It was a bit of a surprise that Danny Ferry resigned as General Manager Friday afternoon.  Most people figured Ferry would stay on in his position particularly when he didn’t leave after the firing of Mike Brown.  Former assistant GM Chris Grant took over the GM duties Wednesday when Ferry officially left the organization.

 

Still, it’s not as though the management team for the Cavaliers is in chaos.  Grant came to the wine and gold at the same time as Ferry, and has been involved in the NBA for a long time.  And he and Ferry shared many of the same philosophies, so it’s not like a radical change has come to Quicken Loans Arena.

 

The guess here is the coaching situation is the reason Ferry and owner Dan Gilbert agreed to disagree, thus causing Ferry to clean out his desk and depart after five years as the GM.  The highlight of his tenure is no doubt the trip to the NBA Finals in 2007. 

 

However, Ferry wanted to have the ultimate say on all basketball decisions, and probably Gilbert was open to other options, such as bringing in a coach who might want that kind of power.  If you examine the trade Ferry made recently, it’s pretty clear that his vision and Mike Brown’s view were very different. 

 

Brown is, was, and always will be a defensive minded coach.  The additions of Shaquille O’Neal and Antawn Jamison brought in players who were more offensive minded players to take pressure off of LeBron James.  Gilbert likely saw that this didn’t work, and therefore he wants to bring in a coach who knows what it will take to complement James, if he remains with the team. 

 

The coach ultimately needs to make it work, and as Bill Parcells so famously said, if he’s making the dinner, he should get to buy the groceries.

 

And any coach with a record of success in the NBA will want to try to win with his type of players.  He’ll want the power to get things done, and with a GM having the iron fist, that wouldn’t be the case in Cleveland.

 

James is saying the right thing about having respect for Brown and Ferry, but really, the Cavs best chance to get him to stay in the wine and gold was to clean out the front office and start anew.

 

Now there are rumors about a possible trade to be made before the NBA draft that will start re-shaping the Cavaliers’ roster, and the new GM is the focal point of these moves.  It has been hinted that Cleveland is having discussions with a West Coast team, probably the Golden State Warriors, about a big deal which could involve a lottery pick.

 

The PD’s Brian Windhorst speculated that Mo Williams could be sent packing and that makes sense.  Williams has been very good in the regular season, but his lack of defense hurts the team in the playoffs, and he hasn’t made up for that with a stellar offensive game either.

 

Danny Ferry did a great job in his tenure with the Cavs.  They went to The Finals once, and made it to the conference finals another time.  Sometimes, a new perspective is needed in looking at a team.  Larry Dolan hasn’t learned this with his team, but Gilbert is willing to take the risk that this is what the Cavaliers need.

 

JK

 

 

 

If you are a fan of baseball in this city, you have a big problem.  It hasn’t even hit summer yet, and the season is over for all intents and purposes.  The Cleveland Indians’ record has dipped to 19-33, they’ve lost 13 of their last 17 games, and no one in the organization seems to care.

 

Manager Manny Acta’s relief corps is a mess, and for the third straight season, GM Mark Shapiro has assembled a bullpen that is horrible.  Let’s see, for the most part, this is a bullpen that cannot throw strikes, give up way too many hits, doesn’t have a lot of strikeout guys, and has only a couple of guys that the skipper can count on.

 

Other than that, they’re pretty good.

 

And now, one of the guys Acta had confidence in, Tony Sipp, has completely melted down over the last week, giving up 11 runs in the last inning he has pitched. 

 

Yet, nothing happens.

 

Someone needs to place a call to the Tribe front office to see if anyone is there.

 

Acta said Frank Herrman, who has a 0.31 ERA at Columbus, would get a look-see from the big club sometime this season.  When?  Perhaps when his ERA gets around 0.25?  Look, the guy can’t pitch any better in the minor leagues, and the Indians’ bullpen stinks.  Let’s get him up here right away.

 

Carlos Santana continues to assault International League pitching staffs, but all the organization talks about is his catching ability, or seeming lack of it.  If this management group were well known for developing prospects, their critique would be thought of more.  These guys think Rafael Perez is still an effective pitcher, so should we really take their word on Santana?

 

The saddest thing about this current group of Indians is that only two or three players who play regularly in this lineup will probably be on the team next season!  And one of them, Travis Hafner, is only “guaranteed” a spot because of his contract. 

 

Jason Donald could be a regular next season, but he has only a little over 50 at bats this season, so that might be a little bit of a stretch.

 

Branyan, Peralta, Kearns, Marson, Valbuena, Crowe.  All of these guys will have a tough time being in the 2011 starting lineup, some due to their contract status (Peralta and Branyan), the others because they simply aren’t good enough to hold big league jobs. 

 

Who assembled this team?  We can all cry about the lack of spending by the owners, but why isn’t more heat put on Shapiro, who put this collection of “talent” together.

 

The problem is that there seems to be no sense of urgency to try something else.  Why not try someone else?  When Andy Marte is healthy, why not play him at 3B instead of Peralta?  Why not play Matt La Porta everyday?  Why not see what Jordan Brown and/or Wes Hodges can do? 

 

The most frustrating thing for this fan is the inertia in the front office.  It appears that no one associated with this team, outside of the players and coaching staff have any interest at all in either winning or finding out who can play and who can’t.

 

The front office probably thinks having guys like Peralta and Branyan give the team a chance to win with their “veteran” presence.  However, these guys are bums.  They give the team nothing besides a roadblock to finding out whether a young guy can play in the big leagues. 

 

Baseball teams are selling either winning or hope; the fans of the Cleveland Indians have neither.  It’s only June 4^th, and the baseball summer is over before it even starts.

 

KM

 

Since the Boston Celtics eliminated the Cleveland Cavaliers in the conference semi-finals, many experts have jumped on the bandwagon in saying that the talent surrounding LeBron James simply isn’t enough to win a title.

 

Where were these people about a month ago? 

 

Many of these same people were saying that the acquisition of Antawn Jamison made the wine and gold the odds on favorite to win the NBA championship.

 

Others have criticized Dan Gilbert and Danny Ferry for making trades designed to win the title this season, and leaving the franchise with little or no salary cap space to work with heading into the 2010-11 season.  They also say the Cavs tried to mix and match up the roster instead of building a solid nucleus of talent to surround LBJ.

 

What choice did the franchise have?

 

The answer is they didn’t have one, and LeBron James himself is partially to blame. 

 

James wanted to keep his options open, which is his right.  His decision kept the franchise constant pushing to make a championship run, and for the most part, that’s a good thing.  However, it also stops the front office from building a solid foundation for a championship team. 

 

Once the Cavaliers were good enough to make deep runs in the playoffs, they no longer could use the draft as an option to get an all-star type player.  Those guys don’t come along in the bottom half of the first round.

 

Therefore, Ferry had only one option to upgrade the roster, and that is to either sign free agents to large contracts or make trades for good players on other teams who have large contracts that their current teams are trying to get rid of. 

 

If LeBron James had made a commitment to the organization that he was going to be here for an extended stay, the GM would have had more time to build a younger core of talent. 

 

It also would have encouraged other star players to want to play for the Cavs, knowing LBJ was here for the long run. 

 

As for the current Cavs’ roster, there is most definitely talent.  It’s amazing to me how players all of a sudden are better when they play for championship teams. 

 

For example, there are people saying that the Lakers’ Pau Gasol is the wingman for Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles.  However, when Gasol was toiling in obscurity in Memphis, no one was hailing him as this type of player.  An all-star?  Certainly, but not a key contributor on a championship team.

 

The point is people might be looking at Antawn Jamison the same way if the Cavaliers were playing Thursday night in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.  Players on title teams always have enhanced reputations because people seeing them playing on the big stage more often. 

 

A championship for wine and gold would have everyone talking about the energy of Anderson Varajao, the grittiness of Delonte West, and how long the team is defensively with Shaquille O’Neal and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. 

 

However, an early exit means these guys aren’t good enough to help LeBron James win a title.

 

The 2009-10 Cleveland Cavaliers had some good players, and had a deep roster.  We all thought that a month ago.  The problem was not utilizing some of them properly. 

 

To say there isn’t talent here is a mistake.  They were good enough to win 61 games in the regular season, despite a lot of injuries.  That doesn’t happen by accident. 

 

JK