Cavs owner Dan Gilbert graciously gave a call on Friday to address these LeBron-James-to-Europe rumors and talk. The story is in Sunday's Beacon Journal, and online here. (In the same story, we discussed the scam that the NFL calls preseason football.)

But here are some of the highlights from Gilbert:

On the rumors, which state a team from Greece will pay LeBron $50 million per year for two years:

"The reason this thing is where it's at 'is that we've got a bunch of bored, East Coast sports writers who have nothing to do because the offseason is a few months away and the Olympics [hadn't] started yet."

On James being the main focus:

"The undertone to the whole thing that I wonder is, why him? Why not Dwyane Wade? Why not Chris Bosh? Why not whoever else is coming due? 'The only thing you can come up with is there are certain writers, or people who live on the East or West Coast, who think that Cleveland, Ohio, is not a good enough place for a superstar of LeBron's caliber to spend his career. Despite the quality of the franchise, the quality of life in the Midwest, the fans — it's a complete slap in the face from people who do not live in Cleveland, Ohio, to Cleveland, Ohio. That's probably my biggest problem with the whole thing."

Finally:

"I think people need to just leave him alone and let him focus on basketball and helping lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to a championship."

The rest is here at ohio.com.

If you want to see LeBron James talking about the Olympics, the "Redeem Team," and even politics related to going to China, click here.

"If we can win by 50 every game, we would love to," he said of the U.S. team, adding: "We want to destroy everybody." There's even video of him playing a pretty lame game of P-I-G with the reporter from Time. Yes, it's the interview where he guaranteed the gold medal.

My favorite moment was when a photographer said to James: "You're probably the tallest person I've ever photographed." Now that's the kind of behind-the-scenes journalism Time magazine can provide.

The NBA summer league concluded this week and Cavs first-round draft pick J.J. Hickson averaged 19.4 points and 7.8 rebounds per game and shot 53 percent from the floor (he shot much lower from the stands). What does it mean? Well, the Cavs didn’t want to overdo things with Hickson in his first “professional” experience, so they just let him play. Which means let him do what he does well, which is score with his back to the basket, work hard and rebound. He did that. And the Cavs were pleased.

But they also know that it’s five games of summer league, and while Hickson did well the team is not ready to pencil him into the rotation just yet. They know he needs to work on some things, and he will sit down with the Cavs coaches soon and have that detailed to him. The one thing that jumps out to me is that Hickson had 18 turnovers. Summer league entails a bunch of guys being thrown together, but 3.6 turnovers per game for a big guy is too many. Put it this way: Only two players in the league averaged more than 3.6 turnovers per game last season. Too, Hickson had zero assists. Could be the Cavs told him to shoot every time he got the ball on the block, but zero assists in five games? Safe to guess turnovers and handling the ball will be subjects of discussion.

As for Romeo Travis and Dru Joyce, the two Akron guys who joined the Cavs summer league team, both had minimal playing time. Joyce averaged eight minutes per game, Travis 10.5. The Cavs feel the exposure will help their professional chances in Europe.

The turnover thing is interesting. LeBron James had 3.4 turnovers per game last season, the fifth highest total in the league. That’s a lot, until one considers what else James did. He had one of the best assist-to-turnover ratios in the league (2.11) and one of the best steals-to-turnover ratios as well (.54). Clearly, a guy who handles the ball as much as James will have some turnovers.

Speaking of James (like the transition?), one thing one never wants to hear are the words LeBron James and sprained ankle in the same sentence. But that’s what happened Tuesday when James tweaked his ankle practicing with the Olympic team. It’s supposed to be minor, but it illustrates the risk inherent in playing in China. It’s the reason Mark Cuban railed about his players being on the team. Cuban said he takes all the risk while USA Basketball gets the rewards. Trying to argue James should miss the Olympics would be like trying to stop the snow from falling in the Antarctic. It’s just not going to happen. For one, there’s too much money in China for a marketer and player like James to pass up. For two, he’s a basketball player. If he weren’t practicing for the Olympics, he’d be playing somewhere, perhaps at a two-on-two game at the team’s facility. As Danny Ferry said, it’d be nice to put James in a bubble, but the competitiveness that drives him in the NBA is the same thing that drives him in the offseason to improve. A tweaked ankle is the risk of the reward we all get to see him play for the Cavs.

Why did James Posey go to New Orleans instead of back to Boston or to Cleveland? New Orleans gave a 31-year-old role player a four-year contract. The Celtics and Cavs were not willing to go that far. Was it right? Well, Danny Ferry constantly stresses the need to be flexible in his contracts, and adding that much money for a guy who would be 35 in the final year would reduce flexibility. Many folks believe that NBA guys are on borrowed time when they get to 33. Posey is a very good player for what he does, which is be a part-time backup who can shoot and defend. He's also an excellent pregame hugger, he wrote, rolling his eyes. He would be valuable on the Cavs, no doubt. But it does not seem like losing him now means the Cavs championship hopes are dashed. It would have been a nice get, but it’s not a gigantic loss.

I heard some folks on the radio chattering that the Indians could get back in the race after the All-Star break. Well, never say never, but let’s do the math. Cleveland was 41-53 at the break. That’s 94 games, meaning there were 68 left (impressive math, eh?). If the Indians won 40 of 68, they’d finish at 81-81. That would not get them back in the race. Ninety-one wins would, which only means the Indians would have to go 50-18 after the All-Star break. And since they lost the first game in Seattle, they now have to go 50-17. It can happen, yes, but the math indicates just how slim the chances really are.

Paul Pierce seems to be enjoying his celebrity.

Fox’s Charlie Rosen assesses the Lebron James-will-sign-with-New-Jersey saga here.

And … let’s go back to Yellowstone … hope this does not offend anyone, but here are some animals and their … umm … young. First elk, then antelope. Can anyone explain why it’s so interesting to see animals in their natural environment?

Finally, here is a sunset view (hope it comes out) in Lamar Valley, which has to be one of the most beautiful spots in the United States of America. The first one looks into the sun. The folks in the foreground are looking up the hill at a pack of wolves.

This one points in the direction the sun is shining. The colors continue to amaze me, but then again I've got a pretty simple mind. When I die, though, I want to come back as a buffalo in the Lamar Valley. There simply are very few places where it would be better to wander aimlessly and eat grass for the rest of eternity.

For those of little faith, those who doubted the impact of The Bean (I wrote about it in the Blog a few days ago), here are a couple photos. Is this not worth a six-hour drive to Chicago?

Time for a sampling from the mailbox and online comments:

Richard Platt of Fairborn relates a rather obvious fact after reading what I wrote about the Indians in Friday’s Beacon Journal: The Indians have a maddening habit of being good one year, bad the next. Here’s the record:

2004 - 80-82
2005 - 93-69
2006 - 78-84
2007 - 96-66

“It would seem this trend has carried over to this year and another bad season has arrived. I believe it only confirms my opinion about the Indians' roster. They are simply a bunch of average to below average players. Good organizations with good players are usually consistent in winning from year to year. Their wins/losses will vary some from year to year, but they will at least have two consecutive winning seasons,” Mr. Platt wrote.

Interesting. Me, it harkens me back to spring training when I was talking to Mark Shapiro and posed the question who would save it Joe Borowski ever struggled. He said Rafael Betancourt, but it was a bit of an unknown. I asked if he was nervous about the bullpen, and he said he is always nervous about a bullpen because its nature is to be up and down from year to year. That fact held true in 2006, when the bullpen did the team in. And that fact has held true this year, as the bullpen has struggled, which when combined with the struggling offense has produced a 24-29 start.

I also must give credit where it’s due – it was Mr. Platt who suggested to me that the Indians need to win 60 percent of their remaining games to win 90 this year. It was a good point that led to Friday’s column.

The first online comment on that column stated: “The only number that is important is games back. It doesn't matter how many wins you get if you win the division. There is nothing special about 90 wins. Everyone starts the playoffs 0-0. It would be nice to see them play some good baseball though.” This came from Bubba in Akron. And he’s right. As much angst as there is about and within the Indians these days, Bubba is right. All that matters are games behind, and right now the deficit is manageable. As long as the Indians start to play real baseball, they can get back into things.There's just this matter of playing real baseball.

A very intelligent and insightful woman named Bernadette wrote about my thoughts on LeBron James and the team’s offense. She said: “Believe it or not, there is a community out there that understands that while Lebron James is an excellent ball player, he should use better judgment in utilizing his teammates. I've also noticed how his team mates defer to him and witnessed how he openly rebukes them if he's dissatisfied with their game performance. I, however, never see his teammates show any negative emotion toward Lebron when he makes a bad play, miss an easy layup or uses bad judgment during the course of a game. Office politics, no doubt. It should be stressed by the coaching staff and management, that there is no I in TEAM.”

Very true. But it does seem odd criticizing a guy who is such a great team player for not being a team player. LeBron does play team basketball; he just has to realize that there are times when the best thing for him and the team is continue to run the offense and get a good shot from the offense. That being said, I still want him to be on my team, and to stay with the Cavs his entire career.

Finally, Andy Harris of Akron wrote that I should stop calling LeBron James the best player in the league.

“Don't confuse ‘most physically talented’ with best. Unless and until LeBron improves his game to the point that he can consistently be a threat from 15 feet away from the basket and out, he is most definitely not the best player in the NBA. Players like Jordan and even a guy like Karl Malone, who was comparable to LeBron size-wise, were much better shooters than LeBron. Yes, he's young and definitely has a chance to be the best player in the NBA…..someday, just not now. Because of his erratic outside shooting, teams can still back off of him and pack the lane, thus making it difficult or even impossible to drive and score consistently. Players such as Kobe Bryant have a much more well-rounded game and are several steps ahead of LeBron at this point. To continually tout him as the game's best player reeks of blatant homer-ism.”

Well first of all, I don’t watch the Simpsons. Second, I stand by it. I don’t think another player in the league could have done with the Cavs what LeBron did this year. And he did it through a lot of team injuries and holdouts. LeBron needs championships to complete his career, but that will come with a better team. Right now, I stand by it.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas had some interesting things to say in his year-end get-together with the media, and I wrote about those in Friday’s paper. Of possible changes, Z offered that “we have a good team here” and “sometimes you got to be careful because the grass is not always greener on the other side.” His conclusion: “We had a good team to win it all this year.” Those are strong words, but he’s not a guy prone to making outrageous statements. The Cavs battled many injuries, and had to re-make their team following the trading deadline moves. Coach Mike Brown said he’d never been through a year like this one. Despite that, Ilgauskas said the Cavs had “a good team to win it all.” A good team to win it all. One can dismiss this statement as kool-aid drinking poppycock, or one could take a step back and ponder it. Me, I think after watching how close the Cavs came that I’m going to look at the glass as half full and say that Z was correct – with one caveat. The Cavs were close to winning the East. I don’t think they could beaten the Lakers or the Spurs, but I do think they could have defeated Boston and Detroit. And I think they’d have given the Pistons a much harder time than Orlando did. Thing is, if they’d have gotten through the Celtics and Pistons, they’d have been much more confident and they’d have had LeBron James and … well … this is all dreaming. It’s just interesting, to me at least, when a guy like Z makes such a strong statement. Perhaps it should be given some credence.

One last point … all the tumult the team went through during the season – injuries, trades — in my mind only reinforces the fact that the Cavs have a good coach. I know that when a season ends with Cleveland sports teams that “coach season” starts as well. That’s the time everyone tries to put the coach in the crosshairs and get him fired. Two years ago many people were ready to get rid of Romeo Crennel. Now he has a contract extension. He’s the same coach he was two years ago, but if he loses this year folks will probably want to fire him again. Eric Wedge couldn’t manage. Until he came within a game of the World Series and won Manager of the Year. Brown seems to perpetually be in the crosshairs. People want him out, even though they have no viable or credible replacement at the ready. In one sense Brown is in a great position, getting to coach a team with LeBron James. But because he has James he will never get credit for winning – that will go to James – but he will always get the blame for losing. That’s just a reality that Brown must live with. But try to find any coach in the league who could have had his team as ready for the playoffs as this one was just a few weeks after the roster was re-configured. Mike Brown will admit his mistakes, and will give credit to others when they deserve it (I heard some people criticize Brown for crediting Eric Snow for suggesting a play that worked against Washington and wondered how the guy is supposed to win when he merely told the truth.) Brown emphasizes defense and rebounding. It’s his style. We just have to accept that fact. The offense needs work, but I wonder who exactly is responsible when the offense stagnates, and I wrote about that for Sunday’s Beacon Journal. Too, there isn’t a single game played when questions cannot be asked about a decision here or a decision there. Brown is big enough to admit what he needs to work on, and big enough to work on it. His focus on defense has placed the Cavs in a pretty good position the last two years. The NBA is about the postseason, and Brown has won 26-of-42 playoff games against the East (that’s 61.9 percent) and 5-of-8 playoff series in his conference. He has his team ready for the postseason, and he does well in the postseason. James likes and respects him. The coach is fine. Just fine.

For a voice from outside the area about Brown, here's a post I agree with.

This gentleman thinks the Cavs and James would benefit if he would post up more (he prefers to work outside, folks) and play in more of a fast-breaking offense. That idea sounds great, but he also points out the Cavs do not have the personnel to run a lot.

Check Sunday’s Beacon-Journal for some thoughts I have on the team’s offense