All-Star Break

well, my record with calling out snow publicly, mostly in the comment section of windhorst's blog but also a couple days ago here on the blog after the utah loss, is spotless still! in case you are wondering what i mean, it seems everytime i point out how dismal his play is, he responds with a stellar game. the last time he did so that i can recall was the clipper game in l.a. where he had a great game. and make no mistake he had a GREAT game against the lakers thursday (oh and no, i don't really think my public "calling out" of snow has any real effect on anything but it has turned into a fun thing for me to keep track of. and yes, i understand it may seem lame to you! it most likely is lame. nonetheless...).

anyway, LBJ and snow had fantastic games thursday and LBJ was as agressive as he's been in sometime. i know he's pacing himself but he obviously recognized that going into the all-star break with a win was very important. he attacked the basket with abandon and his two bone-rattling screens that allowed snow to get the hoop late in the 4th were fantastic basketball plays. i thought LBJ did a good job again about not forcing his offense in the 4th in trying to get caught up in a mano e mano with kobe. speaking of kobe, i thought sasha, snow and LBJ all did a pretty good job on him defensively.

obviously, i can't go further without mentioning free throws. LBJ and snow really stepped up and hit big FT's in the 4th. yes, LBJ missed that one but after getting the loose ball on the miss, he stepped right up and hit 2 to ice the game.

andy played damn well. again. for the two games he started he avg. 12 points on 50% shooting with 14 boards per. he even shot 6 of 9 at the charity stripe! i have no doubt that if he started 82 games he would lead the league in rebounding.

starting andy would be the best option for this team, IMNSHO but i worry whether Z, unlike snow, would be worth a damn off the bench. i don't think he would. i would hope that the cavs look to move him during the summer while he still has some value. we might be able to get some young talent in return. i could see a western conference team like the lakers or jazz or even san antonio could be interested. now, i'm not going to even bother to look at what pieces those teams might have that would be desirable to the cavs now. i'll wait til the off-season. but the larger point is that andy will more than hold his own as a center. in fact, it would most likely an improvement over ilgauskas. esp. as andy's offense gets better in the next year or so...

*over at brian windhorsts blog he says of snow's performance against l.a., "Eric Snow gets a gold star with 13 points, eight rebounds and five assists. He won't do this every night but it shows what it means when LeBron doesn't have to spend so much time at point guard. Again, having one would make such a major difference on this team." well, i think the cavs do have one and his name is gibson. well, let me amend that slightly; i think we have one named gibson. but i think the kid is really coming around as he had 5 assists in a little over 11 minutes against utah before getting hurt! now, if you extrapolate that out to his usual 20 minutes or so, that double-digit assists, folks. as many of you know, windhorst made a fairly big deal about gibson not having any assists in his first few starts. well, maybe gibson reads his blog. i dunno but he sure looked like a "true" point guard before getting hurt. gibson's play reminds me of andy when he first started to get some run during the silas regime. many people cautioned about getting "too excited" about the rook. well, i thought he had game and that has proven to be the case, at least so far. i get the same feeling from gibson. plus, i think gibson is very smart. he seems to learn and improve almost nightly. he is goling to be a carlos boozer like-2nd rd. steal for this team.

* i'm sure most of you have heard the scottie pippen comeback stories by now. the "nice" thing, if you wanna call it that, is that pippen said on friday that "'I think I can really help teams like Miami and Cleveland...'' i am intrigued, esp, since he can run the point or at least could run the point and obviously, the cavs could use that. he aslo made many nice comments about LBJ last year when working the nba for espn/abc, so...i dunno if he can still do it but i'd be willing to use a veteran's exception to find out!

* looking around the league i am struck how LBJ's two "rivals" 'melo and wade both have their teams right around .500. yet the national media has treated them both, esp. wade, as great heores who have done so well this year. meanwhile the "what's wrong with LBJ" meme continues unabated! despite him leading his team to a superior record. without superior talent around him, i might say! how is wade so lauded for leading the heat to a .500 record? can someone explain this to me?? yeah, i know, i know...what if LBJ had to play without his 2nd leading scorer for a good chunk of the year like wade has had to do without shaq? oh, wait! LBJ did do that last year and lead his damn team to 50 wins! man, i hope LBJ sees how winning a ring makes you the king of the world, no matter what you do, or don't do, as the case may be! ridiculous...