July 2010
26 posts
Goodbye Jhonny, You Were Never Even Allowed to...
OK, let’s dry our eyes and try to get through this latest trade by the Tribe.
Good, I knew that wouldn’t take too long. Jhonny has been traded to the Tigers - so let’s recap.
I’ll skip the obvious jokes here and be slightly sentimental.
It wasn’t Jhonny’s fault that he was told he was a major league shortstop by Wedgie and the Indians front office. It...
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Rooting For The Underdog
I’ve been watching the Indians play a lot more frequently now that basketball season is over and August is approaching, the slowest month of the year in Hollywood. As I’ve already alluded to, I’ve largely enjoyed watching the games, even though baseball has its problems. It is an ideal sport to put on TV in the background when you’re doing something else.
You probably...
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Goodbye Delonte West, You Were Never Even Allowed...
Since we didn’t really address it when the trade to Minnesota happened Monday, I felt that I needed to jot down a belated goodbye note to Delonte.
In many ways, Delonte is an embodiment of what we here at Mesa keep writing about: sports and the athletes who play them are much more complex than most people understand. The man is struggling with a serious mental disorder—one for which...
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Sessions + Hollins - Delonte + Telfair = ???
I was on the verge of writing another column for tonight, one that may have been more fun, when Minnesota Timberwolves GM David Kahn and Cleveland Cavaliers GM Chris Grant burned the phone lines down to the ground, finally, and finished a deal that had been obvious to just about everyone once it became clear that “Razor” Ramon Sessions was on the trading black.
Razor and Ryan...
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Is the Play the Thing?
Between LeBron, Chris Paul, and practically everyone else in the NBA any time there’s a trade of any significance, I’ve come to a strange conclusion: I’m sick of hearing about championships.
I don’t mean to say that I believe NBA players shouldn’t be thinking about winning or trying to win. By their very nature, every professional athlete should be wired to...
Ha! →
Where Wayne Winston predicts the Heat win 66 games this season … aka the Cavaliers win total from 2 years ago.
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Watching Bad Teams Can Still Be Fun
Something we’ve probably all been wondering about - openly or not - is whether the Cavaliers will still be fun to watch in 2010-11, even if they end up not being competitive.
I think I have an answer to this question because I’ve been watching the Indians when I have free time …
The answer is yes.
Unless every single game is a total blowout, watching young players fight to...
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Has LeBron Killed the NBA? →
Linkage will take you to an article by CBS Sports’s Ken Berger, all about how Chris Paul has been so inspired by the Wade / James / Bosh trio that he wants to replicate it somewhere else.
Reports of this idea first surfaced at Carmelo Anthony’s wedding the weekend after James announced his decision to head to Miami. Allegedly, Paul proposed during the reception that he, Amar’e,...
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Can the 2011 Cavaliers Be the 1994 Bulls? →
The above is a link to the blog at Basketball Reference, where Neil Paine put a post up on Tuesday looking at how the 1994 Chicago Bulls won 55 games without Michael Jordan, only 2 less than they did in 1993 when they still had Jordan.
Paine notes that an earlier statistical analysis he did suggested that the Cavs, without LeBron James, would win 20-25 less games - if James were replaced with an...
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The Spotlight Turns
This is my least favorite part of the year from a sporting standpoint.
Not only are the NBA playoffs long gone, but the exciting aspect of free agency is in the rear view miror, too. Regular season baseball holds no draw whatsoever for me (at least, as an Indians’ fan). Football season is still two months off.
In fact, I was in a sports bar on Saturday night and the only coverage running...
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Complex Psychology
I would like to begin by saying that, as a fan of the city of Cleveland and the Cavaliers, I am not happy that LeBron James has decided to blow $50M on a house in Miami to “take his talents to South Beach.”
I will miss rooting for James for 82+ games next year.
I will miss regularly watching one of the most talented athletes the sport of basketball has ever seen.
Will I miss...
Hey Dad, Bryant Gumbel? Really? R U Sure??
I’m not a fan of Bryant Gumbel. In fact, I typically think he’s full of crap. However, I heard a comment that he made on his TV show the other day that made me stop and think for a moment.
Surprising, I know.
So, I tracked his comments down on the Internet today - and found his words just as compelling after reading what he had to say. He explains - mentions names in fact - how...
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Dirty Projections: The Do-Over
After a discussion with WP48 expert Holland, I realized that I semi-botched my projection of the Cavs’ team performance this upcoming season. I wanted to take some time tonight to correct the analysis.
For those of you actually interested in advanced statistics, the main error involves some of the nuances of WP48. The purest form of the metric involves position adjustments. For example, a...
Psychological Delay
I’m going to have to wait to put up my post on the complex psychology of LeBron’s decision to go to Miami. Sorry. Movie writing caught up to me today.
A few brief observations…
Yes, it’s only two summer league games, but Sacramento Kings rookie DeMarcus Cousins is out rebounding third year Cavaliers power forward JJ Hickson…
Kyle Lowry will not be a Cavalier....
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Cavs Round-Up
There are two different Cavs-centric topics that I felt needed to be addressed in some capacity tonight.
1) Goodbye Z, You Were Never Even Allowed To…Oh, You Did Everything But Win It All
I don’t have a lot to say here, other than that Z is the only reason to not resent the 20010-11 Miami Heat. In my personal opinion, it’s ridiculous to begrudge Z for making this move....
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The Spirit of Competition
After taking some time to think about LeBron James’s basketball version of The Bachelor this past Thursday night, one thing has remained constant for me:
I’m saddened by the fact that I will no longer be able to watch James and Dwyane Wade try to kill each other on the basketball court.
Back in April when James spoke regretfully of how guys in the league didn’t hate each...
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The 2010-11 Cavs: Dirty Projections
Since LeBron announced his decision to “take [his] talents to South Beach” last Thursday night, I’ve seen a couple of different people pose questions to NBA pundits about the Cavs’ fate for next year. Specifically, how many games should we anticipate they’ll be able to win without James in the line-up?
The consensus answer from those pundits seems to be “not...
The Next Phase
I’m fairly certain that we probably have enough material from tonight to write a post every day for the rest of the summer. There’s a ton to talk about. But due to some other obligations, first post on the exit of LeBron James and its implications for the future of the Cavs won’t be up until a little later. Til then, check the Mesa twitter feed to hold you over. Mike put in work...
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A Look at NWO: The Wolfpack Through WP48 →
Interesting look at a Wade-James-Bosh trio from the WP48 guys, via the Wall Street Journal.
The Patient Was the King and the King is Dead
Please read DAD’s rather astute and sober post below first.
My snap comments on the news - which seems firm - that LeBron will pull up lame and join the competition in South Beach, rewarding a franchise with few fans that tanked for multiple years to roll the dice on a high stakes gamble, are best read on Twitter.
Twenty-four Hours in the Emergency Room
So, it’s the night before “The Decision” is broadcast live on ESPN. In fact, as I write this post, it’s about 24 hours away. That’s right, one day before Life After the Summer of Free Agency (which really lasted less than one week) begins - I’m in a contemplative mode.
It’s sort of like sitting in the hospital emergency room waiting to find out if...
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Bigger Help To Cavs - Chris Bosh or His GF?
The biggest fallout, it now seems, of the entire Summer of Money, may be the impact it has had on Chris Bosh’s ego.
Let’s be honest: Chris Bosh is not in Dwyane Wade or LeBron James’s league.
Here are the advanced stats:
Adjusted Plus Minus
Bosh: +6.97 James: +16.92 Wade: +20.07
Wins Produced Per 48 Minutes
Bosh: .225 James: .401 Wade: .291
PER
Bosh: 25.0...
Darren Rovell May Have Given LeBron / ESPN "The... →
Incidentally, Rovell wrote this piece Tuesday morning.
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Free Agency Update: Pitfall Edition
With two days remaining until free agents can officially sign contracts, I wanted to take stock of the harsh realities that are starting to pile up for LeBron-hopeful franchises—in particular, the Chicago Bulls.
Since last week, the prevailing perception among pundits is that there’s been a huge momentum shift in terms of LeBron’s expected destination. A big part of this seems...
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Winning Titles At a Faster Pace
And now, in a near complete break from the fiasco that is the Summer of Money - well, at least as far as my BlackBerry battery is concerned - let’s talk about pace and winning championships.
During Friday’s press conference, Byron Scott - whose previously coached teams ranked 15, 28, 26, 23, 21, 28, 18, 11, 9, and 13 in pace - made a point of emphasizing his “Showtime...
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Liar's Poker: Day 1 LBJ Free Agency Recap
By the time anyone reads this article, LeBron’s second day of free agency meetings will have begun. He’s scheduled to hold court with the Clippers and Heat today, then the Bulls and Cavs Saturday. But Thursday was all about the NY/NJ metropolitan area—and shockingly, all sources from inside the Knicks and Nets indicate the meetings went “extremely well.”
Pardon me...
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For the Love of Akron
And so it begins.
LeBron James is now a free agent.
Cleveland waits.
Plenty of scenarios have been bandied about. A super trio in Miami. A renewed legacy in Chicago. A date with the rapper and the Russian in New Jersey.
Now we get to see what actually transpires.
News earlier today that the Hawks were preparing to offer Joe Johnson a full max deal, threw the teams with cap space into a...
June 2010
30 posts
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The Knicks' Plan To Lure LeBron: Take a Pay Cut! →
If what Ian Thomsen is reporting is accurate, forget it. LeBron will not be going to New York.
As Windhorst tweeted earlier today, this idea that endorsements in NYC will make up the difference between a non-max deal and a max deal, or even a max deal and a Bird Rights max deal, is ridiculous.
In fact, if I were the Knicks’ owner, and Donnie Walsh came in and told me this was the best idea...
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Steve Greenberg of Allen & Co. on Gilbert and... →
Insightful - and comforting, if you’re a Cavs fan - look at Dan Gilbert and LeBron James from the perspective of Steve Greenberg, managing director of the investment firm Allen & Co.
This reminds of something Chris Broussard implied on an interview on ESPN. When discussing which team LeBron should sign with, too often we look at what’s there right now, without putting maximum...
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ESPN's Free Agent Summit = Abyss of NBA Knowledge
Since the Cavs broke off contract talks with Brian Shaw earlier today, I have no real news to discuss right now. Instead, I’m going to take this time to address a half hour of TV that thousands of sports fans watched tonight—ESPN’s Free Agent Summit. Or, as I like to call it, “4 Guys Ignore Reality for 30 Minutes.”
In case you missed it, the show consisted of...
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Hell Week Continues
Day 2 of Hell Week - shit, maybe Hell Month - continues for Cavaliers fans on Tuesday.
I came into Monday evening with two separate ideas for columns. The first was about how LeBron James is a difficult player to build around. The second was … pathetically, I can’t even remember what the second was.
Apparently, I’ve already given up the fight against Hell.
It doesn’t...
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Week of Answers? Doubtful
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what everyone in the basketball world has been waiting for.
This Thursday, July 1st, officially marks the start of free agency. Given the activity on the rumor / spin mill since the Cavs’ season ended last month, it’s hard to believe that there’s another gear that this can all go to. But there is, and starting 12:01 AM on Thursday, we’ll all...
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Pre-Draft Thoughts
Well, Chicago trading Kirk Hinrich and the 17th pick to Washington, opening up enough - or close to enough - money for two max free agents, certainly changes the landscape of everything.
(One caveat: I’ve read different things about whether this deal gets the Bulls to the $32M mark, and the official salary cap number hasn’t been set yet anyway).
Something is certain though. The...
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(Cavs-Centric) NBA Draft Preview
At 7 PM ET tonight on ESPN, the NBA draft airs. I’m perhaps stupidly excited about it, primarily for the likely flurry of trades I suspect will happen after the Wizards select John Wall at #1. History suggests there will be a lot of wheeling and dealing, and my prediction is that the Cavs will be involved in one way or another.
In case you haven’t been paying attention to the...
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My Brief Love Affair With Mo Williams (Pause)
This morning, I woke up to read a draft rumors article from Woj of Yahoo! Sports, saying that the Portland Trailblazers were showing a “strong interest” in Mo Williams.
How did I feel when I read this?
Encouraged.
Now let’s compare how I felt this morning with how I felt the day I saw on the bottom of the ESPN crawl in my apartment that Williams had been traveled to the...
Delay
The post I wrote last night didn’t publish when it was scheduled to, as a result of an error on Tumblr’s end. Hopefully it’ll be up soon. Sorry for the delay.
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2010 Cap Reality Series: the NYK Reversal
Some of our readers (though probably not many) may remember that a few months ago I did what I called a “Cap Reality Series” on some of the teams in the market to try to land LeBron this summer.
That series turned out to be a waste of time. Why? Because it was based on a complete misconception of James’s mentality and priorities. The primary error was that I took him at his...
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Major League Baseball Should Start Thinking...
In my opinion, Major League Baseball is in danger of becoming irrelevant. Not only is the pace of the sport very 20th century - a pretty significant problem since we are living in the 21st century - but the league also refuses to use technology that 5-year-olds are capable of operating, presumably because doing so would take away from the “purity” of the game. Well, as the great...
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Good Night to the 2009-10 Season
I originally wanted to look at all of the Finals stats and see if, averaged out over the 7 games, this series was really as wacky as it kept looking game to game. But as of right now (11:14 PM PT), none of our usual go-to sites for numbers has the game 7 stats live yet. So instead, I’m just going to address the larger question that these playoffs have now raised for me. I expect...
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Izzo Didn't Want It All →
I must say that these excerpts from Tom Izzo’s press conference yesterday are rather touching. They strike a chord with me personally, as I’ve had many of these kinds of conversations with myself, and with Tim, talking about home and family, ambition and adventure, the goals you set for yourself and the impact you might be able to have on others. There’s a point, I think, where...
Night Off
Instead of filling this blog with a useless post about nothing, I’m calling in sick. Quality over quantity … for now.
I’ll leave you with this. I heard from my mom today that Chuck Gileti, host of “Last Call”, which airs after Indians games on Sports Time Ohio, “looks like one of those guys you’d see with his shirt open and a medallion of Jesus.”
...
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Reptile in Chains(?)
In the Cavs’ front office tonight, one simple question sums up the past week and a half of work on their coaching search and their increasingly futile efforts (or so it seems) to re-sign LeBron.
“Now what?”
As everyone knows by now, Tom Izzo announced at a press conference on Tuesday evening that he has rejected Reptile’s “framework” offer of $30MM over 5...
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The Mounting Evidence Against Winning
Unfortunately, today, we saw LeBron James add more evidence to the mounting pile that this entire journey towards, and eventually into - god let it please come soon - free agency is NOT all about winning.
The latest news of course was that although James respects Tom Izzo as a coach, he has no interest in talking to him about the Cavaliers coaching vacancy. Presumably, this is because James...
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A Couple of Points About Izzo
As everyone who follows the Cavs already knows, Tom Izzo still hasn’t given ownership a thumbs up or thumbs down regarding the head coaching offer prepared by Reptile. Earlier today, Woj posted this article re: the source of the hold-up. In it, he makes a couple of points that I wanted to address briefly.
1) Izzo’s hesitation stems from his lack of certainty over who in the Cavs...
The World Cup - I Won't Soon Forget
I’ve been there. That’s right, four years ago I was traveling for work and ended up in Germany and The Netherlands during the World Cup. In 2006, Germany was actually hosting the tournament, so there were people from all nationalities roaming around the country, drinking and partying for close to a month.
Germany finished third that year, which wasn’t good enough for my...
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Indians Check-In
I’m guessing this might be the least read post of the week. Just having “Indians” in the header might cause some people to delete the Mesa bookmark from their browser or eliminate our feed from their RSS reader. Well, if you hadn’t realized by now … we’re not here to cooperate.
Also, in case you weren’t watching - and I’m going to assume you...
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Future Fear
An experiment is in progress.
As fans, we’re in the worst possible segment of the Cavs off-season—a combined period of rampant speculation and undeniable transition. Not only does the franchise have the crippling uncertainty of LeBron James, but they’re also searching for a head coach and trying to smoothly transfer power to Chris Grant as GM.
Looming over all of it like a...
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Happy Birthday to Us!
Mesa just turned 1! Big thanks to everybody who has visited the site and invested time in our hobby for the past 365 days. We’ll try to piss more people off in the coming year. Maybe we’ll make it on the radio. Or, the grandest of all accomplishments, the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s morning sports blog round-up. Then we’ll know we’ve really made it.
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Mesa On Izzo
As everyone in the free world knows by now, Dan Gilbert wants to hire Tom Izzo to be the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. He wants Izzo so badly that he’s willing to pay him $30M over 5 years and even give him a private jet to use whenever he wants.
So what does Mesa think about all of this?
Well, I was pretty tempted to say that only one coach in the history of basketball...
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Goodbye Danny Ferry, You Were Never Even Allowed...
As we all know by now, The Great Danny Ferry resigned his post as Cavs’ GM Friday morning. Dan Gilbert saw fit to promote Chris Grant to take over, and Lance Blanks will apparently stay on in an expanded role as well.
As I’ve pointed out previously (see the re-post a couple slots below), Ferry walked into the job in extremely unenviable circumstances. I would argue that the...