July 2009
57 posts
The Great Strategic Mind of Joe D
Since I already wrote a full column expressing my long-standing view that Joe Dumars is the most overrated executive in the league, I figured I should at least point out that he bolstered my case a little further today.
If you’re one of only three teams capable of truly spending big in free agency this summer, what’s arguably the best way to shoot yourself in the foot a few hours...
Update From Our Local Reporter
Well, all you out of towners, I thought I would give you the latest rumors here at 11 PM Eastern - one hour before free agency begins
Tony Rizzo on Fox 8 hints that Charlie V is the man the Cavs might call first
Local WKNR radio (fill-ins Fedor and some other guy) were pushing a one year signing of Sheed to get us to the championship - keeping most of our money for - you guessed it - the great...
June 2009
70 posts
Andy opts out
Since I haven’t seen it reported on ESPN or the Plain Dealer’s website, Brian Windhorst reported via Twitter about two hours ago that Andy had informed the Cavs he is not exercising his player option for 2009-10. In other words, Fegan-palooza begins again at midnight. Expect it to get interesting, especially with names like Gortat, Charlie V, Birdman, and others out there as...
"A Ring for the King"
Get ready for a season full of quotes like this (below from Ian Thomsen’s Sports Illustrated story on Shaq):
“Here’s my motivational slogan for next season,” said Shaquille O’Neal last Saturday by phone from his home in Orlando. “A ring for the King. He wants one, and I want another one. A ring for the King, baby!”
“Everybody is going to say,...
Villanueva & Varejao - Part I: Andy
Exciting opening to free agency week, which officially begins on Wednesday at 12am EDT. Betrayal Skull Dude (Boozer) is likely not going to opt out of his contract after chattering for the past six months about how he definitely would (turns out the only team with potential interest is the Pistons, and he wouldn’t even be at the top of their list). And, in two situations with much more of a...
Charlie V
Breaking News: MIlwaukee has decided not to make a qualifying offer to Charlie Villanueva. This means he will be an unrestricted free agent.
A very surprising move given the trade of Richard Jefferson, which was being sold as a way to clear cap space so the Bucks could re-sign Ramon Sessions and Charlie. Maybe they’ve decided to settle on Amir Johnson, or maybe Charlie said he...
Pacers: Manifest Destiny
Before I forget, a belated (and so there’s never any confusion about this post, heavily sarcastic) congratulations to Larry Bird for fulfilling his destiny as President of the Pacers. With the drafting of Tyler Hansbrough last week, Bird has constructed a roster capable of producing perhaps the first Whitewash since the NBA/ABA merger. A small ball line-up of Travis Diener, Troy murphy,...
K-Rod: License Revoked
I was watching Sunday Night Baseball tonight to be reminded of what a baseball team that isn’t a complete train wreck looks like (I think Mike is posting about the Mark DeRosa trade, so I’ll leave the state of the Indians to him). However, the game ended up being Mets-Yankees, and there were certain points in the game where the Mets played a whole lot like Wedgie’s boys.
...
The Player To Be Named Later
After I spent the past week badmouthing the Indians for trading Michael Aubrey - another failed first round pick - and now Mark DeRosa for the infamous “player to be named later” I stumbled upon some interesting information: Asdrubal Cabrera was the PTBNL in a prior Indians trade.
The trade took place in 2006. The Indians sent Eduardo Perez (who’s now boring people all across...
Expect the Unexpected
Here’s my take on the upcoming NBA free agency and the Cavs.
I know the media is talking Sheed and Matt Barnes and/or Anthony Parker — and I suppose that could still happen. However, in my opinion, this is just more smoke screen put up by the Cavs.
Let me remind you that - aside from the home run M talked about in the previous post (trying to get the #2 pick), the Cavs were content...
The #2 Pick?
The Memphis Edge is reporting that the Cavs offered Boobie Gibson and J.J. Hickson to Memphis for the second pick in the draft.
This somewhat coincides with a tweet from Mo Williams that refers to the Cavs trying to trade up to get Steph Curry (“there were rumors that the cavs was gonna trade up for a high pick to get steph. i hope lol” via @realmowilliams2).
Interesting. I think I...
The Great Sam Young
I think I have heard Sam Young’s name more times in the past 72 hours than I will ever hear it again in the NBA. Local sportscasters and fans are making it out like with the last pick of the first round, we passed on Larry Bird. I would really like to encourage everyone to take a deep breath on this one. I’m not trying to disparage the guy – he may end up being a nice NBA player at some point. But...
New LeBron Sneaks →
Dope.
Dad's Comments on the NHL Draft
Shaq and the Draft
I’ve been silent and pondering the draft and the whole Shaq thing for a couple of days and now am ready to give all of you my thoughts. I know you’ve been anxiously awaiting my comments
Shaq trade good
Draft not so good
What? you want to know my reasons. Well I guess that’s fair enough
Yes, Shaq is 37, but he made the all star team last year. The turning point for me was...
The Draft
I listened to the Cavs press conferences last night with Ferry and Chris Grant (Assistant GM) and Mike Brown, so really, aside from being there to ask questions, I’m really as capable of reporting on the picks as someone from a newspaper.
Coldstone really just talked about Shaq while Ferry and Grant discussed the players they chose. Expectations should be low - the Turkish guy is going to...
Cavs & Money
The other day, I leveled some doubt about the oft-expressed belief that the Cavs have extra money lying around that they are willing to spend in order to make the team better. I doubted this really only because we hadn’t seen the kinds of instances of extreme spending that hypothetically should have been taking place.
That started to change yesterday with the trade for Shaq, which could...
All Comedy Team post #5
Last one for the night. I searched everywhere to try to find audio or video of this, but came up empty. It’s criminal that no one has this press conference, because it has to include one of the greatest quotes to come from an NBA star in the past couple of years at least.
After dropping 78 total points on a combined 33-43 shooting in two consecutive games in early March (33 against the...
All Comedy Team post #3: Press conference w/LeBron...
All Comedy Team: Unite!!!
Obviously, anyone who’s reading this post has already heard that my favorite player from my childhood, the one, the only Shaq O’ Neal will be wearing wine and gold next year. There will be a lot of analysis from basically…uh, everyone until…uh, basically the end of next season about this from a basketball standpoint.
However, I will focus on the one element of this trade...
Diesel
To be honest, I’ve expected this day to come ever since word of the Cavs and Suns discussing a deal for Shaq re-surfaced a couple weeks ago.
Shaq is moving to Cleveland for the ‘09-‘10 NBA season.
I’m excited for the city of Cleveland, which is now a trending topic on Twitter (as of 11:40pm PDT), and will have probably as big of a presence as it’s ever had on the...
Michael Aubrey - More $ Down the Drain
In 2003, the Indians drafted Michael Aubrey with the 11th pick in the draft and gave him $2,010,000 as a signing bonus.
Today, the team traded Aubrey to Baltimore for the infamous “player to be named later.”
He played in the big leagues one season, 2008, where he had 50 plate appearances in 15 games and an OPS of .613 - which is below average.
In other words, much like the Jeremy...
Chad Ford Calls Out Danny Ferry
I was going to take today to write about the value of Tarence Kinsey, inspired by reasons I won’t mention here, but then I listened to Bill Simmons’ podcast with Chad Ford while I was at the gym.
During the podcast, Ford calls out Danny Ferry for building the wrong kind of team around LeBron, specifically referring to the age of his teammates and comparing that with what Sam Presti...
Dan Le Batarad on Bernie Kosar →
The Indians Debacle: Part II - Vision
This past January, in the midst of the Romeo Crennel and Phil Savage firings, much was made of the difference between the Browns and the Cavs when it came to having a complete vision for what kind of team they wanted to be. The Cavs publicly and privately made it obvious that their identity was built around defense. If you wanted to get minutes, you had to play defense - the players knew this,...
Danny Ferry says...
The Cavs would like a player who can go one on one with Da-wight Howard and someone on the perimeter with length and athleticism.
I’m busy, so you tell me what that means.
Redick V. Morrison: A Metaphor
With the NBA draft coming up this week, I felt like I had the right springboard to going more in-depth about something I talked about with my friend Max about ten days ago. I think it was right after the Lakers took game 4 – with JJ Redick getting significant playing time for Orlando – that we discussed this question: If the Lakers win the title (which obviously they ultimately did), would you...
The Indians Debacle: Part I - Jensen Lewis
It’s looking like it might be that time. What time is that?
Time to categorically blow up the Indians (Chief Wahoo included).
I’m still sorting through exactly what’s happened this year, what’s happened over the past few years, whose fault it is, and what should be done about it. I’m hoping some of those answers can be revealed over the course of a series of...
It's time to move on - sorry to say
My contributions to this blog will be short on analysis and more on long suffering emotion. Since I’ve suffered through the Cleveland sports scene more than “my boys”, I tend to be more emotional and less able to look at the big picture.
However, I totally agree with them that it’s time to stop feeling sorry for ourselves - forget all that crap about jinxes and drives -...
Pluto Read My Post
“The hope is with Edwards stretching the defense with deep patterns on one side and Robiskie running strong medium routes, the Browns can develop a 1-2 receiving punch…”
Glad you dig the blog, TP. I’ll spare you on the “analysis” of Shaq and Gortat.
I do want to add…everyone keeps saying that the Cavs are willing to take on money - financially...
Golf + The Weekend
We’re preparing a couple pieces for next week, but I wanted to chime in on the weekend to let everyone know that we won’t ever be writing about golf on this blog. Were it a sport maybe we’d consider it, but since it’s not, I’d personally rather write about chess.
A couple other things…
Although I’ve done a little of it in the past, this blog...
NBA Draft →
There’s going to be a lot of chatter surrounding the NBA draft this year, and we’ll all be struggling to put it into perspective.
This article is a fantastic place to start.
Although we can’t be sure because all of the teams are so tight-lipped about this stuff, I believe the Cavs are at least slightly ahead of the curve in utilizing this new way of thinking. Let’s see if...
Dumars + Gordon = Disaster Transport
One of the new rumors making the rounds on NBA fan sites is that Ben Gordon’s agent has been going around telling people that he has a promise from Joe Dumars that he will sign the NBA’s reigning Streakiest Player Alive to a contract worth $11M per. No, I did not leave out a decimal point in that number: eleven million dollars. Annually. As in, every single year. For multiple years.
For the sake...
Peralta vs. Vizquel
This post marks either a new high or a new low. “Why,” you ask?
Because it’s going to piss off my dad.
My thoughts on this were instigated by his post “J-honny on the J-hot Seat” about J-honny Peralta’s performance, the public grumblings of Eric Wedge, and most importantly, the infamous quote Wedge made about Peralta at short stop: “…he’s...
Grossi Reports: Salary Cap Ramifications on... →
This, I failed to mention, is the other element the Browns have to consider regarding what to do with Stallworth - the salary cap.
J-honny on the J-hot Seat
Well, the boys know that J-honny Peralta has never been my favorite player - in fact, I think he sucks.
Sure, he hits some home runs - at least in past years - but his defense is like old people’s food, BLAND (Didn’t Wedgie say he was “the master of the routine play”) WHAT??? I wonder if Joe Torre ever said that about Jeter when he was with the Yankees.
Anyway,...
Jeremy Guthrie
I’m reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis, and I come across a chapter in which Lewis is covering the Oakland A’s draft room in 2004. In the section, it’s mentioned that the Indians were set to draft Jeremy Guthrie because they had agreed to Scott Boras’s demands…a $20M package.
Doing my research, it appears that the Indians gave Guthrie a $3M signing bonus and a 4 year...
LeBron's Contract Uncertainty: Opportunity for the...
Briefly mentioned in all of the stories about the potential of Shaq being traded to the Cavs was the notion that Shaq wanted a contract extension and some kind of guarantee that LeBron was going to be in Cleveland after the ‘09-‘10 season.
This suggests to me that the Cavs have a major opportunity this summer - if they can find the right players - to leverage any roster moves with the...
Pluto on Indians →
Since I attempted to eviscerate Pluto last night, it’s only fair for me to give him credit for this article on the Indians. Baseball is his best sport. *M*
Josh Smith
I’ve heard some chatter, tangentially, across the web about the potential of Atlanta trading Josh Smith to the Cavs. I haven’t addressed any of it here because I assumed it was all crap. Smith’s a young, athletic PF but other than that, what indication is there that he’s the kind of player the Cavs would want? I won’t pull out any statistics - although I probably...
Terry Pluto: Overrated
Almost every week, revered Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Terry Pluto takes part in a podcast that I typically listen to every week at the gym…despite continual evidence of why Terry never made it out of the Cleveland sports scene and on to something bigger as a journalist (not that most of the national guys are a whole lot better).
My basic problem with Pluto is that he has a tendency to...
Broussard and Reghi on Shaq
On radio tonight, Broussard told Reghi that there was a 30 - 40% chance of Shaq coming to the Cavs. However, he said two other things that made me think - this could very well happen
1. Shaq wants it to happen, he desperately wants to win his 5th or even 6th ring - to seperate himself from Duncan and (although he didn’t say this) Kobe too. So, he wants to play with LBJ
2. LBJ wants it to happen...
Stallworth - 30 Days for Killing a Guy →
This strikes me as amazing - yes, 10 years probation is a “semi” big deal - but 30 days in jail when a guy is dead, albeit by accident? When Stallworth was facing 4 to 15 years?
Okay, so I actually agree that the sentence should be light (not interested in ruining two people’s lives for an incident that involves two random actions - time and place - and two mistakes - no...
Ricky Rubio
I don’t know anything about international players or college players or really jack shit about the NBA draft - but because I don’t want to write about the 3+ hours I spent watching an Indians baseball team on ESPN tonight try to win with Oberlin’s bullpen, I’m going to bring up Spanish PG Ricky Rubio, who was once the consensus number two pick in the draft (June 25th).
...
Indians' Bullpen Performance Graph →
After squirming through a horrific 14-12 loss that saw the Indians blow two separate five run leads, I spent a significant amount of time analyzing the performance of their bullpen mathematically. The end result was that I have managed to create a formula that yields what I believe to be the most accurate ever visual representation of their relievers as a collective. I’ll spare you the...
