We have no time for Photoshop, etc today, but we know you need to read our thoughts on this -
Believe it or not, this actually has me contemplating getting League Pass for the rest of the season.
It’s not Gasol-to-the-Lakers or anything, but look at the dynamics of how LeBron plays, and you have be a little curious.
Drive and dump to Ben…Ben can handle that, and we’re not entirely convinced (although we’re sure we wrote the opposite in the past) that Ben is completely washed up. Remember, he’ll be playing power forward for CLE, which paired with Z, makes them pretty big upfront.
Wally is perfect for LeBron – doesn’t have to handle the ball – just stand out there and shoot it.
Getting rid of Larry Hughes is great for chemistry, and as far as contracts, they’ve added nothing extraordinary in the long term.
We’ve always felt Delonte West was a good PG for a LeBron James, as well.
We’re down with this deal – it’s a risk, but a calculated one.
UPDATE: The infamous Farlane sent us this lil’ thing he made for us, inaccurately depicting what happened when we heard about the trade:
Oh look!
Oh look!
There they run!
The Celtics of the City of Boston!
There they run!
All awash in their green little jerseys!
Green! The color of grass! The color of part of the rainbow!
Oh look!
Oh look!
The splendor of their names!
Across the back of their jerseys!
Piercey, and and Alleny, and Garnetty, there they go!
Points, and rebounds, and other statistics of note!
Oh look! Oh look!
They have beaten the Lasers!
Oh look!
Oh look!
I Am Legend! Will Smith is on steroids!
Compare him to Will Smith in other movies, preferably pre-Bad Boys 2!
He is much bigger now!
The fullness and rapid growth of his muscles indicates unnatural assistance!
Oh look!
Oh look!
This is not a criticism!
We’re sorry mom, but if we were offered $20M and a starring role in a science fiction film, we would do them, too!
By the time any negative long term side-effects came to pass, you will be dead anyway!
Why would it matter to you here today in 2008?!
Oh look!
Oh look!
We are just warning you!
So you don’t yell at us when we get to l’heaven!
We will say, “Angel-Mom! We told you we’d do it back in 2008!”
“Right before a bunch of stuff happened!”
Oh look!
Oh look!
Google thinks we are spelling ascendence wrong!
It gives us no viable alternatives!
We love Oklahoma!
On this NBA Season Eve*, We’re sorting through a hefty share of emails regarding the Pistons’ Rasheed Wallace claiming that the NBA basically fixed the series with the Cavaliers last season, ie the league wanted LeBron in the Finals.
We’re not sure how that works, when the Pistons let him drive down the lane like 100 times in a row in that Game 5, and Sheed himself completely melted down and got himself ejected from Game 6.
We will concede that David Stern used telekenesis to guide all of Boobie Gibson’s jumpshots into the basket. That’s a little more realistic.
Here are a portion of the comments, if you haven’t seen them.
“I still don’t think they (Cavaliers) beat us, we beat ourselves,†Wallace said. “And I think we also fell victim to that personal NBA thing where they are trying to make it a world game and get (television) ratings. They wanted to put their darling in there (the NBA Finals) and they did, and look what ended up happening.â€Â
First of all, Sheed’s mouth became completely irrelevant two seasons ago, when he kept calling (and missing) his shot regarding the Pistons beating the Cavs in the second round. Are we all in a agreement on this?
He’s not exactly Joe Namath.
Secondly, and more importantly…we just don’t care.
We’ve tried to get fired up for this season, but we’re just not. AT ALL.
We’ve already explained our reluctance to get League Pass, and honestly, as we sit here this morning, we’re not even sure we’ll watch the Cavs and Mavs play Wednesday, let alone any other games.
There was a great danger last season, and we said this as it was happening, that the apathy/malaise of LeBron could permanently damage our fandom if he kept that $#!t up.
He did, save for the Pistons series, and all signs of this preseason say it’s continuing into this year. We think he’s lost us. He’s really a more talented Vince Carter, until he proves otherwise. Earn it, kid.
THAT SAID, we look forward to seeing how the hell we’re going to write an entertaining NBA blog when we no longer enjoy the league, and won’t be watching that many (if any) games.
We will attempt it – we will continue – if only because you should definitely be keeping an eye on this location.
*Previously one of our favorite days of the year.
As September has worn on and moved forwardish, we’ve kept one eye on (believe it or not) Major League Baseball.
Why, you ask? Well, because the Detroit Tigers are not winning the Central Division.
Our own Cleveland Indians, rightful owners of said grouping of teams, have reclaimed their title as Central Division Champs.
Now, don’t jump all over us here. Just because we haven’t been all over the Tribe all season, or last season, or the season before that, doesn’t mean we don’t love them, or that we’re some kind of bandwagon jumper.
The difficulty of both following a mediocre baseball team in Cleveland from all the way out in Los Angeles is hefty, indeed. But now we’re ready to be all into it, especially if we get to take on those scumbags from Boston, who we hate more than those other scumbags from NYC.
A short history of us and baseball:
While never having the love for the sport like we have for the NBA, one of the defining moments of our life was Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, when the Tribe was on the verge of winning it all. (We’re sure we’ve told this story here before, but because Boney loves it when we rehash the same crap over and over, we’ll continue.)
So like it’s top of the ninth, Indians are winning, and it’s gonna happen…finally. However, we turned to our father in some moment of Clevelandness, and said, “Dad, we’re not gonna win, are we?”
He looked at me in a way fathers do and simply shook his head, “no”. In that moment we understood our city’s place in the sports universe. It was all quite crushing, sad, and inexplicable to fake tortured fans like Boston people, who have never really suffered.
Anyway, even though the NBA resumes with the training camps and all next week, we can’t promise we won’t be pumping some baseball action in here from time to time.
Just wanted to prep you – just as we’re prepping by trying to figure out who anyone on the Indians actually is. We know CC Sabathia and Kenny Lofton, who we’re sure wasn’t with the team all these years, but was with them last time we were following.
NOTE: LeBron James is hosting Saturday Night Live on your Truthbox this coming week, and we can’t help but wonder why they never invited the entire starting line-up of the 2005 Detroit Pistons to do the same. They are, after all, the greatest assembly of basketball talent the world had ever seen in DET in 2005.
One of the most exciting things for the 15 people who can call themselves official members of the Cleveland Cavaliers is the opening of the team’s new training facility, which happened lasterday afternoon.
(Tons of pics of the place here.)
Located across the street from the curiously named “LePeep” cafe, and also full of wonderful opening day jokes, the thing is a monstrous monument to keeping LeBron James happy.
Everything is beyond state-of-the-art, and that means things like vast underwater training facilities and techniques are in use.
“We can raise the treadmill, they can walk onto it and we’ll lower it into the water, safely, because if you have a sprained ankle, you really don’t want to jump into and out of a pool,†beamed Benton. “Water is a great environment to address many multiple issues. Water gives an individual support and just that basic touch and sensation – water is warm and friendly. If we can instruct our players properly, and guide them through that, then we can use water to our best advantage – to condition, to “prehab†and to rehab those players.â€Â
Surely Larry Hughes will spend at least 34 games in the warm and friendly confines of the underwater treadmill, and that means lots of exchanges like the following.
Larry Hughes: I don’t want to get in the water.
Trainer: Go ahead. It’s warm and friendly in there.
Larry Hughes: Oh, I didn’t realize that. I’ll get in now.
Trainer: That hangnail will be healed before you know it!
If that doesn’t tell you the Cavs are going to go all “Cleveland Indians on the Detroit Tigers” on the Pistons all year long, we don’t know what will.
Other teams making improvements are the Charlotte Bobcats, who after 2 (3?) long years in the NBA, are redesigning their court and uniforms. They’re changing their colors from “orange and blue” to “blue and orange”, and yes, that’s really what it says.
If you’re not seeing where we’re going with that, those are the same two colors.
In closing, we say this: if there’s one place in the world we would choose to live when it’s all over, it’d be in the warm and friendly waters of the Cleveland Cavaliers new training facility. The End.
NOTE: This is the official sister post to the “brave and kind” series.
If you visit the Houston Rockets’ website on a daily basis like we do, you’ll note that they’ve announced a new color scheme to their court.
This may not be as exciting as Phil Jackson going into the Hall of Fame, or learning the real reason why Gilbert Arenas didn’t have his passport to go to Canada a couple weeks back, but if you’re into the Houston Rockets, and you’re into basketball court refurbishing, this is the post for you.
“The best part of this design is the court is really going to stand out because the lighting isn’t going to get saturated into the red,” said Rockets creative services manager Jose Lopez, who designed the court. “Since we have red seats, it will be a great contrast.”
We’d say the best part of the design is it brings the Rockets a little closer to simplicity.
Ever since they went to the “exploding rocket ship cartoon” design of the mid-90s, the Rockets have had maybe the worst logos/uniforms/etc in the NBA. The Pistons were smart enough to ditch their “exploding horse engine cartoon” and return to a variation on their classic logo/uniforms/etc in time to win their flukey title a few years ago – we wish the Rockets would do the same.
Maybe they could have similar luck – like how they signed Steve Francis this summer. (Insert your own joke here – we exhausted our Franchise backlog in December.)
Sorry about the lack of posts/updates. A very wise reader once said, “That snake movie ruined what used to be my favorite website,” or something to that effect. That’s probably true, but it’s also what will resurrect your favorite website from its grave condition, so be thankful.
Never forget – we’ll be remembered one day as the greatest NBA blogger of all time – it’s important that become cemented in your heads. That may be like being the tallest guy at the midget convention, but like, midget conventions are growing in popularity, so there’s some significance to that.
Since we’re vehemently opposed to mock drafts, we suppose we must find some way to address who gets picked where in Thursday’s NBA Draft.
(Before we’re accused of it, let’s just admit it. Yes, we’re opposed to mock drafts because everyone else does them.)
One of the big wildcard picks is bound to be Chinese prospect Yi Jianlian, who is somewhere between 18-22 years old, and somewhere between Dirk Nowitzki and Andreas Bargnani in terms of how he plays. Or will play, assuming he’s not amazing right out of the gate.
Who’s likely to pick him? Who knows – with so many potential trades of superstar players floating out there, the only lottery picks sure to stay with their current teams are numbers one and two.
One team that likely won’t draft Yi is Milwaukee, because Mr. Yi has officially refused to work out for them.
“Basically they said they can’t work it in the schedule,” [Bucks person Dave] Babcock said Friday. “We’re not a high priority for them. We’ll see what happens.”
“It’s disappointing, but I’ll tell you what. We still like him. He’s a good shooter, very skilled, runs. He’s not a thin kid. His English is good. He’ll be an impact guy in the NBA next year.”
This is a great strategy on Yi’s part, and is similar to how Boobie Gibson ended up on the Cavaliers, although that was obviously a lower-profile type of trickery.
Personally, we’d like to see more players do this – refuse to work out for any team they don’t want to play for. In fact, we’d like to see all the draft prospects just refuse to work out for anyone at all one of these years.
Just no workouts, no interviews, no nothing. Everyone is a complete wild card. Or, what if like every prospect agreed only to work out for the Grizzlies?
How long could that go on before people started talking conspiracy, or at the very least, “Hey, this is getting kind of weird, huh?”
In other news, 42% shooter and alleged All-Star Chauncey Billups has opted out as expected, making him an unrestricted free agent as of July 1. (Of this year.)
Sorry to get all negative, but we simply must wrap up on the Pistons’ “dynasty”.
Check out this quote from the poster-boy for good sportsmanship, Rasheed Wallace.
“I don’t think we are slipping,” Wallace said. “The other teams are trying to build up and make themselves better. I think the other teams are starting to catch up.”
Okay, whatever. And they’re not “starting to catch up”. You’ve been knocked out of the Playoffs in six games for two straight years.
We can’t compose logical thoughts on the Pistons, because they’re all crazy. Thus, the dreaded bullet-points:
* Sheed. As always, showed his true colors when things didn’t go his way. Possibly the sorest loser in the history of the NBA.
* We have no idea why people treat this as if a dynasty has been dethroned or something. The recent Pistons were a good team that won ONE (1) title and went to ONE (1) other Finals. Hell, the Rockets won 2 straight in the 90s and nobody gave them near the “aura” this DET team was given.
* Additionally, people are cracking on the Cavaliers for coming out of a “weak East”, yet nobody uses this same argument on the Pistons. Conference Finals in a “weak East” for five straight years, and you only manage to move on twice? Is it really that worthy of such praise?
* Chauncey Billups. Another guy who, in our opinion, has been over-rated (and delusional – check this out) the past few years, based on a couple good runs of games. How many teams has he played for? Like all of them? Simmons had a big write-up on this with like stats and stuff – we don’t feel like looking for it. Pistons have to do a sign-and-trade or just let him go – you can’t pay that guy $11M per for five years.
* Flip Saunders. Probably should be gone, but who do you replace him with, especially if you decide on going forward with this team? Maybe you keep him if you’re rebuilding. Dunno.
* Antonio McDyess. It’s okay, yo – come and join the Cavaliers next season.
* The automobile industry. They make cars today, they made cars yesterday, they’ll make cars tomorrow.
Personally, we hope they rebuild, if only because it makes things more interesting this summer. Also, we’d love to see Sheed traded to Atlanta or Memphis, where he can remind everyone of the guy he really is on a full-time basis.
OLE la DET!
Well, we’re two days post, and we’re not quite ready to look ahead to the actual Finals yet.
Without going too into it, Saturday night was somewhat emotional around our head, and right now there’s a definite feeling of contentment with just making it. Hopefully this changes by Thursday’s Game 1.
You have to understand – we love all Cleveland teams, but the Cavs have always been far and away our thing.
We vividly remember sitting and staring dead-faced at the TV for an hour after The Shot – this was 18 years ago now, but it feels like yesterday.
As such, we haven’t looked ahead, nor have we really gathered our thoughts. So, we fall back on bullet-points, for the second time in recent history:
* One of the coolest things about all this was all the reports of nothing bad going down in Cleveland. Everything we’ve read and been told was that it was just lots of people hugging and cheering and being happy. If there were fires set off, people were classy enough to do it in their own homes.
* Strangely, we weren’t afraid “The Clock” was going to be next in the tragedy timeline. We felt pretty confident the whole game. We don’t remember who, but somebody called this a six game sweep. Cleveland controlled this whole series.
* Somebody around here was on the Boobie Gibson train all season long. Hmm. (Darryl was too, and long, long, long before we were.)
* The Z/LeBron hug was one of the coolest things in the closing moments.
* Where was David Stern? Not that there’s anything wrong with Bill Russell, but you’d think Stern would want to be there for LeBron’s first Finals advancement thing.
* Dan Gilbert has to be happy – two years in and he’s in the conversation for best owner in Cleveland sports history.
* It’s gonna be really difficult to fire Coach Mike at this point, yes?
Oh, and as for Game Four? We’re booked. So in the case of a sweep, we’re all set for a public display of weeping. See you there, CLE.
