alamo50
04-20-2005, 03:22 PM
Blame new owner, not LeBron, for Cleveland's free fall
Posted: Tuesday April 19, 2005 5:10PM; Roy S. Johnson, SI.com
Updated: Wednesday April 20, 2005 9:40AM
The votes are in, and the count's been tallied. It wasn't close. The winner of this season's NBA Defensive Player -- make that Playa -- of the Year? Dan Gilbert, the multimillionaire rookie owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and the only man who was able to stop LeBron James.
The old joke is that the only person who was able to stop Michael Jordan was his college coach, Dean Smith, whose conservative offense at North Carolina won games but did nothing to showcase Jordan's wondrous gifts. But this is no joke: In the two months since he paid $375 million to buy the Cavs from long-time owner Gordon Gund, Gilbert has defused the most talented individual player in the game and made his new acquisition look like an NBDL team.
I've long believed that being a genius in one industry does not prevent someone from being a dunce in another field. Nor does money necessarily translate into brains. Gilbert, who made his funny money by creating Quicken Loans, the online home lender, proves me right on both counts.
http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2005/writers/roy_johnson/04/19/gilbert/t1_gilbert.usher2.jpg
With Usher on board, the Cavs' new ownership group is flashy, but is seemingly floundering under Dan Gilbert's leadership.
David Liam Kyle/Getty Images
When Gilbert was handed the keys to the franchise on March 1, the Cavs were, by most reasonable accounts, an overachieving bunch. Carried by James, they were 31-24. And while the team had issues, it seemed all but certain to qualify for the playoffs for the first time in seven seasons.
That was then; this is now: Going into Tuesday's game against Boston, the Cavs are a dispirited team in serious free fall. They've lost three straight, seven of their last 10, and have gone 9-16 in the A.G. (After Gilbert) Era. James, who is the closest thing to Magic Johnson the league has seen since the original retired, continues to put up the kind of numbers that should make him the first player from the hip-hop generation to average 25 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in a season.
But the only number that matters is the ever-increasing one in Cleveland's loss column, and now the Cavs are about to bungee jump their way right out of the postseason. If the Vince Carter Revival (a.k.a. the Nets) beats Washington and the Celtics to close out the regular season, the Cavaliers will be on vacation by the weekend.
James deservedly received much of the credit for the Cavs' early season success. So it would be easy to lay most of the blame for their demise on the precocious 20-year-old as well. But that would be wrong-headed. This travesty belongs to Gilbert alone.
When he took over the Cavs, the team was struggling, no doubt. The always-fragile dynamic between the coach and his players was strained by an ego smackdown between then head coach Paul Silas and his starting point guard, Jeff McInnis.
But rather than take a front-row seat, grab some popcorn and -- like any sensible new executive -- spend at least a minute studying the state of his new team and picking the myriad smart basketball minds for ways to improve, Gilbert began wielding his new power like he was working his thumbs on PlayStation2.
On March 22, he fired Silas -- the bone-headed move of the year. (Now, there's an award the league should create.) On Sunday, Gilbert told ESPN.com's Scoop Jackson: "Just about any reasonable and competent leader, if presented with the facts and situation as I observed them, would have come out with the same decision that I did." I will grant that no one yet knows the whole tale, but nonetheless, the timing stunk. The young Cavs simply couldn't handle the trauma, and it shook their star to his core.
Since then the team has also been unsettled by rumors regarding the inevitable firing of president/general manager Jim Paxson (another rush-to-judgment by Gilbert) and, stunningly, even James' future in Cleveland. When Spike Lee, the Knicks' de-facto GM, shared his dream of seeing James in a New York uni someday, it prompted much hand-wringing in Cleveland.
It's been an interesting season for NBA executives. Before Gilbert arrived, at least two other owners had already established themselves as front-runners for my Most Unvaluable Playa honor.
Lakers owner Jerry Buss took the early lead by listening to Kobe Bryant and running Phil Jackson and Shaquille O'Neal out of town. Now the Lakers will miss the playoffs after reaching the NBA Finals last season.
On the other coast, real estate magnate Bruce Ratner bought the Nets during the offseason and in a cost-saving move designed to trim expenses in preparation for the team's eventual move to Brooklyn, let All-Star forward Kenyon Martin sign with Denver. That incensed All-Star point guard Jason Kidd, the team's unquestioned leader. But Ratner pulled himself out of contention by green-lighting the midyear trade that brought Carter to New Jersey and rekindled a team that was also destined for postseason oblivion.
Gilbert's vying for the unique Playa two-fer, and seems to have them both locked up. As rumors swirled about James possibly forcing his own exit from Cleveland, the owner emphasized that James' contract binds him to the Cavs for three more years. Gilbert said he couldn't understand what all the conjecture was about. "Frankly," the owner said at the time, "I don't know why he would leave Cleveland."
If Gilbert looks in the mirror, he might find the answer.
Posted: Tuesday April 19, 2005 5:10PM; Roy S. Johnson, SI.com
Updated: Wednesday April 20, 2005 9:40AM
The votes are in, and the count's been tallied. It wasn't close. The winner of this season's NBA Defensive Player -- make that Playa -- of the Year? Dan Gilbert, the multimillionaire rookie owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and the only man who was able to stop LeBron James.
The old joke is that the only person who was able to stop Michael Jordan was his college coach, Dean Smith, whose conservative offense at North Carolina won games but did nothing to showcase Jordan's wondrous gifts. But this is no joke: In the two months since he paid $375 million to buy the Cavs from long-time owner Gordon Gund, Gilbert has defused the most talented individual player in the game and made his new acquisition look like an NBDL team.
I've long believed that being a genius in one industry does not prevent someone from being a dunce in another field. Nor does money necessarily translate into brains. Gilbert, who made his funny money by creating Quicken Loans, the online home lender, proves me right on both counts.
http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2005/writers/roy_johnson/04/19/gilbert/t1_gilbert.usher2.jpg
With Usher on board, the Cavs' new ownership group is flashy, but is seemingly floundering under Dan Gilbert's leadership.
David Liam Kyle/Getty Images
When Gilbert was handed the keys to the franchise on March 1, the Cavs were, by most reasonable accounts, an overachieving bunch. Carried by James, they were 31-24. And while the team had issues, it seemed all but certain to qualify for the playoffs for the first time in seven seasons.
That was then; this is now: Going into Tuesday's game against Boston, the Cavs are a dispirited team in serious free fall. They've lost three straight, seven of their last 10, and have gone 9-16 in the A.G. (After Gilbert) Era. James, who is the closest thing to Magic Johnson the league has seen since the original retired, continues to put up the kind of numbers that should make him the first player from the hip-hop generation to average 25 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in a season.
But the only number that matters is the ever-increasing one in Cleveland's loss column, and now the Cavs are about to bungee jump their way right out of the postseason. If the Vince Carter Revival (a.k.a. the Nets) beats Washington and the Celtics to close out the regular season, the Cavaliers will be on vacation by the weekend.
James deservedly received much of the credit for the Cavs' early season success. So it would be easy to lay most of the blame for their demise on the precocious 20-year-old as well. But that would be wrong-headed. This travesty belongs to Gilbert alone.
When he took over the Cavs, the team was struggling, no doubt. The always-fragile dynamic between the coach and his players was strained by an ego smackdown between then head coach Paul Silas and his starting point guard, Jeff McInnis.
But rather than take a front-row seat, grab some popcorn and -- like any sensible new executive -- spend at least a minute studying the state of his new team and picking the myriad smart basketball minds for ways to improve, Gilbert began wielding his new power like he was working his thumbs on PlayStation2.
On March 22, he fired Silas -- the bone-headed move of the year. (Now, there's an award the league should create.) On Sunday, Gilbert told ESPN.com's Scoop Jackson: "Just about any reasonable and competent leader, if presented with the facts and situation as I observed them, would have come out with the same decision that I did." I will grant that no one yet knows the whole tale, but nonetheless, the timing stunk. The young Cavs simply couldn't handle the trauma, and it shook their star to his core.
Since then the team has also been unsettled by rumors regarding the inevitable firing of president/general manager Jim Paxson (another rush-to-judgment by Gilbert) and, stunningly, even James' future in Cleveland. When Spike Lee, the Knicks' de-facto GM, shared his dream of seeing James in a New York uni someday, it prompted much hand-wringing in Cleveland.
It's been an interesting season for NBA executives. Before Gilbert arrived, at least two other owners had already established themselves as front-runners for my Most Unvaluable Playa honor.
Lakers owner Jerry Buss took the early lead by listening to Kobe Bryant and running Phil Jackson and Shaquille O'Neal out of town. Now the Lakers will miss the playoffs after reaching the NBA Finals last season.
On the other coast, real estate magnate Bruce Ratner bought the Nets during the offseason and in a cost-saving move designed to trim expenses in preparation for the team's eventual move to Brooklyn, let All-Star forward Kenyon Martin sign with Denver. That incensed All-Star point guard Jason Kidd, the team's unquestioned leader. But Ratner pulled himself out of contention by green-lighting the midyear trade that brought Carter to New Jersey and rekindled a team that was also destined for postseason oblivion.
Gilbert's vying for the unique Playa two-fer, and seems to have them both locked up. As rumors swirled about James possibly forcing his own exit from Cleveland, the owner emphasized that James' contract binds him to the Cavs for three more years. Gilbert said he couldn't understand what all the conjecture was about. "Frankly," the owner said at the time, "I don't know why he would leave Cleveland."
If Gilbert looks in the mirror, he might find the answer.