Back in the USA…for now
Posted August 8th, 2006 by Brian Windhorst
Spokane, Wash. — Sorry for the absence, I’ve been bounding around Western Canada for the last week with two high school friends on a long-planned road trip. Been in beautiful places like Vancouver, Revelstoke, Radium Hot Springs, Banff and Canmore. Been offroading on an ATV, whitewater rafting, in a hail storm at the top of a mountain, negotiating for the release of my friends after they became trapped at the top of a dam, and making an unending series of profanity-laced U-turns. Here on some fresh thoughts on the Cavs.
–The Reggie Evans courtship isn’t a total ruse, I think the Cavs have some interest. But I do think it’s a ploy by both sides to apply pressure in another direction. Evans wants to pressure the Nuggets into making a deal while they seem to want for an answer from Keith Van Horn. The Cavs want to pressure Drew Gooden into taking the offer on the table. Interesting, though, that Drew’s agent, who is also Carmelo Anthony’s agent, wants Evans back in Denver (scroll down). Calvin Andrews is a smart guy.
–The firing of Michael Reghi was a mistake for Dan Gilbert. All the columnists have written this, both Terry Pluto and Bill Livingston of the Plain Dealer were on the mark as far I’m concerned. I’ve said many times that I respect Gilbert for his business acumen and his overall belief structure. If the guy who paid $400 million wants to hire the play-by-play man, Fred McLeod, he’s known as a friend for 20 years and he’s listened to as a Pistons fan then he has every right to do so. But he has to respect his customers opinions as well.
I’ve heard McLeod is a good guy and a pro, of course he is because the Pistons run a class organization. However, he’s got no chance here at least for the first year or two. No matter what he does, fans will compare him to Reghi and he will never live up in many of their minds. That means Gilbert has no chance of being right. In life, I’ve learned that is a position you want to avoid.
The thing is, Reghi and Gilbert had a mostly good relationship. I have a pretty good feeling that the owner doesn’t care for Joe Tait. Gilbert hates negativity in life, which he’ll tell you if you ever want to join Quicken Loans. He fires people for being negative. Tait, as we all know, has no problem being negative on the air. He is not a cheerleader and that’s what Gilbert wants. Tait has one year left on his contract and hinted in the past he’d retire when he’s 70, which he’ll be this year. But he also loves calling games with LeBron James in them and may very well want to stick to it. That should be an interesting situation to watch, huh?
Of course, with LeBron, people are going to watch and listen no matter what, we all know.
–As far as Drew Gooden goes, I have nothing to add that I haven’t already written. I believe the scenario is the same and Drew is prepared to wait it out and direct pressure back on the Cavs.
–Interesting update on Lenny Cooke. When I covered LeBron at the ABCD Camp in New Jersey when he was 16, Cooke was all the rage. I remember him telling the local media that he wanted to challenge Kobe Bryant, who was there to speak to the players, to a 1-on-1 game. LeBron ripped him up in game a few days later and was named MVP. Cooke maintained for years he was better than LeBron, even though he went undrafted and at times couldn’t get on the floor for summer league games because he didn’t know the plays. But I do wish him well, he’s been though a lot.
–I leave in a week for Japan for the FIBA World Championships. Please stay with me and Ohio.com, we’re going to have good stuff including live blogging of games, podcasts, photos and perhaps video along with daily blog posts and, of course, game stories.
August 8th, 2006 at 11:27 am
Boy, I don’t know too many Cavs customers who like Reghi all that much but he sure seems popular among the media types.
August 8th, 2006 at 11:46 am
I am just about as happy about the dumping of Ronnie Duncan as I am about dumping Reghi’s circus act. Check that, they were both circus acts.
August 9th, 2006 at 4:06 am
I enjoy Tait immensely. He consistently makes me laugh and I think he is fair. Is there anyone who doesn’t like listening to him?
August 9th, 2006 at 6:04 am
If Gilbert thinks people are up in arms over Reghi’s firing, he should think twice about getting rid of Tait.
August 9th, 2006 at 8:31 am
Yea, Gilbert’s kind of an annoying, tweaking, zillionaire. I just hope he doesn’t start undermining basketball operations. I generally don’t trust people that are too positive. It seems phony and contrived to me. I prefer announcers that have a personal viewpoint. Sometimes you need to be critical. What else can you say when Damon Jones won’t play defense and jacks up airball 3s?
It’s just so shady the way the whole thing went down:fired this late and of course bringing a Detroit guy to the job.
August 9th, 2006 at 9:32 am
Lenny Cooke? Lol. Pure NY hype. If that guy was from anywhere else, nobody would have ever heard of him…
August 9th, 2006 at 9:47 am
According to KJ, if Cooke were from Cleveland they’d sure know him in northern Kentucky and Pittsburgh.
August 9th, 2006 at 9:54 am
I for one am a big Reghi fan, but I can appreciate the perspective of those who don’t like him. He has is own style and it’s probably not to everyone’s taste. But I hope we can all agree his passion for the Cavs was real. If for no other reason than that, we should all miss him.
Right now, LeBron James is the Cavaliers and we’re all going to be glued to his time with the team regardless of who’s calling or describing the action in the media. That’s for sure.
But since Dan Gilbert is from Detroit, he should be pretty aware of what occurred when the Tigers tried to give the legendary Ernie Harwell the bum’s rush when HIS contract expired in 1991. Gilbert really needs to understand that not renewing Joe Tait’s contract after this year would cause a comparable reaction among Cavs’ fans.
If Joe Tait wants to keep working for a few more years in the hope that LeBron can bring this franchise its first championship, I think almost all of us would agree that Mr. Tait is the man who most deserves to have that courtside seat, observing it and describing it to us.
Otherwise, the reaction will be very NEGATIVE…so much so that Mr. Gilbert may desire to fire the fans next.
I’m beginning to get the feeling that if the people of Detroit didn’t already have the Pistons, Gilbert would already have the U-Haul loaded to move there. But, like it or not, he’s stuck with the people of Cleveland as his team’s fans for the time being. Let’s hope he decides to keep the relationship as positive as possible.
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Let’s assume for a minute that all the hype and heat surrounding Lenny Cooke during his high school career had some merit, and was entirely dreamed up by overzealous New York reporters and columnists, as is often the case.
Let’s assume that, on a strictly physical level, he was reasonably close to Kobe Bryant or the then-surging LeBron James.
It quickly became clear that the reality of the situation, at the very least, Cooke simply did not possess the mental or emotional capacity required for the NBA game at that time. More simply put, he was too stupid and arrogant to get the most out of his abilities.
The NBA wouldn’t even touch him. He kicked around, trying to make an impression somewhere, anywhere. And then, two years later, with all my sincerest best wishes regarding the man’s health, he nearly loses a leg in a very unfortunate car accident.
Jay Williams the #2 pick in the 2002 draft (the draft which ignored Cooke) coincidentally was also in an unfortunate accident which nearly cost him his leg. He possesses the huge amounts of cash needed to rehabilitate such a serious injury properly…and even HE is not back in the NBA yet.
Now this article is trying to convince me that Lenny Cooke is the comeback kid because he scored 35 points in a game in some scrub league in New Jersey?! This is truly creative writing.
If this were what had become of the LeBron James story, an Akron native, the story would be over. But because Cooke is a supposed “New York playground legend” he still has large newspapers willing to cover him. Unbelievable.
If there is a more over-hyped and worthless title to hold than “New York playground legend,” I’d like to know what it is. The next New York playground legend who gets inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame will be the first one to do so since, I believe, Connie Hawkins. That’s a long time ago. And unless you believe Stephon Marbury with 2 All-Star appearances, 1 3rd-Team All-NBA selection, and no championship rings on the horizon is going to make the cut, it’s going to be a whole lot longer before it happens again.
August 9th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Pardon my typo. I meant to say “…and was NOT dreamed up by overzealous New York…”
August 9th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Glad to see maturity really reigns supreme around here.
Regardless, I believe Freud, may his Austrian brain rest in piece, if he were alive today, would refer to Brian’s feelings towards the demise of Reghi as “projection.” That’s giving Brian the HUGE benefit of the doubt, because the alternative would be to say Brian’s pulse on the feelings of the fans is equivalent to Freud’s current pulse if it was taken by a Cleveland Clinic nurse. I trust it’s the former, not the latter.
That Ronnie Duncan firing is just the delicious icing on the cake. Although, I must admit I will miss Joe Tait’s occasional on-air mocking of Duncan. It was hilarious.
Now, if only somebody would finally start making some smart personnel decisions basketball-wise, we’d really have something.
Hey, how ’bout Jiri Welsch being forced to sign a contract with a team in Spain. Couldn’t even hook up with Charlotte as a 12th man. You’re a mad genius, Jimbo!
August 9th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Actually, come to think of it, Freud’s brain should rest in peace, not rest in piece. Unless it’s like Einstein’s brain, which is literally resting in piece.
August 9th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
hey, if lenny cooke played for the CAVS he’d been beamed into columbus, pittsburgh, cincy and nothern kentucky! not if he played in cleveland. come on…sheesh…(and laugh about the 3.2 million tv homes in those areas if you must but trust me, gilbert’s laughing too; all the way to the bank and a nba championship!)
i’m fairly certain that cooke will be another reason cited by tucker and his ilk as to why LBJ will end up in NYC/brooklyn. they’ll be spotted having a sprite together at a nike ABCD reunion pick-up game with jay-z and beyonce and marv albert and phil knight…and gloria james will be named coach of the knicks by dolan in ‘08. anyone care to bet?
August 9th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
reghi was, is the man. If you do not like Reghi, you do not like yourself. gilbert. Reghi inspires us all to update our suit collections, insipres us along with AC to buy a digoirno pizza. he put in so much work when this team was garbage, for years and Gilbert acts a jackass like this? to hell with Gilbert and the Cavs.
August 10th, 2006 at 6:01 am
I don’t care how much the media or anyone liked Reghi, he just wasn’t that good at calling games. He tried to spice his delivery with awkward descriptions and cliched language and it never worked for me. I think he was average — at best — at what he did, and hoops fans who have watched and listened to other talent would know that. If there are only 30 of these jobs in the world, why shouldn’t Gilbert look for someone else who can do it better? I doubt many people will care about this firing in a few years.
Duncan was just another distraction in the pre-game/timeout circus that I try my best to ignore when I’m at the game. Good riddance.
Joe Tait is a different story. Positive or negative, he is the BEST at what he does and should have his job as long as he wants it.
August 11th, 2006 at 6:52 am
Reghi was an awful self-promoting blowhard shill. But other than that, I’ll miss him.
Be that as it may, for all the soapbox pontificating by the local media doing whatever they can to protect the back of one of their own, I tend to believe there may be much more to this story than is being reported. Perhaps a deeper underlying reason why Reghi was shown the door. For all the butt-kissing Reghi used to do on-air (frankly, the times he would use his mic to say “Hi” to Detroit-based Gilbert during the games made me want to puke), he very well could have done something to really, really piss off the boss. Something that we don’t know about. As evidenced by three years of reporting that LeBron’s Nike contract is devoid of an escalator clause, there are times that even very good reporters don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.
Terry Pluto very briefly alluded to this possiblity of a hidden underlying reason in his column, then scurried away from it to focus on covering the back of one of his own. As I suppose he should, every profession usually takes care of their own. But when the media covers the media, there’s a built-in conflict of interest which makes it very difficult to be truly objective. Superstar Mitch Albom getting caught red-handed making stuff up shows just how difficult it is for the rest of the sports media to report and write about themselves, even when it’s clear that reporting ethics were completely destroyed.
Maybe, just maybe, Reghi did something to really, really rub Gilbert and/or somebody else in the front office the wrong way. Because Lord knows he promoted and promoted and promoted and promoted the franchise and the sponsors as he was paid to do. That’s why the prior regime loved him, that’s why the Orioles let him hang around for seven years despite the constant bashing by fans. So maybe, just maybe, there’s more to this than meets the eye.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:07 am
Considering Reghi’s respect for his colleague Marv Albert, maybe all of that on camera butt kissing escalated into some kind of perverse butt biting behind closed doors? Butt kissing is a gateway activity, you know.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:23 am
Honestly, I can’t envision Reghi galavanting around in a bra, panties and fishnet stockings like Marv supposedly did while prancing around in his free time. But come to think of it, nobody ever had a clue that Marv enjoyed doing the boogie to that Lou Reed song, either. So I suppose that gateway hypothesis holds some weight.
August 14th, 2006 at 8:22 am
man, i just saw that the cavs have signed with FSN for $25 million, the 4th highest tv package in the whole nba. it sucks bein’ such a small market team…
August 14th, 2006 at 8:53 am
Where do you see that? All I see is that they signed Gooden.
August 29th, 2006 at 8:43 am
Reghi is/was supposed to be the announcer, not the color commentator. Many nights he would get on a negative topic and beat it to death the entire game. I prefer my announcers to discuss game play and stats and stay away from editorials.
At least he beats the FIBA announcing.
Every game from beginning to end, the one announcer does nothing but repeat himself .. you can’t do that against Spain and Argentina.. 1 bad play and they have lost. repeat repeat geez. Announce, Instruct (explain plays, ball movement, movement away from the ball). I could care less about the 2 teams who will beat us during the game I am watching. They may not even make it to the semi-finals. Discuss that in the post game show so I can turn it off. Gimme Bill walton!!