The inspiration for this blog comes from the LA Times’ J.A. Adande, who recently ranked NBA cities on his blog.   I’m no where near as cool as J.A., and we come from different sides of the country with different ethnic backgrounds so we surely have different views.  However, since J.A. is not currently an NBA beat writer and doesn’t do all the cities every year, I feel I can give a more updated opinion.

I might cover more regular season road games than any other NBA beat writer, I did 40 in my first year, 39 last year and 38 of the road games this season.  Not including pre- and postseason, either, which added 13 road games this season.  Most beat writers take 5-10 road games off.  So here is my list. Cleveland excluded:

1. San Antonio.  A great place to spend a couple days.  The Riverwalk is nice, relaxing and festive.  No, the water isn’t clean nor is it anything like a genuine river, but it is still totally cool.
2. Miami.  I don’t go to clubs, but the weather is always beautiful and so are the people.  Interesting, the Heat’s arena is on Biscayune Blvd. next to a nice outdoor mall and the cruise ship terminal and the bridge to South Beach.  Look down that street out over the water and it seems like heaven on earth.  Go two blocks inland, one after dark, and it feels like a third-world nation.
3. Seattle.  Great downtown area, great food, good people.  It might be the worst arena in the NBA, though.
4. Milwaukee.  That’s right, I said Milwaukee.  It is a rust belt town, sure, but this place knows what it is.  They have traditions and no qualms and I like it.  Easy to move around, easy to understand, easy to relate.  I’d move there tomorrow.
5. Portland.  It feels like a Midwest city on the West Coast.  There’s a small yet beautiful downtown.  It’s a walking city with well-defined districts plus it is visually striking.  Take a 20-minute drive and you’re in the Columbia River gorge.  Wow!
6. Minneapolis. This might be the best city in America, just nobody knows it because it gets so cold.  The downtown is vibrant and smart, it can move all indoors at a moment’s notice.  You can breeze from block to block without going outside but if the whether is nice the streets are filled with outdoor shops and sights.
7. Phoenix. Everyone in Phoenix seems to be in a good mood.  If you lived in that weather, wouldn’t you?  Plus the airport is practically in downtown and so is the arena.
8. Washington.  New arena is located near hotels and good restaurants and the public transit system is clean, safe and goes everywhere.  You can get anything you want in Washington and not feel like you need four showers a day.
9. Atlanta. Nightlife lovers will rate it way higher, probably in the top 3 for players.  What I like about it are the artful suburbs, where the teams stay when the come to town.  Especially Buckhead.
10. San Francisco.  Where I will always stay from now on when the team is in Oakland.  The most beautiful city I’ve ever been to.
11. Denver.  Another cold-weather city?  Yep.  Scenic sure, but also chock full of good restaurants and everything there feels new.  It is exploding in population and it becomes more cosmopolitan every time I go.
12. Boston. Great yet rusty public transit system makes you forget about the traffic.  Little Italy is to die for, chock full of the best places.  It’s dirty and old but still charming to me.
13. Dallas.  Under-rated town.  It sprawls and it takes like an hour to get off the airport grounds, but you can have a fun time in downtown any night of the week and the arena is one of the NBA’s best.
14. Los Angeles.  Why so low?  Traffic.  Arena is downtown but nothing else is, bad situation.  No way I’m chic enough to rank it higher on my list.
15. Chicago.  Takes forever to get in from the airport, where there are always delays.  Arena is in the middle of a questionable neighborhood with nothing around it and the traffic is tough.  Magnificent Mile doesn’t overcome it.  Not big on the Chicago Pizza, either.
16. Toronto. Lots of writers have this in their top 5.  I guess it is a cool city, but they don’t seem to get that it is cold there.  Minneapolis and Milwaukee have the same climate but actually take provisions for it.  The hockey Hall of Fame does nothing for me.  Plus the whole customs thing is a drag.
17. Salt Lake City. Now, this city is in the Rockies.  Denver is in the Great Plains, you can just see the mountains.  Feels like it is the size of Akron.  Small and beautiful, even if everything is closed by 9.
18. Charlotte.  New downtown arena is nice, city is clean and airy.  Not a bad way to spend a couple days.
19. Orlando. Bonus points for the weather.  But I don’t care about the attractions and the entire place feels like one enormous strip mall.  Usually, though I have fun playing mini-golf.
20. Indianapolis.  Branson Wright calls it India-no-place.  But the downtown area has lots of restaurants and places to go and the arena might be the best in the league.  Plus there’s never traffic issues.
21. Oklahoma City. It’s an outpost to be sure, still feels like a minor league city.  But the arena is grand and nearby Bricktown, albeit a cheap rip off of the Riverwalk, is a nice place to spend an evening.
22. New Orleans.  I know many people loved it there, but I could not get over how dirty it was.  I’m not ripping it, I’m just saying it wasn’t the greatest place for my tastes.  As I’ve written before on the this blog, before Katrina it felt like a tattered and oppressively muggy version of a much more charming Montreal.  Hopefully some day I’ll be back.
23. New York.  Yep, it is really this low to me.  I don’t share the love of the Big Apple.  Nothing is easy there, everything takes extra time and extra effort and virtually no one cares who they step on.  I’m on the company dime, but the expense of things still bothers me especially for what you honestly get in return.  Again, I’m not big on nightlife.  I’ve been to Broadway shows, great restaurants, etc., etc., the place does not grow on me.  I’m considered a hick from flyover country anyway and so they really don’t care.
24.  Philadelphia. Nice downtown because it is old and has unique landmarks.  I like cheesesteaks.  It is a good sports town.  I’ve got nothing else really to say.
25. Houston. Crazy sprawling city with an airport I positively loathe even though I’m there 12-15 times a year due to my obsession with Continental Airlines.  It seems like it takes hours to go anywhere and it feels like Orlando west.
26. Sacramento.  Nothing bad about it, just nothing much there.  This event, of course, hurt it in the standings.
27. Detroit. Only because getting to Auburn Hills is such a pain, this must have been what it was like when the Cavs played in Richfield.  Nice arena, but by the time you get there you are in a bad mood.
28. Memphis.  Graceland is in a bad neighborhood.  Beale Street way overrated.  Not a big fan of bar-b-que.  And the string is out.
29. New Jersey. Worst trip in the league, in my opinion of course.  Arena is in the middle of a smelly swamp.  Airport is in the middle of a smelly swarm surrounded by gutted buildings.  Nothing in between.  If you do take Route 3 or Route 17 to find some life, sometimes it feels like you can’t turn left for 10 miles at a time.  I love ya Tony Soprano, but you cannot be serious.

Don’t know where to begin, so I’ll riff…

–Cavs lost the series in Game 6, not Game 7.  Though what happened in Game 7 ought to be a lesson.  Cavs need a new offensive strategy.  It’s not that Mike Brown’s system doesn’t work, I mean the Spurs use it.  Obviously the Cavs changed what they do after Hughes went down, but the system was not designed with all the Cavs weapons in mind.

–Before you talk about any trades/signings, etc., the first thing the Cavs must decide is how they are going to play offense.  They know how they are going to play defense.  If they want to join the hip trend of playing fast then they have to go that way.  If they have another idea, they’ll do something else.  Yes, this directly involves Zydrunas Ilgauskas.  I have plenty of information on this but I’m holding off until I get into the paper.   Based on what I’m hearing Z will be a topic in the front office.

–Two things discussed widely in the last week re: LeBron’s future. A Detroit columnist refreshed the New Jersey Nets/Jay-Z rumors by saying LeBron’s Nike contract had a clause that would make it "double" if he played in Chicago, NYC or LA.  Second, some suggested LeBron was trying to send a message by putting his Yankees cap down on the table during his Game 7 postgame press conference.

I’ve only written this about a dozen times, but here does again: LeBron’s Nike contract does not have location escalator clauses.  He signed the deal for the maximum penny the night before the lottery, a lottery the Bulls, Knicks and Clippers were in.  That was three years and three days ago and the deal has four more years to run.  Some of his other deals do have such clauses, but even if those endorsement deals tripled they would not cover the difference in him signing with the Nets rather than the Cavs.  Sure, you can argue that if he did go there he could get new deals.  But that isn’t what people are writing.  It should be pointed out LeBron hasn’t had a new sponsorship deal in more than two years and the word on the street is that Nike is still a long way for breaking even on his products.  Don’t assume anything as far as his pitchman status goes.

Now, the reason LeBron took the hat off is because due to the new NBA dress code he is not allowed to wear a hat during an interview.  He wears a Yankees hat all the time and has for years and all his buddies/staff members do as well.  If you want to analyze the angle of how the hat was placed and all that junk, feel free.

All I can do is go by what he tells me.

–I will be an in studio guest along with Michael Reghi for several hours today on Kenny Roda’s show on 850 AM starting at 3 p.m.  Feel free to call in and ask questions.  I will also be on More Sports and Les Levine for an hour tomorrow taking calls on the Cavs.

–After being forced to spend what seemed like weeks in Auburn Hills, I must say the area grew on me.  Especially after I found a ritzy and great little burgh called Birmingham.  It’s a wealthy area to say the least. Tom Reed loved it, especially after he found this cigar store where he tricked the cashier into selling him $15 cigars for $5 and came back and did it again the next day.   But there was some sporting goods store where Reed stopped in to buy a pair of shorts that took the cake.

All they had in this smug area was lacrosse shorts and Tom only found one pair in his size, in dark blue.  At the counter, another all too nice cashier asked if he was sure he wanted them because they were Duke Lacrosse shorts.  Tom went back and got a smaller size with the Virginia logo.   What a wimp.

More to come, I’m sure.

When the Yankees lost to the Florida Marlins in the World Series in 2003, Buster Olney wrote a book called the Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty.  It is an examination of how the Yankees had finished their run of titles due to a variety of reasons including age, ego and death of prospects.

There is a strong possibility that what happened at the Palace the other night will in the future be described as the First Night of the Cavalier Dynasty.  It may not start this year, in fact, I would not be surprised in the least if the Pistons rally back as they’ve done the past two seasons from 3-2 deficits.  But make no mistake, the torch has been lit.

Things are going to be different from now to the foreseeable future with the Cavs.  They are ready to move into the NBA’s elite.  First, LeBron James will sign his extension.  Second, the Cavs will instantly become a hotbed for free agents, players will soon be taking less money to come to town.  When disgruntled veterans like Alonzo Mourning or Michael Finley or Gary Payton demand to let out of their contracts like they do, they will be interested in coming to the Cavs.  Third, the team’s critical parts will only get better after having gone through a playoff season.  Fourth, Quicken Loans Arena will become one of the toughest buildings to play in based on the momentum created in the postseason.

There are no guarantees, of course.  There are no longer any limits, either.

By the way, apparently there’s still a writer banging away on his laptop in the darkened Verizon Center.

Tonight is a huge game for the Cavs.

That’s an easy enough statement to understand, it’s a second round playoff game and a chance to tie the series, etc., etc.  But when I say that I mean more than just a singular game.  I know that as a fan you can get really wrapped up in every play and every quarter, but I’m talking about more of the grand scheme.  Tonight the Pistons really want to win and they’re going to play like it and how the Cavs handle that will be very, very telling to just where they are in their development.

Even though I admired the guts they played with in Game 3, that’s all it really was, guts.  They were really handled for much of that game.  The Pistons’ game plan was working just fine and the Cavs were in deep trouble until LeBron started making plays.  Which is exactly the point.

Can LeBron continue to rise above his team’s flaws and use his ability to overwhelm a better team when they’re working like hell to stop him?  Eventually that’s how the Cavs are going to win a championship, with LeBron doing it.  That’s how this thing is being built and games like tonight, to use a well-worn analogy, are like bricks in the foundation.  If he can carry the team, and the team believes he can, they will be setting themselves up down the road.

Furthermore…

–Seriously, I’d completely ignore Rasheed Wallace’s comments, it’s just part of what the Pistons do.   Pay more attention to how the Pistons adjust to what they Cavs threw at them in Game 3.  The Detroit News’ Chris McCosky breaks this down well.

–I know everyone is in love with Anderson Varejao for how he’s played.  I’m all about him, I was the one who nicknamed him "Wild Thing" after a preseason game in Dayton when he was a rookie.  Should’ve trademarked that damn thing do, Cavs are selling merchandise with it.  At the beginning of the playoffs I wrote he was the Cavs’ most important reserve.  Yet please notice that he gave up four straight offensive rebounds to Antonio McDyess at one point in Game 3, he does have flaws.  Though I credit him for not showing the least bit of fear of the mighty Pistons, some teammates can learn from that.

–Also, and I know I’ve been getting blasted on the air and in message boards about my sticking with the importance of Zydrunas Ilgauskas.  But I don’t care.  The Cavs halfcourt offense is a joke and he doesn’t get enough chances.  He got six shots in Game 3, made four of them.  He made two shots in a row and then got yanked for the rest of the game in the third quarter.  And did you see what happened then?  I was watching very closely.  In the next seven possessions, the Cavs tossed up five 3-pointers (making one) and had two turnovers.  This is unacceptable and they got lucky Detroit didn’t bury them right there.  Someday someone will come over to my side on this, but if I have to continue to bang the drum solo and slowly I’ll be glad to.

–Why do columnists from opposing cities continue to bitch about officiating before games even start? This is myopic and foolhardy.  Some columnists whined before, during and now, even after, series are over.  Others thought "strange whistles" affected Game 3.  These people are my peers, but I’m really, really tired of all this crap about the officials.  For the most part they do a very good job and from watching hundreds of regular season and playoff games maybe one percent is decided by an official.  Despite what people say, the game almost never comes down to one call.  Deal with it people!

Prepare for some condescending opinions…

–The Cavs have no chance in the series with the Pistons.  You knew this before the series started, you know it now.  Don’t get all upset about it and let it ruin your month.  The Pistons can beat them any way they want.  Accept it, learn from it and move on.  Cavs had a breakthrough season.

–The Pistons are a jump shot team, a very good one at that, filled with players that can post up but would prefer to shoot jumpers and want to drive by would prefer to get fouled or pull up than actually finish at the rim.  Why the Cavs give them so much respect by backing off them and double-teaming them, I don’t know.  In general I think the entire league gives the Pistons too much respect, which is another way of saying the play scared.

–Speaking of too much respect, as I pointed out in this story, Ben Wallace didn’t get a foul until there were eight minutes left in Game 2.   He also didn’t have any blocks.  This is very simple to figure out, the Cavs didn’t even think about challenging him.  I know he’s a great player and he erases shots at the rim but LeBron James is a great player too and he finishes shots at the rim.  If you’re going to do down, go down fighting.

–Donyell Marshall didn’t say anything that anyone should have a problem with.  I elected to totally ignore this story because it is a non-story.  I was standing there when Donyell made the comment and my thought was "yes, you are correct, Donyell." Now there are some talking heads that think he is a cancer or something.  Nonsense!

–LeBron James trashtalked Gilbert Arenas and columnists with nothing else to write about a week later are still buzzing about it.   This stuff goes on non-stop in NBA games, especially playoff games.  Actually the worst stuff said comes from the bench when opposing players are near.  This just happened to be directly caught on camera between the two big stars so it became a big deal.  I’ve been going on radio shows and talking about this around the nation and honestly I think it is memorable and high-profile but still another non-story in the grand scheme.  Please, everyone get some damn perspective.

–I’ve been getting steadily ripped for my fidelity to Zydrunas Ilgauskas all season after his relatively woeful playoff performance.  Z has been bad by his standards and it has hurt the team.  Why this is the way he plays when he’s waited so long to get to the playoffs I don’t know.  But I still say he’s not used correctly in the half court because the Cavs’ offense is a mystery.  Anderson Varejao looks good when the Cavs are in transition, but he’s useless in the halfcourt.  The halfcourt is where Z should shine and where the Cavs are getting beat by Detroit.  I continue to say he needs to get the ball more in the halfcourt, it’s the only chance the Cavs have.

–Speaking of players I’ve defended all season, I’ve grown tired of hearing about how when Eric Snow is playing it’s 4-on-5 offensively.  Well when Ben Wallace plays it’s 4-on-5 offensively for Detroit and they seem to be doing OK.

–I don’t always agree with Scoop Jackson, but his perspective in this piece should be understood by Cavs fans.

–This a late add, but I think this is great stuff.  Not just because a guy who has made like $130 million is accused of shoplifting, it may or may not be true.  But because it is totally right out of Sopranos when Tony rips off some Armani sunglasses from Johnny Sack’s brother, the civilian optometrist, earlier this season.

Washington — Sorry it has been so long between posts, the playoffs are an intense grind for the writers as well.  It has been a great series between two evenly-matched teams and here on the afternoon of Game 6 I still don’t think you can for sure say who is going to win the series.  The Wizards have three good players and a couple role players.  The Cavs have one great player and more role players plus homecourt advantage.  There’s been enough written about all this.

What I think is important is to stop worrying about the officials in this series.  Despite what some fans posing as columnists say, the officiating in this series has been fine.  LeBron has charged a bunch of times.  The Wizards know that when he goes to his left he tends to lower his right shoulder so they try to get him to do it.  Gilbert Arenas gets fouls when he goes to the basket and the Wizards have gone to the basket more than the Cavs in the series, which is why they’ve drawn more fouls.

Did LeBron walk in Game 3?  Yes.  Did Ruffin foul him? Yes.  Should either of those calls me made at that time?  Probably not.  Did the Wizards have a disadvantage in Game 5 because two guys had fouled out?  Yes.  Were they screwed?  No way, the Cavs got to the line 25 times in the first half and set the stage for all that foul trouble.

Enough with all the whining and shame on Eddie Jordan and Mike Brown for taking the lead and getting the crowds into it.  Look at it objectively, as the refs do, and the fouls and the calls have been fair.

Every game in this series has been decided on which team can impose its will and style on the game.  The Cavs played to the Wizards style a little in Game 5, but that works when they are at home and it really works because of LeBron.

The X-factor in determining who wins is, in my opinion, whether Zydrunas Ilgauskas can finally become a factor and whether the Cavs can limit Jamison or Butler.  They can’t stop Arenas and probably not both of the others, but they can’t continue to let those guys all get 20 points or more.