Me being me, I will always stress calm until the last possible moment. And, in truth, the final moment - the moment when fear and anxiety move out of your imagination and become reality - may be the most freeing.
At that point, it’s all over. There’s nothing else to do but accept it.
For the NBA, the Cavaliers, and Cavaliers’ fans, that moment arrives on Thursday at 3 PM EST.
I haven’t been too concerned with the trade deadline so far. I’ve been intrigued by it. I’ve enjoyed analyzing the different possibilities and offering my perspective on how each player might affect the Cavs on the floor. I’ve had fun attempting to weigh and measure the various front office machinations: Riley versus Ferry. Gilbert versus the salary cap. Cleveland versus the world.
But I was never really stressed. Nor should I have been. After all, it’s out of my hands.
Last night, and especially tonight, that changed.
When I first heard on the radio that Danny “DDR” Green was being mentioned in the Amar’e trade talks, my stomach sank a little bit.
I have an affinity for DDR because he wasn’t afraid to tell Anthony Parker (a player he may already be better than) that he wanted to be “one of the greats” when it was all said and done and his career was over.
I and am therefore against him being traded. I know this flies in the face of what I said before when discussing the idea of moving J.J. Hickson - mainly that the future is only slightly valuable when you have the ability to compete for a championship right now.
But allow me to be (slightly) irrational for a moment. And yes, I’m not really kidding about preferring Green to Parker.
Tonight my nerves got a little worse.
It happened when the infamous Woj reported that the Cavs were preparing to move off of Stoudemire and give up Jamario Moon, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, and a number one draft pick to get Mike James and Antawn Jamison from the Washington Wizards.
Although a Moon trade would open the door for DDR to get more playing time, I think this is way too much to give up for a 33-year-old PF who hasn’t made an unassisted 3P in four years and is still owed $28.4M.
(Edit: Chris Broussard later reported, via a source with the Wizards, that this offer was not accurate. I leave it to your discretion whom to trust - I just hope you read Tim’s post.)
Afterwards, the Knicks became the frontrunners to get Tracy McGrady from the Rockets, moving Jared Jeffries in the process, setting the stage to possibly sign two free agents to max deals in the summer.
It was then that the Doomsday scenario started to unfold:
The Cavs lose out on Amare. He is instead traded to Miami. Riley appeases Wade and maintains enough cap space in the summer to sign another max player besides Wade and Amar’e. Meanwhile, Ferry “fails” LeBron at the same time cap space opens up in NYC. And the Cavs end up with a frontline that features a slew of guys in their mid to late 30’s (Jamison, Z, Shaq).
What many saw, myself included, as a potentially massive coup for the two Dan’s - getting Amar’e and his Bird Rights now, which would enable the Cavaliers to sign two max free agents, both him and LeBron, without any cap space in the vaunted Summer of 2010 - would be gone while arguably more appealing situations opened up simultaneously in New York and Miami.
We can talk about how valuable Amar’e is, whether or not he should be a max player, or if he can play any defense, but none of that on-court stuff matters as much as the above. Roster manipulation. That is really the move Ferry is trying to make. He’s trying to head off the New York-Miami Doomsday scenario.
Of course, the actual Doomsday event won’t happen until we hear LeBron has signed with a team other than Cleveland early on in July. And that probably will only happen if the Cavs don’t win a championship this season, which only complicates Ferry’s decision-making more. What if he makes LeBron happy right now by getting Amar’e, and then they fail to win the title and LeBron walks? Does Ferry think Jamison or Troy Murphy gives them a better shot? That could very well be what he’s wrestling with.
So i was wrong. There is no real Doomsday until July. But the preparations for the Apocalypse could very well be in full swing by Thursday at 3 PM EST.
