The Cavaliers aren’t exactly a free-agent destination right now. Similarly, any player who finds out they’re getting traded there is probably rolling their eyes. Who would want to play with a motley crew of role players (Larry Nance, Tristan Thompson, Cedi Osman), plus one world-class chucker (Colin Sexton) plus one discontented former star (Kevin Love)?
To make the team more attractive to free agents, Cleveland as a city needs to step up its game. More specifically, they need to step up their food game. Because I’m not aware of a single dish or style of food that could be considered “quintessentially Cleveland”.
Every other team in their division has something to call their own. Milwaukee has beer and cheese curds. Detroit has Detroit-style pizza. Chicago has thin-crust square-cut pizza (miss me with that deep dish garbo) and Italian beef sandwiches. Indiana has…pork tenderloin sandwiches? Don’t hate, they’re tasty. Meanwhile, Cleveland has nothing. Nothing. They can’t even manage to pour chili on spaghetti noodles like their neighbors to the south, Cincinnati.
Does the phrase “Cleveland style fried chicken” sound tasty to you? It sounds tasty as HECK to me. I love fried chicken and so does everybody else who is in possession of an adequate amount of functional taste buds. The city of Cleveland needs to figure out some new, unique, delicious preparation of fried chicken. I’m not a chef, so I can’t help, but I’m sure there are talented chefs in Cleveland who can be put to this task. And even if Cleveland style fried chicken doesn’t actually result in more top-of-the-line free agents signing with the Cavs, at least it will raise my own personal chances of ever visiting Cleveland from 0% to 0.1%.