July 29, 2010
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 already know that the Indians have been playing the Yankees since Monday. On Tuesday night, while watching just called up Josh Tomlin throw 7 innings of no walk, no home run baseball, I was stricken by the gigantic discrepancy between the star power on the Yankees and that of the Indians. 

Tomlin versus CC Sabathia. Alex Rodriguez versus Jhonny Peralta. Derek Jeter versus Asdrubal Cabrera. Curtis Granderson versus Trevor Crowe…

I could go on, but I won’t. At least in terms of the national perception - and really the historic background of the players themselves - it was almost like the Yankees were an All-Star team, and the Indians were a bunch of minor leaguers. 

Which actually isn’t that far from the truth. 

At any rate, however, I was also taken by how much more fun it was to root for the Indians precisely because of this fact. That they ended up beating the Yankees 4-1 made for an even better experience. 

Like neuroscience / culture writer Jonah Lehrer talked about here, there is a lot to be said about rooting for the underdog. Although it happens naturally with any team, even those that are not our favorites, it’s even better when your favorite team is the underdog - and, of course, when they win. 

I started to realize then, that there is a flip side to all the negative things you’ve heard and we’ve written about the NBA’s move towards super teams. When LeBron, Bosh, and Wade decided to join together in Miami, they also indirectly created a whole new set of underdogs. Watching good but not great teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, or up and coming teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder compete against the Heat will be ten times more enjoyable now. And although I will certainly miss watching James and Wade try to beat each other’s brains in on the floor, the Cavs-Heat game will take on an entirely different, but still quite substantive, competitive character now that Cleveland is resoundingly an underdog team. 

This realization on my part, I thought, was a positive sign about life as a sports fan in Cleveland. Rooting for the underdog may not be the same as winning a championship, but it is something pretty great, and something to be cherished. 

And if and when the underdog wins the title, that might just be the best thing ever.

1:00am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/874358585/underdogs
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FILED UNDER: Indians Yankees Cavs Heat Underdogs 
July 2, 2010
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 if I’m not sweating yet. And pardon me again if I go on to say that none of you Cavs fans reading this post should be sweating either.

As we here at Mesa have pointed out multiple times over the course of the past few weeks (via Twitter and in columns), generating excitement about a business prospect during a meeting falls somewhere between “producing saliva” and “crapping” on the scale of difficulty. I’m not even denying that the excitement in the room for the Nets and Knicks was genuine. But the reality is that unless one of these other teams walk out of the LRMR offices with a verbal commitment from James, the emotion in the room during  a presentation is irrelevant.

Let’s also not forget that the pundits reporting about yesterday’s meetings were entirely basing their opinions on sources within the Nets and Knicks, most of whom probably weren’t even at the meetings in question. As a result, reporters and beat writers end up gushing in print about how great their chances of landing LeBron are—like this, for example. (Caveat: kudos to Rod Thorn for sounding like the voice of reasonable expectation in the midst of this blowjob of a report.)

Examining this situation rationally for a moment, consider this: what else are these partisan sources going to say? “You know, I gotta be honest, I thought our presentation sorta sucked”? “I’ll tell ya, LeBron seemed really disinterested”? “We couldn’t even get a meeting with Amar’e earlier than Monday and Rudy Gay already re-signed with Memphis. Why the hell would we have any chance at signing LeBron”? Something tells me that’s not going to fly if you want to remain employed by either of those organizations.

Second, what about any of LeBron’s media appearances since he was 16 would lead anyone to believe that he wouldn’t portray interest and enthusiasm in these meetings? Not only was the first of them led by one of his best friends and biggest role models, but this is a guy who declared that at one time or another he’s dreamed about playing for every team in the league, and that he’s been looking forward to this day (free agency) for four years. This is a mega-holiday for him. I’m convinced that today’s teams could give their presentations entirely in Korean, and LeBron would still be giddy.

Third, thanks to the information that’s out in the public realm about the Knicks’ presentation, I can say with knowledge that it was laughable. For starters, one of the supposed ringers the NYK brain trust brought in for the meeting was…Allan Houston, a guy whose greatest legacy in the league is as arguably the worst return on a max contract investment in NBA history. Houston missed a combined 94 regular season games in the 3rd and 4th seasons of that contract and retired before the start of the fifth. For that, the Knicks paid him over $20M per. My sources tell me that Donnie Walsh followed up his decision to include Houston in the meeting by flying to New Orleans to pitch the Saints’ brass on selling the Super Dome’s naming rights jointly to BP and FEMA.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Forbes got a hold of an actual piece of the Knicks’ presentation—a slideshow by a marketing consultant called Interbrand that claims LeBron has the potential to gross $2 Billion (yes, that’s a ‘B’) by playing the rest of his career with the Knicks. At the very worst, his signature on a Knicks’ contract would give him a 48.6% chance of grossing at least $1 Billion.

As Forbes’s Steven Bertoni points out in the article, “the report is light on the details of its methodology.” Having gone through the slideshow personally, I concur. The results seem to be based on…well, nothing tangible, other than the fact that James Dolan cut them a check to come to a specific conclusion. Interbrand claims that the findings were determined via a battery of computers running career projections based on a variety of factors, but the overall vagueness of the presentation creates the distinct impression of junk science (or technically, junk math. I wouldn’t want to confuse my junk).

Even funnier, the unintended take-away from this preposterous slideshow is that staying in Cleveland is actually a much more profitable decision for LeBron than anyone would have ever anticipated. Interbrand’s “study” shows that James’s maximum lifetime value in Cleveland is $1.176B, his lifetime average value is $699M, and his chance at making a billion dollars stands at 1.3%. By comparison among the other non-Knicks franchises included in the model (Chicago and Miami), Chicago would offer him a slightly higher maximum lifetime value ($1.233B), but a lower average value ($689M) and lower probability of grossing his first billion (1.0%). Miami is a distant fourth in all categories. In short, Cleveland is pretty clearly his second-best option behind the bumbling carnival side show that is the Knicks.

Considering that Dolan paid for this presentation, he may have wanted to suggest that Interbrand skew the findings even further than they’re already skewed. Telling LeBron he has any chance of grossing over a billion dollars by staying in his hometown, which is widely acknowledged by now to be neck-and-neck with Chicago as his chosen destination, isn’t necessarily a tactic I’d have recommended. But then again, this is why the Knicks have been an NBA afterthought for most of the past decade.

I also love the fact that the Interbrand “study” finds that LeBron has a 0% chance of making a bill in Miami because of “lack of fan avidity,” i.e. because no one living in Miami gives a shit about the Heat. I think it may be the only nugget of truth in the entire slide show. But that’s neither here nor there.

My final point as to why Cavs fans should remain calm: Pat Riley’s grand plan for wooing LeBron is going down in flames. According to reliable sources (and common sense, my favorite of all sources), Riley’s strategy hinged on getting verbal commitments from both Wade and Bosh to come to Miami before meeting with LeBron. As of now, that has not happened. Considering that Wade met with the Bulls today, and Bosh has been tweeting like a jackass about his meetings with Houston and New Jersey (with other meetings scheduled), it seems highly unlikely that King Slickback will be able to make that pitch as planned. Without commitments from those two players, the Heat have to try to sell James on living at South Beach with Mario Chalmers and Michael “Every GM in the League Thinks I Might As Well Be Made of Uranium” Beasley. Not exactly a strong hand, especially considering that if past history is any indication, the Heat might just retire James’s jersey even if he never plays for them.

In short, I still believe that the Cavs’ faithful have nothing to fear from the tri-state area, and all signs point to Miami and the Clippers being non-factors. Which means it will all come down to Saturday. Chicago Vs. Cleveland. Only time will tell if Dan Gilbert comes out of that match-up as the ownership equivalent to Craig Ehlo. But for today, at least, I believe we can all rest easy.

-T

2:18am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/760990302/liars-poker-day-1-lbj-free-agency-recap
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FILED UNDER: Free agency LeBron 2010 Summer of Money Heat Pat Riley Knicks Nets New Jersey New York Miami 
May 20, 2010
The Summer of Money - The Sign and Trade

The big buzz - amongst everyone who’s already determined LeBron James will leave Cleveland when he becomes a free agent on midnight of July 1st - is about the possibility of a sign and trade. While I think there is a significant chance James stays with the Cavaliers, I can’t fault people for wanting to talk about a sign and trade. It is at least progressive and forward thinking in the sense that it involves conversations about building for the future and maximizing assets in order to do so.

As we all know, after all, the Cavaliers have not won a title with LeBron in town. 

Assuming the projected $56.1M cap sticks and using salary numbers from HoopData, we can talk about which players might come back to Cleveland in a hypothetical sign and trade arrangement. Remember, since the Cavs are over the salary cap, the salaries going out / coming in must match within 125% + $100K. 

Before getting into this, I should say that if the Cavs tell James and his team that they’re open to a sign and trade, it opens the door for him to be dealt to any team in the NBA. For the sake of not letting things get out of control, however, I’ll stick to the teams with cap space for now. I’ll also assume that the Cavs wouldn’t be sending any other players out alongside James, although I’m willing to acknowledge that this could be rather unlikely.

Yes, I know this is cheating. 

These proposed trades are based on the notion that LeBron’s salary next season, in a max deal, will be $16.6M (105% of his current salary - 30% of the cap would be $16.83M, but we’ll stick with $16.6M). This means that the salary totals involved in the trade would have to fall between $16.6M and $20.85M. 

Chicago Bulls: $20.6M in cap space

Luol Deng: $11.3M
Kirk Hinrich: $9M 

And wow that would be a terrible deal. I like Deng more than a lot of people I know, but he’s owed money through 2014 and Hinrich is owed another $8M in the 2011-12 season. Neither player comes anywhere close to filling the gap that would be left by James (in fairness, no two players probably will), and both have bad contracts. 

The Bulls could throw Joakim Noah ($3.1M), Taj Gibson ($1.1M), and James Johnson ($1.7M) on top of Deng, but I doubt James goes to Chicago without Noah - unless he truly hates him - and I would consider Anderson Varejao Noah’s equal anyway. Taj Gibson is Glitch without the upside. 

Miami Heat: $41.5 in cap space

A sign and trade with the Heat is literally impossible unless Miami were to sign a player(s) who is not currently under contract, or a three team deal - maybe with a franchise that is under the cap - could be swung.

In other words, next.

Side note: Remember when there was a debate between Michael Beasley and Derek Rose for the #1 pick? I believe that if Chicago hadn’t won the lottery, Beasley would’ve went first, and Miami may have had a stronger two man core of Dwayne Wade and Rose to add to this offseason. Of course, they still would have had a two man core…

I maintain that Pat Riley did a disservice to Wade, to Miami, and to the NBA by tanking for the past three seasons - no matter what happens this offseason - but that’s another story for another day. 

New York Knicks: $34.5M in cap space

The Knicks are a semi-interesting case only because they open the door to one of the major conversations the Cavaliers front office will be having if it becomes clear James is steadfast on going to another team:

Is it better to get assets in a sign and trade or let James walk and focus on cap space in 2010 and/or 2011?

I bring this up because the Knicks would likely dangle Eddy Curry, who has one year left on his deal at $11.3M. The Knicks could also sign and trade David Lee, giving him to the Cavaliers along with Curry for a combined salary that would fall within the necessary limits. 

In this scenario, the Cavs could be in a position to get a quality player in Lee and cap space in 2011, which could be hampered by a lockout and will be governed by a new collective bargaining agreement. 

What no one knows is what free agency will look in 2011. Will it still be a relative gamble, where teams largely overpay for talent and run the risk of getting locked into bad contracts (Larry Hughes), or will it be restructured to be more favorable to the owners than to the players? 

While all of the signs point to the latter, no one can be certain. 

If the Cavaliers let (or force) LeBron to walk without a sign and trade, it will give them about $9.9M to play with in free agency this offseason. Right now I would be against the team signing anyone with that money because of the uncertainty surrounding the new CBA and the fact that star players come in the draft, not free agency. No one wants to hear this, but if LeBron leaves, the Cavs should be trying to get back into the lottery as soon as f’ing possible. 

New Jersey Nets: $26.3M in cap space

I touched on this with the Bulls, but the Nets provide something else for James to consider - is he willing to give up maximum money (by this I mean a 6 year deal) and leave without a sign and trade so that the team he’s going to is able to keep all of its assets? 

The numbers are close, for example, on the Nets giving the Cavaliers the following players for James: 

Devin Harris: $9M
Yi Jianlian: $4M
Terence Williams: $2.2M
Courtney Lee: $1.4M

But then LeBron has to go to a New Jersey team that no longer has a point guard who was once an all star. And who knows what kinds of draft picks the Cavs might be able to force out of their trading partner, as well. 

As many people have already written, we’re going to learn a lot about LeBron James in the window after July 1st. 

I’ll be back on Monday to write about more potential sign and trade options with different teams.

1:00am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/615663176/the-summer-of-money-the-sign-and-trade
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FILED UNDER: Summer of Money Sign and Trade Cavs Knicks Nets Heat Timberwolves Kings Bulls Wizards Clippers 
February 23, 2010
2010 Cap Reality Series: Miami Heat

Now that we’ve all been able to recover from the fury of the trade deadline, I wanted to try to sort through what this summer may look like.

I’m referring, of course, to free agency. Which is not a topic that I normally like to think about. I’m the type of person who can go down the rabbit hole if he starts dealing with a situation where too many unanswerable “what ifs” are in play. As I stated on this blog about a week ago, I was almost more concerned over whether or not the Knicks were able to clear enough cap space to sign two max free agents than I was about the Cavs’ getting Jamison.

And yet, here I am…

I’m not the only one thinking about this topic, obviously. Mike already posted a link to ESPN’s breakdown of the franchises in play in this upcoming free agent season. Brian Windhorst wrote an article about the inherent gamble involved in staking your team’s future on free agency in the PD this Sunday. (Worth a read if you haven’t seen it already.)

I’m not entirely on board with some of the specifics that B-Dub uses—for instance, citing Gilbert Arenas as a positive pick-up for the Wiz seems dubious, especially since he then goes on to call Carlos Boozer a disappointment to the Jazz. But I do agree with the general sentiment. As I’ve said before, cap space is pressure. If a front office whiffs on the guys actually worth the money, they are automatically in peril of overpaying someone undeserving just so they can argue to the fan base that they got something for the money and the sacrifice it took to earn that money. Hence, the 2005 Larry Hughes signing after Ferry couldn’t convince Ray Allen or Mike Redd to walk away from re-signing with their then-current teams.

With all that in mind, though, I haven’t yet seen an honest, in-depth breakdown of the pros and cons going for each of these franchises who have cleared the cap space to make a run at LeBron this summer. So over the course of the next week or two, I’m going to do it team-by-team. Starting with…

CONTESTANT #1: THE MIAMI HEAT

*Note: I am going to run w/the assumption of a $53M cap and therefore a max contract value of $16.56M in the first year, but all of the analysis in this series could be rendered moot if the cap comes in higher or lower than that figure.

The Sell Job: In many regards, it could be argued that Miami is the most dangerous of the suitors vying for Bron. Players love South Beach and warm weather climates in general. Unlike some of the other potential free agent destinations, the Heat are a perennial playoff team. The young players still likely to be on the roster—Michael Beasley, Daequan Cook, and Mario Chalmers—have talent. Also unlike New York, the Heat have draft picks and will be far enough under the cap that they will NOT have to fill out their roster entirely with minimum salary players. Wade and Bron are close friends, and the lure of playing together every game is tantalizing. Pat Riley has built a championship team as recently as 2006, and the man is a legend of the game that a young stud like LeBron would naturally gravitate toward as a mentor figure. With the right roster, he could even come down from the box and back to the bench.

The Reality: Though not as much of a desert as New York (who I’ll look at on Wednesday), the Heat’s roster—other than Wade—is hardly one to motivate a smart player to jump ship from a contender. Beasley has talent (averaging 19 PTS/ 7.8 REB per 36 on 48% shooting), but has also had off-court troubles. With the exception of FT%, STL, and TOV, his per-36 numbers in his second season have either plateaued or declined. Cook won a three-point contest a year ago, but is only averaging 37% 3FG and a dismal 36% FG overall for his career. Chalmers, meanwhile, is the guy who chucked up a half court shot in the middle of a 4th quarter run by the Cavs last year because he thought a non-existent TO had been called. Apart from that, he’s only getting 25 minutes of playing time per game this year, though his per 36 stats aren’t…well, they’re not good (11.1 PTS on 42.6% FG / 5.4 AST / 2.3 TOV).

Then there’s the Alpha Dog issue. If Bron goes to Miami—which has been Wade’s team for the past 7 seasons—how does that work out? Officially, Wade is a shooting guard and Bron is a forward. But in terms of how frequently they want the ball in their own hands on the perimeter, they essentially play the same position.  Bron is clearly not ready to make a living posting up, mostly because he doesn’t want to. So would he be able to co-exist with Wade on the same team? Probably. But I don’t know that he’d love it long-term.

Meanwhile, Wade has even said himself that if he could play with anyone in the league, he’d choose Da-wight over Bron. Considering that Wade won a title by combining with a powerhouse inside presence, this should shock absolutely no one. It’s also not a coincidence that Riley’s primary trade targets in the past two seasons have both been big men—Carlos Boozer and Amar’e Stoudemire.

What about the lure of South Beach? There are a lot of players in this league that this venue would make a difference to. I don’t necessarily think Bron is one of them. Though I’m sure he’s not a clergyman in his off-hours, I feel comfortable saying that Bron’s priorities are truly winning, improving his game, and building himself into a global brand. The idea that he’d immediately flip for the opportunity to play in Miami so that he can hang out in South Beach is ludicrous. Look, if the guy wants to go to the beach, he can charter a plane and be there in a few hours. If he wants prime night life, he can be in New York or Vegas or LA just as easily. If he wants beautiful Cuban women, I’m willing to bet that he can have them flown in via a quick phone call to World Wide Wes or Maverick Carter. But the idea that the commute to the beach is going to be a major factor in LeBron’s decision-making on where to play is just incredibly naive to me.

Then there’s the great Pat Riley.

Yes, the man is a basketball legend. Yes, he’s won multiple titles as a Hall of Fame coach and GM. But look at how the team has done since winning the 2006 championship:

2007: 44-38, swept by Chicago in first round of playoffs.

2008: 16-57, worst record in the NBA.

2009: 43-39, L to Atlanta in first round of playoffs.

2009-10: today, the Heat has a 29-28 record and will have to fight like hell to hang onto the 8th seed in the playoffs, where they will undoubtedly be bounced in the first round yet again.

This leaves their cumulative record since 2006 at a sobering 132-162. The franchise has died in the first round of the post-season twice, missed it entirely once, and will do either one of those or the other again this year. Since dealing Shaq to the Suns in 2008, the biggest-name running mate that Riley has given Wade in Miami has been either a past-his-prime Shawn Marion or Jermaine O’Neal, who by this point has had more operations than Frankenstein’s monster. (If I had to guess, Wade’s most productive teammate in terms of advanced stats has probably been Udonis Haslem, who the Heat will likely not retain when his contract expires this summer.) I don’t normally argue for the merit of big names, but in this case, it’s not as if Riley can point to the franchise’s record over the past 4 seasons and argue with a straight face that he’s complemented Wade with quality role players.

Of course, Wade and Riley have been in a protracted staring contest over the roster for years now. Their owner is widely renowned as one of the cheapest in the league. Compare that to what Bron has gotten from Danny Ferry and Dan Gilbert.

Then there’s the issue of draft picks. Yes, the Heat have two in the first round (one of their own and one from Toronto from the Jermaine O’Neal trade). But barring a total shift in those teams’ outlook for the rest of this season, both will be mid-rounders. And it’s not as if Riley has exactly been setting the world on fire with his draft prowess since plucking Wade at #5 in 2003. Yes, Beasley is a potential complementary piece, but it was pre-ordained that whomever ended up with the #2 pick last year was going to take him. It’s not as if Riley did some clandestine research to uncover an unknown gem. Meanwhile, the other players he’s drafted since Wade are as follows:

2003: Jerome Beasley (#33 overall)

2004: Dorell Wright (#19) and Pape Snow (#47)

2005: Wayne Simien (#29)

2006: no picks

2007: Jason Smith (#20) and Stanko Barac (#39)

2008: Michael Beasley (#2) and Darnell Jackson (#52, traded to Cavs)

2009: Marcus Thornton (#43) and Robert Dozier (#60)

I rest my case.

Finally, there’s the cap space itself. Under the assumption of a $53M cap, the first year of a max contract for a player w/Bron’s or Wade’s tenure would be $16.56M. So two maxes = $33.12M. Beasley, Cook, and the team option on Chalmer’s combine for ~$8M. Two mid-first rounders, according to ESPN, maths out to another $2.5M total. This all adds up to $43.62M, which leaves the Heat with ~$9.5M to fill out the other 5 roster spots required to get to the minimum 12. According to the NBA minimum salary scale, that leaves the Heat with some room to get creative—but not much. They will mostly have to rely on other players taking lower salaries for the opportunity to play with their imagined two max contracts, which may or may not be realistic.

Add all this up, and what do you get? A middle of the road roster that is going to have to rely on players choosing winning over money to fill out into complementary shape. A geographical / off-hours destination that probably doesn’t matter all that much to the guy in question. A GM with weak draft skills and an ego that will motivate him to play hardball with the only player keeping his franchise from contraction, even to the extent that he will completely waste 4 years of that player’s prime to prove a point. A star player basically already occupying the position Bron is used to manning. And to top it off, he wouldn’t even be able to wear #23 because Riley decided to retire the number of a competing player in his own arena’s rafters.

Prediction: Miami signs Amar’e and Wade to max deals, condemning the franchise to an annual #4 seed and at best, a single conference finals appearance after both players battle injuries for the remainder of their careers.

Series to be continued.

-T.

1:08am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/406709282/2010-cap-reality-series-miami-heat
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FILED UNDER: NBA Cavs LeBron Dwyane Wade Free Agency Miami Heat Pat Riley 
February 5, 2010
Cavs / Heat Bazooka Point

Aren’t you glad our team’s superstar isn’t talking like this at this point in the season?

“This team is just better than us. You have to be realistic. I understand this team has NBA championship aspirations. We don’t have that. We’re focusing on trying to get to the playoffs and this team is trying to get to the championship. It’s totally different.” —Dwyane Wade after the Heat’s 102-86 loss to the Cavs.

By no means am I trying to bash Wade. I just want to emphasize his level of frustration with this game and the overall season his team is having.

The Heat are now 2 games under .500, 9.5 games back in their division, and looking like a team that will end up as a first-round exit in the playoffs, if they make it to the post-season at all. They’re in this mess because Pat “Gordon Gekko” Riley is determined to win a very public pissing contest against Wade over whether or not Wade is going to sign an extension, with the roster of the team hanging in the balance. Brian Windhorst wrote an excellent article comparing how the Heat’s front office has handled Wade and the rest of the roster in comparison to how the Cavs have handled LBJ. Suffice it to say that they are using two completely different strategies to try to keep their superstars. The Heat are throwing this season away so they can go balls-out in free agency this summer; the Cavs are trying to win a championship right now.

Obviously, the playing field for these two franchises is not level. Cleveland doesn’t have the allure of South Beach or a warm weather climate or a favorable state income tax structure. But even if we had those things going for us, I would be burning our GM in effigy if he looked a player of Wade or James’ caliber in the face and said, “I recognize that this year is you in your prime. Guess what? I’m throwing it in the crapper unless you sign an extension. Go ahead, blink.”

LeBron is going to do whatever he wants this summer, but I think that Danny Ferry and Dan Gilbert have to be applauded for making sure that he’s not talking like Wade heading into free agency.

As far as tonight’s game goes, there were strong similarities between this one and the last showdown between these two teams. In the previous contest, Wade went off for 30 points in the first two quarters, then added only two more after the half when the Cavs started blitzing him to get the ball out of his hands ASAP.  Tonight, the Cavs took the same strategy and used it 12 minutes earlier. Wade scored 13 points in the first quarter but only 11 more on 3-12 shooting the rest of the game. He only got to the free throw line for two attempts (and made only 1) to finish the night with 24 points on a mediocre 11-26 (42.3%) from the floor.

The other similarity worth noting was Heat coach Erik Spoelstra’s hilarious love of calling time-outs almost any time his opponent gets a dunk, regardless of what point in the game it happens. He must’ve done this at least 3 times in the previous meeting and did it twice in the first half tonight. Truly hilarious. Please watch for this the next time you see the Heat on TV.

Meanwhile, Bron ran the point again because Boobie missed the first half to be with his fiancee, who went into false labor. Bron’s line: 40 minutes, 9-16 FG, 17-21 FT, 36 PTS, 7 REB, 8 AST, 2 STL, 4 TO. Game. Set. Match.

We can now all go back to speculating what the Cavs are going to do with the trade deadline looming. If you missed it, there’s a spirited debate going on in yesterday’s comments section on this very topic. The major flash point is still the value of Antawn Jamison vs. the artist formerly known as Troy Murphy, who will forevermore be known on this blog as the one, the only Dino Velvet.

Win streak: 10. Days to trade deadline: 13.

-T.

12:21am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/372042780/cavs-heat-bazooka-point
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FILED UNDER: Cavs Heat Wade LeBron