Links to the Present: no Mo

Lots of calloffs at the CtB offices, today. Fortunately, not everyone on the internet has actual personal lives. Over on Vice Sports, CtB alum, Colin McGowan articulated what I’ve been thinking about LeBron James over the last few days: LeBron is a strange man with a lot of masks.

I’ve reached the point where I have developed enough readings of Bron to write a Geoff Dyer-style book-length essay on him.
— Colin McGowan (@cs_mcgowan) February 10, 2015

LeBron has, at different points of his career, played the part of a young messiah, an ultra-gregarious super-teammate, a villain, and a superstar in repose, with varying degrees of surety. Having left that last mask in Miami, he now fancies himself a leader of men. “I will be the old head [in Cleveland],” he said in his famous return letter. “But I get a thrill out of bringing a group together and helping [my teammates] reach a place they didn’t know they could go.”

…In the wake of all this bluster and pomp, it has been a letdown to see that LeBron’s leadershipping consists primarily of passive-aggressive dickishness.

LeBron’s Mean Girls style Twittering seemed like the kind of stuff that no effective leader would resort to. I don’t know. Maybe he was channeling his inner Zen Master. Phil Jackson used to use the media to make points with and motivate his players. But that’s not LeBron’s job. In a lot of ways, LeBron just always has make the story about him. He can’t just shut up and play. He can’t just congratulate Kevin on his big night.

But was LeBron prescient? His weird tweets came before the game, and Love was unaware of them till Jason Lloyd made him aware. Then LeBron railed at the media. Maybe ‘Bron is a Zen master, getting people to focus on things so stupid that they don’t even think about shooting, and the ball just goes in the net on instinct. Is this the sound of one hand clapping?

Will Gibson at WFNY puts our priorities in place in his piece entitled, “Can’t Stand the Tweets, Get out of the Kitchen.” “Tweets,” he writes, “have all the permanence of soap bubbles? Can we really spend whole days discussing them?” He notes there are far more indelible things to focus on.

For instance, one play that hasn’t gotten its just due was the Kyrie Irving-to-Iman Shumpert inbounds alley-oop against the Lakers. When do you ever see something like that? There’s the occasional inbounds oop from the baseline, but a lob from one sideline going to a man cutting in from the far corner? That never happens. It’s rarer than a Love outlet pass, more sparse than a LeBron thumper, less common than Kyrie weaving through a defense like a skiier navigating a slalom course.

Of course, this just in, Jason Lloyd reports that when it comes to Kevin Love and LeBron James, Kevin says, “there’s no problem with us.” Ugh. I feel like watching episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation.

In less petty news, the Cavs fans won’t be seeing Mo Williams in Wine and Gold this year. Mo Williams was shipped to the Charlotte Hornets, who are attempting to make the playoffs in the wake of the Kemba Walker injury. Williams went to Charlotte for Troy Daniels, Gary Neal, and a future second rounder, Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported.

Reports are that Gary Neal may be bought out in Minnesota, but do the Cavs want someone who’s shooting 36% from the floor and 27% from three, and who has a reputation of being a locker room problem when things go wrong?  I think not.

Joe Vardon of the Plain Dealer/NE Ohio Media Group reports that the Cavs are shopping Brendan Haywood and his contract.

They have an enticing piece for a trade in the contract of backup center Brendan Haywood, whose $10.5 million salary next season is not guaranteed.

But because the Cavs are so far over the luxury-tax line, they’re prohibited from using Haywood’s contract to acquire a player in a sign-and-trade deal, which likely lessens the quality of player they could get for Haywood this summer.

It’s one reason why the Cavs are shopping Haywood now — his salary this year is $2.2 million — in their pursuit of a backup point guard or post player to fortify the roster in pursuit of a title this season.

Finally, the finale to the quasi-annual Bill Simmons NBA Trade Value piece came out last night during a one hour “Grantland Presents” basketball hour on ESPN. (here’s the video on YouTube). The written list from the show was posted on Reddit. Players 60-30 were discussed in a Grantland article last week. Cavs notables included Kevin Love ranked at 52, Irving at 26, Wiggins at 21, and LeBron at No 2.– one spot behind Anthony Davis. Irving was listed behind Mike Conley, Kyle Lowry, Kawhi Leonard, and Damian Lillard. Kyle Lowry outranking Kyrie is particularly comical. John Wall was listed at No. 8, and I echo the sentiments that Kyle Welch wrote at Waiting for Next Year, “I’m taking Irving over Wall every day.”