmanian devil who wants nothing more than to rip the face off your skull and the basketball from your hands. He would run barefoot across a river of bloody vampire teeth if it meant closing out on Shane Larkin in a preseason game.

At some point this year, he’s going through that table like Mankind at Hell in a Cell. Then he’s going to get up and sprint back on defense. Long live Outback Jesus.

1. As opposed to the others, which are rooted in hard science. [↩]