Howard passes on Cavs
Posted October 30th, 2007 by bwindhorst
Just heard from some sources that Juwan Howard is going to sign with the Mavericks. He listened to the Cavs offer and was interested, but apparently the fact that his family lives in the Houston area played a factor in the decision.
Howard, who averaged 9.7 points and 5.9 rebounds with the Rockets last season, was bought out by the Timberwolves on Monday. He was not thrilled the Wolves were rebuilding and wanted to play for a contender. There’s no doubt the Mavericks are a contender. They’ve also got some big men with injury issues and Howard’s played there in the past.
Because the Mavericks had to set their roster yesterday, Howard will not play against the Cavs tomorrow night in Cleveland.
Despite their rising success over the last several years, the Cavs have yet to attract a free agent that has been bought out despite making several tries. These types of players can often play major roles in contending teams efforts. Chris Webber’s efforts last season in Detroit is just one recent example.
One player the Cavs may now look at is point guard Beno Udirh, who was traded from the Spurs to the Timberwolves and then waived Monday. A former first round pick, Udrih never delivered on his promise in San Antonio and was constantly in and out of Gregg Popovich’s doghouse. However, Danny Ferry has been a Beno fan in the past and may take a look at him. The issue is that he’s currently out with a broken finger.
The Cavs may indeed have gotten a free player in Demetris Nichols, a young player I personally am high on after seeing him in summer league. The media spoke with him at practice today. More on him in tomorrow’s paper.
October 30th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Why do I think that some people will blame Ferry for Juwan Howard’s family living in Texas? Or for Webber being from Detroit?
There’s only one great player from Northeastern Ohio, and he already plays for the team. Of course, I’m talking about Eric Snow.
Maybe Beno Udrih will find a little bit of his native Slovenia here in Ohio.
Mike C.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
So, who will be cut to accomodate Sasha when he comes back?
October 30th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Earl boykins is out there he is a player that can help the cavs right away….get him please
October 30th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
[...] Donyell Marshall, and Cedric Simmons. I’m not going to talk about Juwan Howard at all because Brian Windhorst is reporting that Howard has turned down the Cavs and will play for the Mavericks. What this all means is the [...]
October 30th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
I think Beno could help us.
Glad to see Pavs is back. He’s important to this team.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
We need to trade Larry Hughs or Damon Jones to get a point gaurd. Boobie is good but in experinced. Mike Bibby would be a big inprovement. Boobie is a shooter but not a passer. We need to give in and sign Wild Thing we got Sasha we need both
October 30th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I wouldn’t blame Ferry for Howard signing with another team, Mike C., because odds were against him coming to Cleveland in the first place–there are just too many contending ball clubs that could use a big man who can score and rebound a little.
I do have to question the notion that he chose the Mavs because of the team’s proximity to Houston, however. I don’t doubt Juwan has a home there because he’s played for the Rockets for the past few years. But he’s a Chicago guy. He still has summer camps in Chicago and returns there to train in the offseason, according to his blog.
I guess it’s possible, but it seems the Houston tidbit is just spin. If I didn’t know better I’d think Windhorst’s only “league source” has a brand new office up in Independence.
October 30th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Howard is not the missing link for a championship. Glad they didn’t sign him (unless it would have been very cheap and just a stop-gap.
The Cavs have managed to get most of their team back, get younger with Simmons and Nichols (doubt they’ll contribute much this year, but it can’t hurt down the road). If they can sign AV without breaking the bank and figure out the PG situation as the season goes forward, I can live with that.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:02 am
“let’s see, my name is juwan howard and my contract just got bought out by the minnesota timberwolves. so now who should i sign with??? remember now, it’s not about the money. i just want to go someplace and win a title. let’s see, i can go to an up and coming team who has a young superstar who has yet to even reach his peak and they just played in the nba finals just last season. to top it all off, their top big man off the bench is holding out and so i should be able to get plenty of playing time there. plus, it’s relatively close to my off-season home back in chicago and since both teams are in the eastern conference, i will probably get to visit chicago at least 3 or 4 times this year during the season. or i could instead go play for a team that’s relatively close to some family members i still have in houston where i played last year. they have a superstar themselves, although he’s older and has probably already reached his peak and is probably on the way down in terms of his career, oh and did i mention that they lost in the first round of the playoffs last year to the # 8 seed in the west??? oh but i will get to see my family in houston at least 3 or 4 times this year and i will get to buy tickets for them behind the bench where we will be able to sit and talk pretty much all game long since i won’t get much playing time behind dirk novitski who i will be backing up to the tune of about 6-8 minutes a game. but boy, won’t i have some nice paychecks to look at for such little effort??? don’t forget now, they’re only 2 years removed from an nba finals too and so maybe, just maybe i might be able to pull a karl malone trick and try to gravy-train my way to a title with these guys. i just talked to my old michigan buddy jalen rose and he did the same thing in phoenix last year and they almost made the finals too. yeah, i think i will just go to dallas. screw cleveland. they ain’t going no where this year anyway. all they got is lebron and nobody else so why would i go there???”.
fast forward to june 2008.
“this is ernie johnson with my colleagues kenny smith, charles barkley and guest commentators juwan howard, chris webber and jalen rose here in the tnt studious as we give our final post-game comments after the cleveland cavaliers have won their first nba title in their 38-year existence by disposing of the san antonio spurs in 6 games. charles, are you even surprised that lebron and the cavs were able to come back this year and beat the spurs after having been swept by them last year???”.
“me??? surprised??? nothing surprises me. i seen it all. i done it all and nobody does it as pretty as me. i really don’t look at this like the cavs beat the spurs, but the spurs beat themselves and the cavs just happened to be the other team. what about you, kenny???”.
“charles, you big dumb fat tub of goo. the cavs did indeed beat the spurs in every aspect of the game in this series and if it wasn’t for that bad call there at the end of game 2, the cavs would have won this series in 5 games and you know it too”.
“who you calling dumb??? i know more about what it takes to play wining basketball than anybody. i’m one of the top 50 players of all time. i won mvp and i got phoenix into the finals”.
“um, charles, last time i checked, kenny won 2 titles in houston, so i think he knows a thing or two about winning basketball too, which is 2 more titles than what you ever won”.
“shut up, ernie, you ain’t never played the game”.
“on that note, let’s get our 3 members of the fab 5 involved. so juwan, if you had it to do over again, do you regret signing with dallas instead of cleveland this year??? you could have been a champion”.
“no ernie, i don’t. we still made it to the western conference semi-finals and i made the game-winning shot in game four to stop us from being swept by the spurs. we still won 63 games, so we got nothing to hang our heads over and i still feel like i could play another 5 or 6 years now since i really didn’t play all that much this year”.
October 31st, 2007 at 9:55 am
What are we ever going to do without Juwan Howard? He was vener the same after he ditched his Kid-N-Play flattop.
October 31st, 2007 at 9:57 am
What will we ever do without Juwan Howard? He hasn’t been the same ever since he ditched that Kid-N-Play flat top from the fab five days…