Part of me feels like it’s redundant to write another column on the Cavs’ trade options. We know nothing more right now than what we did at this time yesterday, other than that Miami’s Gordon Gekko is frantically searching for a third team to help him sweeten his best pitch to Phoenix to try to trump the Cavs’ offer for Amar’e. We’ve already discussed the various options at length and expressed our opinions on what we hope the team does. Hell, there’s even a chance that by the time anyone reads this post in the morning ET, the entire situation could be resolved. (Windhorst suggested tonight that it’s possible that the Suns will want to bring an end to the Amar’e trade tornado before they tip off against the Grizzlies Tuesday night in Memphis.)
So instead of trying to further analyze the basketball implications of Trade A vs. Trade B vs. Trade C, I want to go back to Fortitude South.
I doubt that anyone but me remembers the reference, but I first brought it up in a column a few months back to dispute T.I.T. and their conversation about why all signs were pointing to LeBron bolting Cleveland for the Clippers this summer. In way of explanation, I wrote this:
For non-WW2 buffs, “Fortitude South” was the code-name for the decoy invasion the Allies set up to distract the Germans from Normandy prior to the D-Day invasion. The operation consisted of the Allies’ stocking Kent, England with inflatable tanks, inflatable landing crafts, fake radio broadcasts, and general misinformation to make the Nazis’ scouts and spy planes believe the “real” invasion point was Pas-de-Calais. Obviously, it wasn’t. The Allies laughed all the way to VE-Day, and the Nazis looked like fools.
In other words, Fortitude South means one side is willingly “leaking” misinformation for their own advantage. This, in a nutshell, is part of the reason that practically every hour I can read someone’s updated trade buzz column—because in all likelihood, a significant portion of the “new info” is bogus.
Let’s look at one example: the Cavs have been in talks with the Pacers about sweet-shooting Dino Velvet for months. Supposedly, he is now their fall-back if Amar’e and Jamison can’t be had. Around midnight ET, there was a trade buzz tweet from Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski asserting the following:
CLE had talks with Wiz on Antawn Jamison Monday, but didn’t chat with Pacers on Troy Murphy, sources say. Indy has 4-5 suitors for Murphy.
Here’s the thing: I’ve heard a couple of different times that Indiana has “multiple teams” clamoring for The Velvet One. However, aside from a single mention of the Milwaukee Bucks some time last week, not one analyst of the 10-15 we pay attention to here at Mesa—not even Wojnarowski himself—has ever named who these other teams are.
Is it possible that Murphy is really being coveted by so many different teams? Yes. But considering all of the chatter that’s out there, isn’t it at least a little suspicious that no more specifics have been aired on this front?
Thinking about this logically, tell me which scenario seems more likely to you: the one above, or one in which Indiana—a team going nowhere and desperate for both salary relief and young talent—is faced with a trade market dominated by a single buyer who also happens to have the league’s best record and is therefore arguably the team that least needs to make a deal. To try to manipulate circumstances more in their favor, they “leak” information to a well-regarded sports journalist that they have many teams clamoring for the chance to trade for a guy that the Cavs are treating as a last resort.
Personally, I am in the latter camp. One big reason is that by all accounts, there may not be 4-5 buyers in the entire league right now. Dallas has already made their move. Portland was another potential buyer, but it looks like they’ve all but finalized a deal with the Clippers for Marcus Camby. Houston has been discussed in various deals, but never for Murphy. The Lakers have supposedly been looking at point guard options, but nothing in terms of bigs. Miami is a buyer, but only for Stoudemire. The Spurs, Nuggets, and Timberwolves have all been mentioned as hunting for a young athletic inside presence—but that doesn’t describe Murphy’s strengths, and I’ve never seen his name brought up in their context. (Those three teams are supposedly exploring Tyrus Thomas, which would make sense.) So who else is left?
The ultimate offender on the misinformation front is The Oracle himself, ESPN’s Chad Ford. Mike and I had both agreed that what I’m about to mention was so ludicrous that it didn’t even warrant spending time on, but it’s such a perfect example of the type of noise that I’m talking about that I can’t resist. Just yesterday, Ford wrote a column asserting that if the Cavs were to land Amar’e, they might also swap Shaq and their 2010 first round pick for Jamison and Mike Miller or Dino Velvet and Mike Dunleavy.
Ford also makes a special point of noting how “surprising” it is that Amar’e’s reps haven’t yet been contacted by the Cavs about an extension—presumably a tactic to add another twist to a trade story that was otherwise going to be in stasis. However, as Windhorst tweeted this evening:
Re: the topic of the Cavs not talking to Stoudemire about an extension. They would not be permitted to do so without permission from PHX. Otherwise it would be clearest case of tampering in history, akin to the Knicks calling up LeBron tonight and offering him a deal.
So in the span of a few paragraphs, Ford basically puts forth: A) the notion that Danny Ferry is ready to completely remake a team that is currently the overall #1 seed and riding a 13-game winning streak, and B) a supposedly intriguing wrinkle to the Amar’e trade talks that completely ignores the ethical guidelines of the NBA. Aside from the reality that I have never seen a single trade Ford has rumored actually come to fruition, NBA junkies like myself are supposed to believe a guy who’s spouting this kind of nonsense?
It’s easy to forget that there are two businesses at work here: the business of basketball, and the business of reporting about basketball. At this time of year especially, each of those two businesses depends on the other. Team executives need sports pundits to help shape a reality that puts their team in the best possible bargaining position around the league; the sports pundits need the executives and sources because their media outlet, newspaper, or website expects them to produce columns, blog posts, and TV segments detailing the new developments in the trade market. The more information that’s out there, the better for all parties. And neither side has anything to lose, since the sources are never identified and the journalist’s job is simply to report what he hears from those sources.
So as we Cavs fans continue to scour the internet for new information on what the front office is doing, we should all keep in mind that, regardless of whether or not you agree with every move they’ve made, Danny Ferry and Lance Blanks have proven themselves to be rational, non-reactionary thinkers who are not going to do something stupid. We should all keep in mind that if it sounds too crazy or unorthodox to be true, it probably is. Most of all, we should keep in mind that some of these journalists’ reports are a means of putting food on the table for their families, paying their mortgages, keeping their kids in college—and that personnel sources around the NBA are more than willing to help them do that so long as the information being spread helps them do the same.
In short, in these final 72 hours leading up to the deadline, we should all keep in mind Fortitude South.
-T
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