I know I’m going to get some heat for this post, but I’m writing this to declare my renewed support for and belief in Danny Ferry.
Only a few days ago, I posted an open letter to (as Shaq called him) “The Great Danny Ferry,” pleading with him to focus his attention on Josh Childress, or at the very least, the younger guys still out there in free agency. All reports we had been getting at that time pointed to the idea that after ostensibly losing Ariza and Artest, we’d moved on to target the one, the only Anthony “The Relic” Parker. And that if we didn’t get him, we were mostly focused on other ancient artifacts like Antonio “Carbon Dated” McDyess, Rasheed “The Mummy” Wallace, and the exhumed body of Pete Maravich.
Fast forward to this weekend. Thanks to the all-knowing power of Twitter, Mike and I discover from Plain Dealer Cavs’ beat writer Brian Windhorst that Ferry and Coldstone have jetted out to LA for some “secret” free agent meetings. Speculation at the time points to the possibility of them coming out to try to woo none other than…Josh Childress, who grew up in Southern California and lives in LA in the offseason.
But as is now being reported by ESPN.com, sources have confirmed that the real purpose of the meeting was a last-ditch effort to try to get Trevor Ariza to renege on his verbal commitment to Houston. A last-ditch effort that included LEBRON PROCLAIMING THAT HE WOULD RE-SIGN WITH THE CAVS in order to convince Ariza to make the switch.
(Note: I am too far into this column at this point to switch gears, but as anyone reading this already knows, the famously coy LeBron even saying out loud that he would be in wine and gold past 2010 is basically the biggest news in Cleveland sports since he signed his last extension. However, I’ll leave further analysis up to my illustrious co-writers for now.)
In addition, it was reported over the weekend that the Cavs have never even bothered to CALL Sheed since the start of free agency. No mention has been made of any efforts to try to sign Grant Hill, who was supposed to be another of the Cavs’ elderly targets. And while there have certainly been indications that the Cavs have been pursuing Anthony Parker, there have been no reports that we’ve moved any further along toward a deal with him than we had on Thursday of last week.
Meanwhile, a variety of sports media outlets reported this morning that the Cavs hosted former Trail Blazer PF Channing Frye, another young “stretch” 4 who has showed a lot of potential despite being buried on Portland’s bench behind approximately 7,000 other long, tall, athletic guys whose offensive games are limited to perimeter jump shots. Talks are also supposedly continuing between the Cavs and Nuggets F Linas Kleiza, who, when playing well, basically looks like whomever Mike Brown kept mistaking Sasha Pavlovic for, i.e. a young Euro with range who is also athletic enough to finish at the rim.
Windhorst has also confirmed that the Cavs’ number one priority right now is re-signing Andy Varejao, who, despite his well-documented offensive limitations, has still been a very important guy to the Cavs’ success over the past several seasons, at least if non-statistical measures are given any real weight.
Now, a few caveats to all of this: it seems the Cavs have NOT, in fact, talked to Childress. Reports on the Ariza meeting suggest right now that he is still firmly comitted to Houston, despite the Cavs’ best efforts to the contrary. According to Yahoo! Sports, the Suns are still the favorite to land Channing Frye. And any hold-up on Anthony Parker may be purely a result of Toronto needing to sort out the technicalities of waiving him so that they can sign Turkoglu.
However, all this aside, the trend that we’ve seen over the past few days is undeniable: a concerted effort to try to bring in younger players who have had early, measured success in the league while maintaining plenty of potential to grow around LeBron into legit supporting players in his age bracket. At the same time, Ferry hasn’t performed any fatal knee-jerk reaction to losing out on our biggest FA targets. It’s not as if they immediately threw the mid-level at Grant Hill after being spurned by Ariza just so they could see the franchise’s name on ESPN.com.
By no means am I declaring victory for the Cavs’ front office. In pro sports - like in so many other things - you’re ultimately judged on what you actually get accomplished rather than just what you were TRYING to get done. But after years of incompetent personnel decision-making, the evidence seems to suggest that Ferry & Co at least have their heads on straight. In other words, unlike the vaunted mind of his predecessor Jim Paxson, I know for a fact that Danny is not going to do anything patently absurd like, say, trade a first round pick for Jiri Welsch. And no matter who we land or don’t land in free agency, there’s something to be said for that level of basic intelligence.
Also, if LeBron really is serious enough about re-signing that he would at least tell Ariza those were his plans, no one got anything better out of free agency than we did.
-T
(view comments)
