Links to the Present: Start-Up Edition Updated
2014-09-22
LeBron James made about $30 million from owning a small stake in Beats Electronics, also known as Beats By Dre, when the company was bought by Apple.  He was an early investor in that company, and he may get to be an early investor in another innovative project once again.  The Ohio City start-up called Phenom promised LeBron a stake in their business if he returned to the Cavs, and, although the promise was a PR stunt, they have drawn up papers to give the King some of their brainchild.  This start-up has an app for amateur athletes to show off their gear and the staff they train with. The president of Phenom wants to release some more features for the app before presenting LeBron with the ownership paperwork.  Right now, the business is not generating revenue and is focused on creating a following.
The Cavs have decided to focus on the hustle aspect of their own little NBA dynasty start-up. Terry Pluto weighed in on this important part of the team.
They are guys who aren’t interested in scoring, guys who understand the value of a rebound, taking a charge and overall defense.
The Cavs have one of those players in Anderson Varejao, but they wanted more.
They do think Tristan Thompson can help with his rebounding and general hustle — he just needs to see himself in that model, not worry about his scoring.
Lou Amundson is the next hustle man according to Terry and David Griffin.
Griffin has long been an Amundson fan. They were together in Phoenix in 2008-10, when Amundson was a bench player who brought rebounding and defense into a game for teams with records of 46-36 and 54-28.
Plutto is also saying that Brendan Haywood is practicing in full court games, which is a promising sign that he may return to NBA ready form early in the season.  If Haywood can play some minutes early on, Anderson Varejao could play less and have a better chance to be healthy for the playoffs.  Right now, Varejao is in great shape for the season’s start.  He is in basketball form from playing with Brazil during the FIBA tournament and will be able to focus on learning to play with his new teammates during training camp.  Typically, Varejao has to play himself into shape during training camp because of needing the summer to recover from an injury.
On paper, the Cavs have the most proven talent in the NBA.  On paper, they also rank fifth as far as young unproven talent goes.  That ranking is on ESPN Insider and is based only on the team’s under 25 talent. The statements about Dion Waiters and Kyrie Irving are the standard “they are talented guys who have to adjust their games to play with the new talent on the team” ones; however, Amin Elhassan throws a curve ball talking about Tristan Thompson’s game.
Thompson is an energy big looking to take a leap into being something more than just energy…
It certainly seems, according to local media and my gut instincts, that Thompson will actually look to be all energy again, so he can grab more steals and block/contest more shots to help the Cavs weak defense. Â Tristan has to get mean.
ESPN Insider’s Bradford Doolittle thinks Shawn Marion will be a huge part of the Cavs title chase this season. He’s one of the only guys on the team who both defends and makes open threes.  This will keep LeBron from having to cover tricky forwards, and it will help to space the floor.
Even watching football in Cleveland, you can’t escape LeBron’s overall presence. A new celebration, a LeBronation it could be called, is hitting the Browns end zones these days. Terrance West did a great LeBron impression after his first quarter touchdown.
Even opponents can’t resist LeBronating.  Check out the Ravens fullback Kyle Juszczyk celebrating after a touchdown in the second quarter.
After seeing those videos, I will no longer celebrate my daily completion of activities the same way.
UPDATE
I just saw/read fellow Cavs: The Blog blogger Tom Pestak’s fantasy draft piece at Gotbuckets.com.  The guys over there decided to make an expansion team for Seattle that worked off of the idea that every team in the league got to protect eight players.  Every other player was available to be drafted; however, only one player could be drafted from any team.  Hilarity ensued as Tom picked Javale McGee as one of the corner stone pieces for his franchise and made a convincing case.  Kevin Hetrick also did the same exercise, but he only did so after being asked to by Bill Gates, the new owner of the fake Seattle Supersonics.  His surprise building block was Joe Johnson.  Both of these pieces are amazing reads that use real statistics to justify the fantasies presented.
I don’t think it’s an accident that TT is working out with LBJ a lot in the lead up to camp. Lebron knows that TT has the furthest to go among his “projects” and that to justify the PF/C’s place on the super team going forward, TT must find a role that suits his weird skill set. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lebron knows exactly what role will work for TT and is shaping him already. What will it be?
The guy that Thompson really should sit down and watch tapes of and model his game after is … Andy. Well young-Andy, anyway. He doesn’t really have the mid-range shot or major shot blocking ability to fall back and rely on. So what he should be doing is trying to get into that role of high-energy, pesky-defender. Just like Andy was back in the day. It will give him an immediate role on the team, where he’ll get minutes and give him time to work on his offensive game. Sort of like how Andy has slowly developed a mid-range shot,… Read more »
Excl – yeah you’re right. He does need to embrace the energy role. He is a good rebounder so the shoe fits. The one difference between TT and young Varejao is that Young Varejao was still pretty crafty around the hoop. TT still needs to get better at the rim, although I did see improvement last season.
The team just needs a big man that can come in and solidly relieve Varejao and Thompson to keep the minutes down on Varejao and let Tristan be constantly energized when he is on the floor. I wonder if there is a chance we see some three guard lineups with Waiters trying to play at small forward. In the right scheme, he might not be a huge liability there, which could allow LeBron to play the four or rest. Maybe Love could try to move to the three at times too. Do you think he could cover that at all,… Read more »
I do think you’ll see a bit of three-guard with LeBron at the four, especially if other teams try to scheme that to exploit Love and/or Marion with quicker players. The only thing that gives me pause with that lineup is how thin the Cavs are at guard (they don’t have Allen yet). The Cavs ran three guard a lot last year, but they had Jack’s minutes to add in there. You could see that lineup in stretches though, especially in the mid fourth quarter. I didn’t see anything from Harris that made me think he’ll be quick enough to… Read more »
I’m not wild about Amundson. Feel like the Cavs need one more big for training camp (still), just to preserve bodies. Why can’t Josh Harrelson get an invite anywhere? Did he tick LeBron off in Miami? He’ll probably go back to China…
Also, I like Marion, but he’s 36… There’s not much tread left. A little worried about the Cavs relying on him too much and then him breaking down in the playoffs.