With little help to count on, LeBron James has found the going rough against the Tayshaun Princes of the NBA. Allen Einstein/NBAE via Getty Images
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As we return to our favorite topic of late -- the collapse of our beloved Cavs -- I should tell you that right now I'm listening to one of my favorite records, The Who's A Quick One. This is significant, because I'm going to make a very strained analogy between this record and said collapse. A Quick One was the group's second album, and it was ostensibly a team effort; everyone was asked to write a couple of songs for inclusion, and the rest of the record would be filled with covers. Roger Daltrey, Keith Moon and John Entwistle wrote a few decent numbers, most notably Entwistle's Boris the Spider. But Pete Townshend's efforts blew them away. In an incredibly precocious display, he wrote a nine-minute mini-rock opera called A Quick One While He's Away, which is six songs woven together to tell the story of a woman who has an affair while her husband is gone for a year.

The Cavs' season was LeBron James' second, and it, much like The Who's second effort, was ostensibly a team effort; everyone was asked to try to make a shot every once in a while. Drew Gooden and Zydrunas Ilgauskas had some nice games. But LeBron blew them away. In an incredibly precocious display, he became the fifth player to average 25 points, seven boards and seven assists in a season.

Now, just as The Who is Townshend's band, the Cavs are LeBron's team. Say what you will about Moon's drumming or Daltrey's tight jeans, but if Townshend isn't writing, then Moon isn't banging the skins and Daltrey's not doing centripetal acceleration experiments with the microphone. (The fact that the band went ahead with a tour a week after Entwistle died should tell you something about how Pete and Roger viewed his relative indispensability.)

With both groups' second efforts, Townshend and LeBron learned what it's like to have one's genius reined in.

At the most pivotal moment of A Quick One While He's Away, when the husband returns, Townshend wanted cellos to underscore the drama. Alas, he was told it was too expensive. And at the most pivotal moment of the Cavs' season, when they were trying to hold on to a playoff spot, LeBron wanted someone to chip in and do something. Townshend dealt with his problem by having the band replicate sound by chanting, "cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello." If there's a basketball equivalent to four men trying to sound like a string section, it's got to be Ira Newble trying to pass himself off as a shooting guard. Neither one is especially convincing.