==The Cavs accomplished their greatest quest on Wednesday, getting a player they feel can be inserted into the rotation.  As of this moment, it appears Shannon Brown will be the replacement for Flip Murray, though there’s a long way to go until next year’s roster is complete.  Nothing is a sure thing at No. 25 in the draft, but the chances he’ll be viable are high.

==The Cavs deny any promises were made to Daniel Gibson.  Obviously they didn’t promise him the 25th pick, but I’ll bet they told him they’d draft him at No. 42 and assured him they’d give him some guaranteed money.  That must of sounded pretty good considering he really didn’t want to schlep around the country and didn’t want to go back to school.  Plus he knew the Cavs needed a PG.  Otherwise, why would he refuse to work out for other teams?

==Danny Ferry said he feels Brown is a shooting guard and Gibson is combo guard.  The general feeling is that Gibson isn’t really a ball-handler.  So, riddle me this, who will be Eric Snow’s backup?  I mean true backup.  Right now the Cavs have eight players you could consider guards on the roster: Snow, Brown, Gibson, Damon Jones, Ira Newble, Luke Jackson, Sasha Pavlovic, and Larry Hughes.  I can’t see them signing another guard with all that.  Perhaps it will be Hughes, but that all depends on the offense.  Yet, it must be thinned somewhat.

==I am just as anxious as any fan to get this LeBron James extension done ASAP.  But how many days do you think LeBron will enjoy making all of NE Ohio sweat it out…3, 10, 45, only one man knows.

Wednesday’s NBA Draft is going to be exciting because it is unpredictable.  Usually even if the top pick isn’t known, you have a pretty good idea of who’s going 1-2 or even 1-2-3.  This year you don’t.

I pay little attention to mock drafts and I won’t be doing one.  Sure they can be fun, but are just fodder.  A few years ago my boss asked me to do one and I got exactly three right out of 30 and two of those were Dwight Howard going with the No. 1 pick and Emeka Okafor going 2.  I remember I had the Cavs taking Josh Childress with the No. 10 pick as my best guess, which turned out not even being close to being right as he went sixth.  A few months later then general manager Jim Paxson told me he woke up the morning of the draft thinking it would be Childress, too and he obviously had 20 times as much info to guess with.  This year, we’re talking about No. 25, even guessing two guys would be a wild stab for anyone.

What I have learned over the last four drafts I’ve covered is that all Danny Ferry and his two assistants, Chris Grant and Lance Blanks, can do is do as much pre-draft work as possible and rank their players.  Ferry then must call every GM and gauge what it would take to move up or what they’re interested in to move down so when things happen there’s a basis to make quick trade talks.

Also, I think it is important to point out that just because you may be reading a lot of analysis of these players and what they can bring to various teams, most draft picks don’t have much impact on their team in the first year especially outside the top 5 or so.  Sure there’s a history of stolen gems to be found later.  Yet the big majority of the later picks, especially second rounders, never see the light of day despite all this hype, rumors and drama now flying through the league.

OK, with all that on the table, here is my current and somewhat-educated thinking as what might take place with the Cavs:

–I think the most prudent thing to do is take a guy that can play point guard at No. 25.  You can always use big people but getting one here would be a project and they already have one of those in Martynas Andriuskevicius.  They need a guy to develop at the position if nothing else.  They aren’t going to get a starter (yet) here, so I’d look for a changeup to Eric Snow (a quick guy that can shoot a little) and one with lots of room to grow.

–I wrote a story the other day about rumors surrounding Daniel Gibson.  I have no idea whether they are true, the facts just made sense.  What I do know is that Ferry comes from the Spurs school of keeping a very low profile and going against the grain to find undervalued pieces.  Gibson has been in hiding, so does this make him undervalued and hidden?  Dunno, but I know he was a good player on a great college team.

–The Cavs were still working out lots of PG prospects at the end of last week, which could be an indication that they haven’t finalized their board or a smokescreen.  Who’s to say?  Here are some guys you can read up on who have a chance to be a Cav: Rajon Rondo, Shannon Brown, Gibson, Mardy Collins, Quincy Douby, Will Blalock, Sergio Rodriguez, Jordan Farmar, Kyle Lowry, Maurice Ager, Guillermo Diaz, and Darius Washington.  Will it be one of those guys? I’d put a modest bet on it with reasonable odds.

–You hear all sorts of rumors of promises given to players.  Teams deny they exist.  Well, they do exist and there’s a lot of such talk going on.  There’s probably several layers of promises that can be given, all depending on the agents and the mixed agendas.  Ferry is a very respectable and honorable guy and he’s worked to further that rep in his first year on the job.  He’s also a deep thinker.  If he made a promise to someone to take them, I am sure he would honor it.  But I also think it is questionable why anyone would make a promise with the 25th pick.

–This I know, the Cavs generally do not think this is a deep draft.  Whether that opinion is true or not will be determined later.  But I don’t think they are going to harm their roster to get a player.

I hope to have more updates in the next few days.   

I realize he’s controversial and often a whipping boy, but I have to say quite often I find myself in agreement and sometimes in awe in what Mark Cuban has to say.  Yes, his views are usually self-righteous and pompous.  Yet eliminating that fluff, his perspective on the media and his big picture viewpoint, in my opinion, are often well thought out.  I’m not talking about his rants at the officials or the NBA.  I’m talking about his principals, such as being "right is its own defense."

Cuban has lots of money and his made it himself doing things he believes in, which is reason why he’s so confident.  He’s in the basketball business, the movie business, the cable TV business, and he’s getting into the media business and believes he’s an expert in all of them, which rubs people in those fields the wrong way.  His attitude has certainly pained media members over the years.

Which brings me to another really rich guy that I know a little better, Dan Gilbert.  I think Gilbert and Cuban are a lot alike.  Not in their personalities, more in the way they aren’t afraid to do what they believe in regardless of what anyone else thinks or what the standards say.  Peel everything else away, especially the annoying details, and that is something to admire.  Probably why these guys have made themselves into what they have.

During the playoffs, I spent a day with Gilbert at Quicken Loans HQ outside Detroit.  I don’t agree with every way he runs his business.  I think he simply treats his employees the way elementary school teachers do their pupils.  He uses bright colors, positive energy, and simplistic motivation techniques to get them to achieve goals.  Guess what, for the most part it really, really works in that field and that makes him a genius, a rich genius.  Like Cuban’s principles, my favorite of Gilbert’s is that "what is right is more important than who is right."

Gilbert presents that mantra in a colorful little book he gives to all his employees and then reads it to them like they’re in kindergarten.  I choose to dislike that part of his strategy, but I mean think about that, of how all of us professionals would be better off and our working environs better if that simple idea was followed.

Hey, I’m not saying these guys are smarter than Warren Buffett, but I’m saying that if you look and listen there’s substantive stuff to be gained.

Sunday Column and power of jumpsites

Sunday I did a story about the Cavs draft process in case you missed it.  It is hard to separate these PG prospects.  I’m not sure the Cavs are in love with any of them, but I can tell you they are hopeful.  More to come.

Also, in that column I had two league notes that seemed to cause quite a stir.  I wrote that the Jazz were talking to the Grizzlies about Carlos Boozer and the Philly 76ers ownership had a meeting recently where the conclusion was reached that his team needed to rebuilt and a trade of Allen Iverson was to be explored.

These weren’t items I was looking for, just what I came cross in conversations with league officials I’d had over the last week.  This happens sometimes, a beat writer not directly seeking information comes across a juicy nugget or two like this.  Based on the sources and how they told me they got the information, I deemed both to be credible enough to put in the paper.

Both notes made it on to Hoopshype and InsideHoops, which as I’ve written before here, are pretty much the websites that EVERYONE in the NBA reads.  The reporters who know what they’re doing read it, the agents read it, GMs or at least some people in every front office read it and some players do as well.  I cannot overstate the power of these sites and how they affect coverage in the NBA.  All they do is cobble together links from NBA stories but how they pick out information and where they present it directly affects perceptions in the league.

So both the Philly News and the Deseret Morning News followed up on my story.  Just as I’ve followed up on Cavs notes written by other writers in the past and I’m sure I will in the future.  The point is, if you’re and NBA fan who wants all the news, go there everyday year round.  Also, I can’t more highly recommend two great NBA blogs, which offer a totally different viewpoint and series of links, in Truehoop and YaySports.      

I was just listening to LeBron James on ESPN Radio — he was promoting some comics he’s doing in conjunction with Powerade — and Dan Patrick was asking him about Jay-Z.  LeBron said "If he were my owner, it would be great."  It was not asked in context of the Nets, in fact Patrick never mentioned that Jay-Z is a part owner of them.  Yet I highly doubt that will matter once the NYC machine gets going.  So batten down the hatches for another round.

UPDATE: I have corrected LeBron’s quote. I mis-quoted him while listening to the broadcast in my car.  It changes the context a little and I’m sorry for the mistake.  But I don’t see it as a slap to the Cavs or Dan Gilbert or anything, I think it was an honest answer.  My point is that every time something like this comes up, especially on a national stage like Patrick’s show, it just fuels that little speculation bug.  That is why the Cavs will always been extremely cautious with making sure LeBron is happy even after he signs his extension.

Also, I’ve gotten some e-mails asking for some Cavs draft news.  Coming Sunday.

After having a number of postseason conversations and lots of reading…

–I don’t think the Cavs will have a makeover this offseason.  Even though I wrote about testing the trade market for Zydrunas Ilgauskas, I believe the Cavs will only make a move if they feel knocked over.  Honestly, I doubt it’s going to happen.  After my story ran I am sure some teams have called Danny Ferry to gage Z, but it will take proven players and not draft picks or prospects.

–Unless he signs a strange offer sheet (i.e. Carlos Boozer’s descending salary deal with the Jazz) I expect the Cavs to match any reasonable contract for Drew Gooden.  They really like his work ethic and love their depth in the frontcourt.  I think they also have a feeling that Gooden is headed for a long career and they could always trade him if they wanted to down the line.  A fair sign-and-trade deal isn’t out of the question, but again it will take a legit player(s) in return not cap relief or prospects.  I pretty much invented the Jamaal Magloire-Gooden trade talk going around the NBA because Milwaukee GM Larry Harris wants an athletic power forward to play next to Andrew Bogut and wants to move Mags.  It just made sense to me, so I threw it out there and others have been picking it up.

–Despite my prodding, which has been followed up by several other media outlets, at this moment I don’t expect the Cavs to look to hire an offensive coordinator.  I kind of thought the front office might apply some pressure after they got some goodwill by picking up Mike Brown’s contract option.  Actually I hear they are going to leave it Brown to make the needed offensive changes.  It has also been pointed out to me that it is easier to have a lead defensive assistant (as Brown was in Indiana) than a lead offensive assistant because there are more offensive play calls than defensive.  That may or may not be true, but I still believe the Cavs need a new offensive philosophy or at least a more in-depth one.

–By the way, when I first heard about the press conference announcing something about Brown’s contract I thought he was getting a new deal.  My first reaction was that would’ve been a little crazy since things change so rapidly in the NBA.  So I called Brown’s agent and he told me it was just the option pickup.  When I asked if he was re-doing the contract he cracked me up by saying, "Oh no, Christmas only comes once a year."

–As I’ve written before, the NBA changed the day they announced the new defensive rules before the 2004-05 season.  Here’s another quality opinion of the offensive trend.

–I’m having trouble caring about this draft.  I read lots of people saying there are are no super stars but it is a deep draft.  I’m hearing the opposite from some league execs.  With no high school players and not many gems in Europe ready for the NBA, I’m hearing this is the thinnest draft in years.  Glad the Cavs have three picks in it, not that I’m saying they can’t find something.  My guess is they’ll draft the best point guard available at No. 25 and take at least one Euro prospect in round two if they even keep both picks.  As I’ve written here before, I’m no draftnik so don’t expect exhaustive updates on it from the Akron Beacon Journal.