Cavaliers Gab

The “Akron Beacon Journal” reported Tuesday that a funny thing happened to Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Mo Williams on his way back to Cleveland this past Sunday. The guard unexpectedly ran into former teammate LeBron James at Hopkins Airport in Cleveland. It was the first meeting between the two since James announced his decision back on July 8, to take his services to South Beach joining Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat. Williams took  the announcement that the back-to-back NBA MVP winner was leaving the team particularly hard, as he realized with James went the Cavaliers legitimate shot at winning the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

According to reports the two former teammates sat down for an extended conversation to hash things out on Sunday. Williams told reporters Monday that he understands James rationale for the move better now than he did before the conversation at the airport. The Cavaliers starting guard said “”Part of me is still sour . . . but I wish him the best. You’ve got a guy of his caliber, it’s safe to say going into a season we’re playing for a championship just by him suiting up. ”We’ve been playing for a championship the last couple years, and there’s no bone in my body that wants to go in another direction.”

Despite Williams reluctance to go in another direction this upcoming season, the reality is that it is going to happen.  However new Cleveland head coach Byron Scott looks at the All-Star forward’s departure as a chance for Williams to exert more leadership on the floor and to take his game to the next level.

Scott who will be heading into his inaugural campaign on the bench for Cleveland told reporters that with the departure of James from the franchsie Williams can now become more of a force for the Cavaliers as he was earlier in his career for the Milwaukee Bucks. Scott told the media “”Sometimes a star like (LBJ) is so talented and can do so many things with the ball, sometimes you get lost because you don’t have the ball in your hands like you’re used to. (James) can get you a better shot than you can get yourself. A guy like Mo who can break people down and run the pick and roll, all of a sudden you find yourself as more of a spot-up shooter. You can get lost sometimes like that.”

So in Scott’s perspective the most important change wants to see from his point guard is increased intensity and leadership on the floor. Williams has skills, he was named to the NBA All-Star Team in 2009, now that the “Pretender To The Throne” has gone to Miami the Cavaliers need their point guard to bring his game up to the next level starting at the beginning of the regular season.

How refreshing is that Cleveland; an quality player who actually wants to “STAY IN CLEVELAND?” You know all to  well how it is being a Cleveland Fan. After years of seeing players you watched grow up only to bolt out of the city once their contracts are up and they court Free Agency.  In Mo Williams you have a player that wants to stay in your city. How Cool is that? 

© Copyright 2010 thesackattack

After a seven year run the circus has left Cleveland. The Cleveland Cavaliers will not play in front of a sold out stadium at home every game next season. That “Rock Star Aura” that used to  follow them on the road over the past few years will no longer be hovering over the team. The Cavaliers have gone from one of the “Elite Teams” in the Association to  a club that would really be quite fortunate if they make the NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs. Expectations from outside and within the organization have drastically been lowered and deservedly so.

Cleveland guard Daniel Gibson’s first season was the 2006-2007 campaign in which his team went all the way to the NBA Finals before losing to the San Antonio Spurs in the Championship round. He also seems to have a “Glass Is Half Full” type of mindset as he revealed in an interview with the “Cleveland Plain Dealer.” Instead of looking at what the team no longer possesses, Gibson is looking at the upcoming season as an opportunity for the remaining players on the roster to showcase their talents and surprise a lot of people in the NBA.

The guard who completed his fourth season in the Association last spring believes that the Cavaliers still have enough talent to do some  damage in the NBA Central Division in the upcoming season. Gibson told the paper “I think it’s going to be a real fun year for a lot of guys. “A lot of guys are going to get the opportunity to play, to showcase some of their talents that maybe in the past they haven’t been able to because we had so much talent. It will be an opportunity for guys to get out there do things as a collective group. I think everybody should be excited about the opportunity that we’ll have this year.”

Former Cavaliers All-Star forward LeBron James took Gibson under his wing his first year in the NBA and they remained close for the four seasons that they played together. But the guard’s philosophy is what is done has happened and it is time to face reality.

He told the paper “As a group and as an organization, we’ve just got to move on. It’s something that happened. We wish him the best. But now it’s our time to continue to prove all the doubters wrong and continue to show the world we’re still going to be a tough team to deal with. We still have a group of guys who have a lot of talent; including myself. I haven’t had the chance to show it the last couple of years but I feel like I can be a key asset in the right situation. I think we have a great group of guys ready to do something big.”

Gibson is looking forward to restoring some of his personal reputation after seeing his minutes and his stats drastically reduced by former Cavaliers head coach Mike Brown. The guard believes that he will flourish in the system that new Cleveland head coach Byron Scott will install. Gibson told the paper that he thought that he had fallen out of favor with the former Cavaliers coach.

He said “I definitely feel like I didn’t get a fair chance. But as a person and a player I continue to work and have faith in God and the system we’ve put in that it will turn. That’s what I tried to do; continue to stay positive. I’m still continuing to work and hoping this year things will be different. I’m ready to play and ready to help.”

Gibson is expecting Scott to install a much more high tempo offense than Cleveland played under Brown, and has been using this past summer to get in shape for that kind of game. He told the paper “That’s one of the things I’ve been doing all summer; getting my body in good shape, knowing that we’re going to be an up and down team. I think this summer I did a lot more cardio. Normally I don’t do cardio because I’m already frail as it is. I try to stay away from a whole lot of running because I lose a lot of weight. But this summer I did both. I did a lot of strength training, so I’m very strong right now. I combined it with a lot of calisthenics, running hills, running on the beach, different things to build endurance.”

If the Cavaliers have any aspirations of even coming close to avoiding the NBA Draft Lottery, then players like Daniel Gibson are going to have to step up big time in the upcoming campaign. The team is in a state of flux right now and the 24 year old guard is absolutely correct when he says there are going to be opportunities galore. The answer is will the players they fill them with be enough to get Cleveland back to the NBA Playoffs next spring?

© Copyright 2010 thesackattack

The “Cleveland Plain Dealer” has reported that the Cleveland Cavaliers have given their new General Manager Chris Grant a five year contract extension. Grant who had previously been an assistant General Manager under Danny Ferry took over the position when Ferry resigned over  “philosophical issues” with Team Owner Dan Gilbert.

According to the report Grant had three years left on the contract he had signed after he turned down the Atlanta Hawks when they offered him their G.M. slot in 2008. What the deal in effect becomes is a two year extension on the deal he previously had plus a bump in pay throughout the deal.

© Copyright 2010 thesackattack

The City of Cleveland is outraged as once again they are the victims of criticism from outsiders. Cleveland natives are used  to beoing disrespected by the Nation but this time things may have gone too far. “Dime Magazine“ is asking if the upcoming edition of the Cleveland Cavaliers are going to be the worst team in the Association. They believe that it is going to come down to the Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors to battle it out for the worst record in the NBA next season and as the Cavaliers roster is currently setup they might not be to far off. As I have written before it is not the fact that the team does not have talent on the roster because the Cavaliers have some good players. But the whole is less than the sum of the individual parts. 

There is nothing I admire more from a sports fan than loyalty and believing in your team. But anyone who can sit there with a straight face and say that the Cavaliers are a six to an eighth seed, or will go .500 or better is a pinhead. Please right now open up another browser and go over to the Cavaliers roster. The only center listed on the roster is Ryan Hollins who had a career year for the Minnesota Timberwolves as he averaged 6.1 points and 2.9 rebounds per contest. You truly believe that the Cleveland Cavaliers can make the NBA Post Season with Hollins as your starting center?

The Cleveland Cavaliers roster right now is truly “The Island Of Misfit Toys” a bunch of players that really do not compliment each other and have no hub on the team to gather around. There is nobody currently on the Cavaliers roster or in their sight-lines to acquire that brings to the table what LeBron James has brought to the team the last seven years. This is 2002-2003 all over again albeit with a far better head coach.

The Cleveland Cavaliers will be fortunate to win 30 games this season whether they retain their present core or start doing the right thing and build for the future by trading the assets they have.

© Copyright 2010 thesackattack

Last week “Miami Herald” columnist Israel Gutierrez asked why NBA MVP and Miami Heat All-Star forward LeBron James was currently one of the most hated men in all of professional sports. Gutierrez mentioned a list published by the “Bleacher Report” in July that had James tied for number one along with Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback Michael Vick. Gutierrez wrote he could understand the anger and disdain in Cleveland, but could not comprehend why the rest of the Nation has taken such a dislike to James.

To me it quite simply comes down to this: Americans despise hypocrites and after building an image for the last 11 years as a leader, it turned out he was just a follower. I covered James his first three seasons in the Association and by the middle of his rookie year he was talking about the expectations “his guys” had on him. And though media members in general and sportswriters in particular are a very cynical bunch, nobody ever called him on it. He  had earned that status in the media’s opinion that he was a leader and that the Cleveland Cavaliers were already his team, even though it was his first season in the NBA.

LeBron James has been compared with the greatest players who ever laced them up and played on the hardwood in the Association. He never once tried to deflect that talk, in fact he would play up to it. This was a player who for seven seasons in the NBA portrayed himself as a leader ready to take on any challenge and help his team overcome any foe. Then came July 8, and NBA fans across the Planet saw that he was not a leader, he was a follower who was moving to a team where Dwyane Wade was “The Chosen One.”   

Americans get very angry when we  feel we have been deceived and that is what fans of the NBA are going through with LeBron James right now. He will never be looked at the same way, the man who James says was his childhood hero Michael Jordan could barely hide his disdain when he talked about what James did. However Israel if you really want to know the source of the anger, there  it is.

© Copyright 2010 thesackattack

August, 2010 has not been a particularly good month for former Cleveland Cavaliers shooting guard Delonte West. The veteran went into the off-season with a contract that was only partially guaranteed if he was waived by a certain date. At the beginning of the month Cleveland traded their former starting shooting guard to the Minnesota Timberwolves who would waive him back on August 3, making him an unemployed unrestricted Free Agent.

Friday the player who suffers from a bi-polar disorder got some more painful news. The “Associated Press” has reported that the NBA has suspended West for ten games if and when he signs with another club for next season. Back in July West pleaded guilty to weapons charges in a Maryland courtroom. The veteran was given a sentence of home detention that would made have allowances for him to travel for road games if he was playing in the Association.

Why the Cleveland Cavaliers traded away a player that was their second most consistent player in the 2009 NBA Post Season is a mystery to this reporter over a medical issue is a mystery to this reporter. Rumors have come out of Cleveland that West could be extremely difficult to handle sometimes because of his condition. Most likely that was a factor in the Cavaliers making the move that they did.

However there have been reports that if West stays on his meds than he is fine; and on a team that is going to be a long way from the club that won 61 games last year Delonte West is an asset I would not have given up. Does West have demons, that is undeniable. So you hire him a babysitter to make sure he takes his meds and stays on the straight and narrow. If you think that would be the first time that situation occurred in pro sports you are extremely naive. Delonte West under the right circumstances could have been a key player for the Cavaliers next season. Apparently they saw it differently.

© Copyright 2010 thesackattack

“The King Is Dead And Should Be Forgotten

This Is The Ballad Of LeBron The Rotten

He Wasn’t A Leader So He He Ran Away

My My; Hey Hey”

With Apologies to Neil Young

Face it we all have been royally hosed for the last 11 years. Not only his seven years with the Cleveland Cavaliers but his four years before that when he proclaimed himself ”King James” and Grant Wahl featured him on the cover of Sports Illustrated. (Which this reporter had the first Cleveland radio interview with Wahl shortly there after.) 

But the Un-Chosen one showed his true colors on July 8, when he showed that he did not have the confidence in his own abilities that we who were his fans in Cleveland thought he possessed. Instead of being the leader he had portrayed all these years he was nothing but a follower, heading to South Beach and tying his wagon to that of the
“True Chosen One” of the Miami Heat Dwyane Wade.

As we have done almost constantly since 1964 we pick up the pieces and move on: We did it when the Browns left in 1995. We did it when the “Era Of Champions” ended in at Jacobs Field, and once again we will bounce back from a hero with clay feet.

Covering the Cavaliers as a radio reporter from 1995-2006 and the NBA Finals in 2007, I saw a lot of bad hoops played at the then Gund Arena. So it is rather fitting that I make my return to my adopted home town via the Internet at this point to cover the team at the Q. This will be a year of transition for the Cleveland Cavaliers with a record which will be closer to the 27-55 record the team had in 2003 than the 61-21 cake-walk it had last season.

There is talent on this squad the question now becomes is it better off staying as a unit or trading parts for the future. My early thoughts lean towards trading as much as possible with certain players off limits. The Cavaliers have one of the best young coaches in the NBA in Byron Scott; who will push his young charges as much as he can. Still do not expect miracles out of this squad.

It is a time of change in Cleveland as the team learns to play together all over again. Cavaliers Gab will be with you every step of the way, telling you the good, the bad, as well as the simply unbelievable. It is good to be back in Cleveland and it will be fun to watch this Cavaliers team grow together!

© Copyright 2010 thesackattack

Back in 2002 the Cleveland Cavaliers changed their uniform colors in what they called “A New Expression of Wine And Gold.” This Tuesday the team once again introduced new uniforms for next season in an event that was labeled a “Tweetup.” These were also labeled “A New Expression of Wine And Gold but these uniforms resembled a lot more closely the togs the team wore in the Seventies. Former Cavaliers legends Campy Russell and Austin Carr were the Cover Boys to introduce the new uniforms to the public.

These uniforms seem a little more of a maroon than the uniforms they have been wearing since 2002. It seems to be an appropriate time to make a break from the past as the team will be doing that on a personnel basis this season.

© Copyright 2010 thesackattack

The “News-Herald” reported Monday that the Cleveland Cavaliers have signed former Louisville Cardinal power forward Samardo Samuels to a contract for next season. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Samuels surprised many NCAA  observers when he declared for the draft after his sophomore season. Samuels has been described as a player with a huge upside but is most likely going to be a project before becoming an asset for a team 8in the Association.

Samuels who is said to be 6′9″ and weighing in at about 260 is said to have a constant battle of the bulge. He also at times was accused of looking lethargic on the hardwood, most likely a factor in his not being drafted last June. Far too small to play in the pivot in the Association, and far too slow to play against small forwards in the NBA Samuels options are limited.

He was a player who was not impressive on the defensive end and lacked a consistent outside shot in his offensive repertoire. Those are skills that can be improved by simple work in the gym and the 21 year old has skills as he averaged 13.5 points and 5.9 rebounds per contest in tow seasons with Louisville. Samuels played for the Chicago Bulls Summer League Team in Las Vegas last month averaging 12.6 points and 7.4 rebounds per game but failed to impress the Bulls enough to get an offer.

© Copyright 2010 thesackattack

There is nothing on this Planet that I despise worse than losing, I am an “INCREDIBLY COMPETITIVE MAN.” It is totally against my nature not to go “Balls To The Wall” and put out less than 100% in anything I do. I comprehend that there are people out there that are like that, but to be honest I can not comprehend that sort of mind-set. I may not win all the time, but rest assured I will bust my tail trying to come in first.

Perhaps that is why I am having such a difficult time writing this column. I have been pushing this off since Monday, hoping against hope that circumstances would miraculously change so that I would not have to put these words down on these pages. But alas that will not happen and it is time for the Cleveland Cavaliers to come to some huge decisions about their short-term and long term future.

As presently situated the Cleveland Cavaliers are a sail-boat without a sail or a mast; which means they will be mired in one spot all campaign long. It is not that the team from Northeast Ohio is bereft of talent; far from it there are many valuable players on that club.  But they are not a team; they kind of remind me of the early eighties Boston Red Sox. A club that had a lot of designated hitters and first basemen but very little else.

A bandage is not going to fix this teams problems as there are far more holes on the patient than healthy tissue. And even if they could use that $14.5 million trade exception this year who is Cleveland going to get to come close to what the “Pretender To The Throne” did over the past few years?

The Cleveland Cavaliers right now have two options, and Dan Gilbert, Chris Grant and head coach Byron Scott are going to have ro do some serious thinking over the next few weeks. Their two choices are to either ride out the season with the team the way it is: Or to do what I am proposing, gut the team and start from scratch.

I believe that there are three players on the C;eveland Cavaliers roster that are “Untouchable” those three being power forward J.J. Hickson, point guard Mo Williams and shooting guard Delonte West. The reason that I am including West in the troika is I truly believe he can be far more valuable to Cleveland than anything they get in return. However I could be persuaded to keep it at Williams and Hickson.

In 2010 an NBA roster begins with your point guard, and though Williams is not a Chris Paul, Deron Williams or Derrick Rose he is an All-Star point guard. Hickson is the team’s future truly the only player that club can build around right now. Everybody else as far as I am concerned is expendable for the right price.

Cleveland should be in the market for young talented players, Lottery picks, and contracts that expire at the end of this year. No, the prospect of sitting through another 27-55 campaign is pretty darn ugly. But what if it leads back to a winning club in a short time frame? Seems a lot more palatable then, doesn’t it?

Take a look at the Oklahoma City Thunder and realize what they have accomplished in such a short time. The Atlanta Hawks were the joke of the NBA Eastern Conference for the longest time; fans do not laugh about them anymore. It is all about having a game plan and sticking to it.

Dan Gilbert has shown he will do what ever it takes to win. Byron Scott is one of the best young coaches in the NBA> Take your lumps for a year and come out the other side saying “LeBron who?” That will be the sweetest taste of all!

© Copyright 2010 thesackattack