Links to the Present: Hot Edition
2014-06-06
The biggest news of the past day has to be LeBron James cramping up during the first game of the Finals because the air conditioning wasn’t working at the Spurs’ arena. That led to Bud Shaw figuring out how we can get Mr. James back to Cleveland. Hire Mr. Freeze.
Not to say the Cavs are desperate to land James, but no doubt they’d consider hiring Albert Belle as their thermostat control expert if that’s what it took.
Shaw serves up even more sarcasm in his weekly “You Said It” column also running today.
Bud: LeBron is not coming back. Cleveland is not Florida. The Collusion Brothers have no interest in us. We haven’t won anything in 50 years. Florida beaches, etc , certainly make for a nicer setting. Oh, and winning those trophies – Leslie Kaminski
But on the flip side, we do have a chandelier now.
Get your final fill of LeBron Finals talk with Grantland’s staff talk piece. They cover LeBron’s cramping, Manu going off, Ray Allen dunking like a young man, and, of course, texting with Gregg Popovich. Andrew Sharp dealt with the Kobe and MJ comparisons about playing with cramps.
Would MJ and Kobe have played?
The answers here are pretty simple. Kobe definitely would’ve tried to fight through it and stay on the court. He tried to play on a ruptured Achilles for god’s sake. Same with MJ, history’s greatest psychopath. Bird, too, probably. Would any of them have been successful with the entire left side of their body seizing up with every step? Probably not!
I’m writing this column with a raging foot cramp right now, but I’m not stopping any time soon. You have to play through everything in this day and age to avoid criticism.
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Slate has a profile piece on Delonte West by David Haglund. The piece is written extremely well and asks a question I have had for a long time: Why isn’t West in the league anymore?
Just a few months later, in February 2008, he was traded again, to the Cleveland Cavaliers. There his ascent resumed. He became a starter on a team that, in the Eastern Conference semifinals, fought eventual champion Boston for seven close games. West played more minutes in that series than any Cavalier save LeBron James, had the second-most assists on the team, and was third in scoring.
West was wonderful on the court with his outstanding defense and even put up decent stats. Off the court he gave interesting and funny interviews/segments, but ever since he had the motorcycle gun incident, he has been labeled crazy. I often thought of him as the missing link between Ron Artest and JaVale McGee on the NBA craziness continuum, but this piece has changed my mind. West is a human being before he is a basketball player or someone suffering from mental illness. The piece is a great reminder of how sports stars and even regular people have complicated issues they are dealing with and need to be looked at more sensitively.
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Sam Vecenie of Fear The Sword has a piece about trading the number one pick to Utah for their number five pick and Gordon Hayward/Enes Kanter/ Derrick Favors. He shows that Hayward is going to get paid and is in good stat company in the league, but he also addresses the fact that this type of trade gives the Cavs a backlog of bigs and no true star. I hope this doesn’t happen.
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Mary Schmitt Boyer knows what the Cavs should focus on during their coaching search.
Analyzing data from 15,000 basketball games between 1996 and 2004, the authors found NBA teams tend to win more games if led by coaches who were star players or who had long playing careers.
Alvin Gentry is out if the team follows this stat. Of course, no rule is without its exceptions. Both coaches in the Finals right now never played in the NBA.
Breaking news: Dan Gilbert is a meddling owner!
Apparently Mark Price is interviewing with Cavs tomorrow.
Dan go hide in your yacht and let the basketball people run your team not your massive ego.
Folks, it’s pretty simple: no matter what happens, Lebron is staying in Miami. And the reason is the same reason that he went there in the first place. Duane Wade has the least options of the three. His body is the first one that is breaking down, and he clearly isn’t worth a max contract anymore- from anyone. It makes no sense any way you look at it for Wade to opt out. He cant get either (1) more money, (2) better treatment (wasn’t he rested in like a third of the games this year to keep him fresh for… Read more »
grover , what part of Florida you’re from?
The collusion three won’t take less money than they are making in their next contract. Wade and Lebron were two of the more vocal players during the last lockout. With the drastically escalating sale values of teams, they know how much the Heat are worth to college drop out, trust fund baby, owner of the Costa Concordia (32 deaths) Mickey Arison. If the New York Mets of Los Angeles just were force sold for $2 billion, the Heat franchise could at least go for $1 billion. They aren’t going to accept that he doesn’t want to pay the repeater tax.… Read more »
what’s your prediction for Kyrie then?
Kyrie will be offered the max and he’ll take it. I don’t buy the page view rumor or the after the fact page view barnacle articles that caught the wave. The sad thing about twitter journalism is that you don’t need to provide any proof whatsoever to backup any claim because your proof is “sources say.” There is no Hippocratic Oath for news breakers. I also think that Griffin should offer Kyrie the max. For all of the pus filled acne to Kyrie’s game and personality, a lot of his blemishes should be resolved with time. People are throwing around… Read more »
If Miami wins, there’s a reasonable chance that Lebron, Wade and Bosh all opt-out and sign longer deals that also give Miami some more flexibility. Of course, it’s also possible that they might all do different things. The only thing we know for sure is that they will stay together if they win.
Even if they lose, it seems doubtful that they will split up. Wade and Bosh both have said they want to stay in Miami. They might opt-out and sign longer deals for less. James might stick with the final year of his deal to wait and see.
So Bosh will opt out of his contract, resigning for a lesser amount and then be traded?
There’s still a good chance Miami will winn this year. They were leading when Lebron was forced to the bench. I doubt he cramps up again this series. Meanwhile, even if Miami gets swept, I doubt that Lebron leaves after four straight Finals appearances. Riley would trade Bosh in a heartbeat to retool around Lebron and Bosh is still an attractive player to many teams. He can certainly do more if he were higher in the pecking order. I’m sure that Lebron and AV are friends. Lebron is well-liked by many former teammates and he had great chemistry with AV… Read more »
Andy would definitely be a guy needed to bring him back. It’s hard to say what Lebron will do, but I do think if the heat loses, LBJ will opt out. And if he does that, I think it means he’s leaving Miami
According to ESPN Rumor Blog … http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/nba/rumors/ … Andy had a convo with Bron about coming back that gave4 me a little more hope than I had before. Still not sure it happens but there is always a chance.
I don’t buy a conspiracy that the league is trying to push the finals to 7 games for ratings. In the past 25 years there have been 4 series that went 7 games.
If Lebron was in the game San Antonio would have still won.
LeBron took himself out of that game for some reason I can’t think, I can guess that he wanted to lose the first game, it’s an NBA thing that final has to go to seven game for the money, after all it’s a business. Speaking of West, yes he was great and did a lot of good here in Ctown and got shafted for reasons I don’t know. Danny Ferry did the most damage by being incompetent GM and not being able to put better players around LBJ, George Carl makes the most sense as a coach who has been… Read more »
My head coach rankings are:
1. Karl
2. Hollins
3. Del Negro
4. Fisher
5. Anybody not named Gentry or from a foreign league. (Including the creepy janitor from my former middle school)
Vinny Del Negro
I doubt Utah would give up Hayward, Kanter, Favors and the 5th pick for a shot at Parker…
These David Blatt rumors are interesting. He’s won multiple titles and drug Russia to a medal.
With all due respect (and I really mean it) to Mary Schmitt Boyer, the NBA in 2014 is not the NBA in even 2004, let alone 1996, especially if you factor in how many of the most successful teams most of those years were led by a single person who had a long playing career named Phil Jackson.
Yeah that seems like a pretty lopsided stat in order to make her case. Obviously she thinks a former player (Lue perhaps) is the best candidate. However I’m not sure how I feel about former player coaches with little coaching experience. Jason Kidd seemed to work ok, and I think he will get better. But player coaches need to take steps up the head coaching to be elite coaches. Karl was a former player but he started as an assistant, moved to a different league came back and over the year became one of the best coaches ever. Just about… Read more »
You think 5 and Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter would be enough to get Kevin Love though? Then we have Kyrie, Dion, Hayward, Love and Verejao.