News and Notes from around the NBA on this cold rainy Monday:

 -  You have to love the way the Cavaliers are playing at home, keeping the home crowd happy and entertained (if not always meeting their preferred amount of free Taco Bell “food”).  7-0 at home, with games this week against the Oklahoma City Thunder and Golden State Warriors, has the team feeling very good about the atmosphere they are creating at Quicken Loans Arena.  That air of invincibility at home is one of the key components to putting together a great regular season.

 -  Brian Windhorst has an interesting article about a group of Cavalier veterans (LeBron James, Mo Williams, Zydrunas Ilguaskas and Ben Wallace) called “The Committee,” who meet with Coach Mike Brown regularly to discuss a myriad of team-related topics.  At first I was skeptical, but upon further examination, I think it’s a great idea.  By putting Ilgauskas and Wallace on the same level as LeBron and Williams, Brown has recruited help at the player level in keeping the two younger players focused and working within the team structure.  While LeBron is usually a great team player, he’s also a man who is accustomed to getting his way.  When Coach Brown and LeBron butt heads, it’s helpful to have a player who LeBron respects to help turn him towards the Coach’s point of view.  And when a committee of four, rather that just one player, has an idea to bring to the Coach, the coach is more likely to consider the option fully.  This kind of management strategy is one of the hallmarks of good coaching, and Mike Brown is doing a fantastic job this season.  Could something like “The Committee” backfire should things go off the rails?  Absolutely, and I certainly wouldn’t suggest doing such a thing on a team like the Washington Wizards or the Oklahoma City Thunder.  But on a veteran team led by a quality leader in LeBron James, “The Committee” could very much ease the few dust-ups that inevitably occur over a long season.

 -  The Wizards have fired Eddie Jordan, making him the second coaching casualty of in the first month of the season.  I have no strong feelings about Jordan one way or the other, but I have faith that this successor will at least double the Wizards’ current win total (1) before the end of the year.  Even if that successor is Whoopi Goldberg.

 -  The Toronto Raptors have slipped below .500 with a 118-103 loss to the Boston Celtics on Sunday.  The Raptors are a miserable 2-4 at home, though admittedly those losses have come to Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, and New Jersey (in overtime).  Now Jermaine O’Neal is down with an injury (surprise).  These are the kinds of things that make me doubt that Toronto can make the Playoffs this season, though the collapse of the Wizards is certainly making it easier. 

-  Antonio McDyess’ agent confirms it - McDyess is headed back to the Pistons.  I suggested that McDyess would be a good fit the moment he was traded to Denver, but over the last few weeks it became apparent that no amount of money could woo McDyess away from Detroit.  At least now Cleveland fans can stop peppering the call-in shows and message boards with how great it would be to see McDyess in a Cavalier uniform.

-  The McDyess announcement reminds me of another pet peeve of this season - “leaks” from the Charlotte Bobcats.  Over the last few weeks various reports have indicated that Gerald Wallace would be traded, that Al Harrington was going to end up in Charlotte, and that the Bobcats were moving things around to bring in McDyess.  Absolutely none of those rumors have been remotely true!  I know that Gerald Wallace and Jason Richardson have been the high on the list of players Cavs fans would like to acquire, and rightly so.  But I’m asking all fans to ignore any more rumors that come out of Charlotte between now and the trade deadline.  If the Cavaliers make a deal with the Bobcats, that’s great.  But with the way Michael Jordan is running the Bobcats’ front office, you cannot believe a single thing that is leaked out of that organization.

-  There’s a lot of noise being made about the trades the New York Knicks made on Friday to free up cap space for the Free Agency Summer of 2010.  There are only two important things of note:  1) In making these trades, the Knicks put themselves in a position, at least financially, to make a run at LeBron James, and 2) the Knicks made themselves a significantly worse basketball team for the next two seasons as a result.  The first part absolutely matters.  If it didn’t, Cavaliers fans wouldn’t be falling all over themselves to explain why it doesn’t matter.  But the second part is also important, because LeBron will not risk harming his overall goodwill by leaving a quality team in Cleveland to go to a terrible team in New York with no chance of winning.  LeBron’s legacy will be measured in Championships, not dollars, and that kind of reputation matters far more than his business address.  Unless the Knicks score big in the Draft over the next two seasons (a strong possibility given how bad they will be), there will be no useful pieces around LeBron even if he did end up in New York in 2010.  In short, this was indeed the first step towards getting LeBron into a Knick uniform, but it was by no means the last step.

-  But the Knicks trade does illustrate how the Cavaliers may be able to add a significant piece over the next two seasons.  The Knicks essential gave away their two best players for a chalupa (Al Harrington) and a bag of cinnamon sticks (Cuttino Mobley and Tim Thomas), all for the chance to make a run at the 2010 free agents.  While the Knicks will be the most visible franchise making that move, plenty of other organizations may be willing to trade away quality players for pennies on the dollar in an effort to free up cap space.  That could even happen with good-but-not-great teams like Orlando and Dallas.  The Cavaliers have a number of players whose contracts end in 2010, and those contracts will be valuable commodities over the next two season.  While Danny Ferry will be careful not to damage the chemistry of a team that is already playing well, he would also be well-served by looking for those players that can be had for next to nothing as their teams desperately try to shed salary.  Thanks to the NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement, the Cavaliers will be able to offer LeBron the most money regardless of their cap situation in 2010.  I think the Cavs should take advantage of that situation however possible.

-  And in a last little bit of good news, the Pistons lost at home to the Minnesota Timberwolves last night by 26 points.

 Go Cavs.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 4:35 pm and is filed under News and Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.