Las Vegas — Greetings from South Nevada, where the temps are hot and the action at the Vegas Summer League is, well, not. Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, the two headliners, haven’t played well so far. No big deal, I’ve been to five summer leagues and see lots of top picks struggle. It means nothing, really. Durant can’t make a shot and Oden keeps fouling, largely because he’s using his hands too much. They will both be fine. But here’s a few Cavs happenings.
–Anderson Varejao met with the Memphis Grizzlies over the weekend in Las Vegas. The Cavs have also met with Varejao’s agent, Dan Fegan. Varejao and the Cavs are far apart right now, which is to be somewhat expected. As has been discussed here before, it is hard to put a value on him. That said, there are signs the Grizzlies may present Varejao with an official offer sheet after Wednesday, when free agents may sign. Depending on how aggressive the Grizzlies are, the Cavs will probably have to do some stewing. Danny Ferry has been saying he will match, which follows normal strategy. Fegan has been playing hardball, which follows normal strategy. So we’ll see what happens and just how much everybody values Varejao, but things could heat up very soon.
–Daniel Gibson played well the first two games, but couldn’t finish either. He had a cut on his face that required stitches in the first game and he sprained his left ankle against the Chinese on Sunday. It isn’t bad, but Gibson told me it had swollen a bit. He’d been playing well, scoring 14 points in the first half and often looking like the best player on the floor Sudnay. At this point, he probably was. The Cavs and Gibson himself are not ruling out a return, but it’s highly doubtful he’ll play again this week. He told me he plans to workout again with John Lucas in Houston for the rest the summer, which is what he did last year. Overall, he just continues to impress and the organization is extremely excited about his future.
–Shannon Brown is playing with more poise than he showed last year. He’s put some hard work into developing his mid-range game it seems. He is so very impressive with his aggressive drives to the basket and flashy dunks, which he’s had a few of already. He had 26 points against the Chinese as he repeatedly drove to the basket and finished. But they were playing zone and couldn’t stop him, so I don’t know how to judge it. In the other games, including tonight when he went 5-of-19 against the Suns, he’s struggled to hit a high volume of shots. He has been playing point guard some, although he is not one and will not be one probably. He’s thrown some great passes but he’s dribble happy, often taking too long to get into a move. Overall, he’s better and he’s still working very hard, he has a chance to make a push for playing time come this fall.
–Dwayne Jones plays very hard and he fights for every rebound. His skills, though, are still very raw. Not sure about his future with the team.
–Darius Rice, a lanky 6-foot-10 shooter from Miami, has been the most impressive non-roster player for the Cavs. He scored 21 points in the win over the Suns and had 19 against the Spurs on Saturday. The man can shoot and can create his shot a little bit for a guy his size. Worth watching some more.
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Good one, Doc. But at this point I’d prefer that kind of article to the sad sack, preachy father/son saga we’ll get if Ferry trades for Bibby.
Considering the fact they started keeping blocked shots stats beginning with the season that started five minutes ago, “NBA history” stats for blocked shots are fairly misleading. As are most stats.
For Christ’s sakes, the guy is taller than the Empire State Building, and he’s not swatting three to four balls per game? The dude should be able to block two with his knees, no matter how many minutes he plays! It’s ridiculous.
doc, you ripped off that “bidding against ourselves” theme from me, and I am offended in a major way. With that being said, a mighty “two thumbs up” kudos for your Stoli and Grey Goose reference.
The NBA began counting single season blocked shot and blocks per game as an official stat in the ‘71-’72 season, so that’s a fair point. It still amounts to 36 seasons worth of stats, but it is less impressive in that context.
On the other hand, Ilgauskas has racked up his “career” total in what amounts to 7 full seasons, or about 5 full seasons had he averaged 40 minutes a game. Most of the other players on that list had more minutes and seasons to get their blocks.
SI did a feature a couple months ago about the lost art of shot blocking. If I remember correctly, they asserted that blocks as a stat were decreasing across time. Your father was a better shot blocker than your son will be — that kind of thing.
Sorry AT, I didn’t realize “bidding against ourselves” was the “yippe kai yay mother effer” of the sports blog world. My apologies to you and Bruce Willis. And Kevin: The sun is shining. We’ve had beautiful days. Kindly close the Macbook Pro for five minutes and get some fresh air, son. The esoterics will be there in September.
And how about for getting Coach K’s name spelled correctly (on the first ad-libbed try, sans googling.)
And why exactly is Greg Oden having his tonsils removed? I can just see the scene. After another 1-5, 12 foul performance ((I love the unlimited foul rule, you would be be able to designate one guy on your team who can commit an infinite number of fouls thereby creating a modern day equivalent of Chuck Nevitt– only instead of a freakishly tall thin white stiff with a porn stache it would be a barbaric overweight muscled dude without a lick of basketball talent (perhaps someone from the UFC)who would hack the opposing talented big man until he could prove he could make free throws…… another aside; what would this have done to Shaq’s career? Aren’t free throw woes the same as a cleanup hitter’s inability to hit a curve ball……. ))Sam Presti notices that Oden has a little “tickle” in his throat and immediately calls for a surgeon to perform something, anything to get his number one pick off the court.
If anyone can understand the syntax and puncuation of that last paragraph, you win a Grammar Star.
My wife and I had a discussion this evening about the way we say Merlot like Merloh and Beaujalais like Bow-zha-lay in the foofy french way but we continue to pronounce Detroit and St Louis in the usual crass hard consonant American way. Why is that? Because we’re superficial and pretentious. If we think other people will find us sophisticated and intellectual if we drop a few consonants on wine, we’ll do it. But Detroit? You mean that place that smells and represents one of the more frightening places on earth? DetroiTTTT baby.
doc, so now you know. I accept your apology. Willis probably is OK with it, too. He seems pretty cool on those late night talk show interviews. I don’t think he’ll have a problem with you.
Doc,
Thanks for your concern. I went swimming yesterday; how about you?
For the record, 5 minutes checking the stats at basketball-reference.com, 5 minutes doing some very brief and easy math, and 5 minutes writing out the observation. So, you consider 15 minutes research to be a Herculean amount of work? That says a lot about you.
Just as an aside, I’ve now posted three time this article, and these were the first posts I’ve made in maybe 3 weeks. You posted three times (and a lot more words) in this article, and you’ve commented a lot more throughout the year on each article than I have. So of course, I’M spending too much time at the keyboard. I take an earlier comment back — you aren’t better than that.
Kevin,
You had me at hello. Did you swim the butterfly or freestyle? The butterfly kills me. Could never do it. As for my frequent posts, well, frankly, I lack friends and outside interests. I struggle with brief and easy math. But take it easy kid. Just teasing you a bit.
On another note, as the pool of available free agents dwindles down to the likes of Keith mcLeod and Darrick Martin, my enthusiasm for the upcoming season approaches the unbridled anticipation I have for the DVD release of season 6 of Everybody Loves Raymond.
Is season 6 before or after Chris Elliott joined the cast?
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