Me Gusta

Coach Scott has the Cavs running:

Scott does heavy running at the start and finish of each practice in camp and then runs a crisp schedule so players are doing drills while fatigued to help build up stamina.

But the finish seemed to make the biggest impression. The players run three series of shuttle sprints (foul line, half court, opposite foul line, full court) in a row in groups and everyone must complete them within two minutes. Scott and his assistants watch closely to make sure the players touch each line. Cheating means they have to start over.

Then they run three more.

"I saw a couple guys throw up, I'm not going to point them out, but it is good for us," Jawad Williams said. "It wasn't nothing fun, my feet are on fire."

Breakfast wasn't the only thing that didn't make it for some. Rookie Samardo Samuels cramped up and missed about the last half-hour. But otherwise, every player made it through the first day's challenge.

"Whoa, it was very tough. But I know it is going to bring us closer together, it's got to," Gibson said. "Everybody made it through and we pushed each other the whole way. We're going to start to love him for it, but right now it's tough on us." 

I hope they stick with it.  Too often NBA teams return to training camp professing their new found love of the running game only to have it fall by the wayside once the games start. 

With guards like Mo Williams and Ramon Sessions and big men like Antawn Jamison and J.J. Hickson (plus Jamario Moon), the Cavs are better suited to run as opposed to a slower, grind-it-out style.  Plus, I'm not sure how good they're going to be on defense (because they have guys like Williams, Jamison and Hickson) so they may need to simply outscore other teams.

Unnecessary

This is stupid:

Lucasfilm Ltd. announced today that the live-action "Star Wars" saga will be converted to 3D.

"There are few movies that lend themselves more perfectly to 3D; from the Death Star trench run to the Tatooine Podrace, the 'Star Wars Saga' has always delivered an entertainment experience that is completely immersive," said the statement.

You know what would be cool? Rather than rereleasing the same shit (IN 3D!), why not just make new movies? Why bastardize the old stuff? I mean, sure, it's probably really easy and will make a ton of money but... oh. Right. Squeeze all the money you can out of these films.

Liberal Red Meat

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Oh yeah, that's right

Is it weird that I'm still not used to the fact that Byron Scott is the Cavs head coach? I know LeBron is gone and that Z followed him.  But when I think about this upcoming season, all that comes to mind is Mo Williams, Antawn Jamison and J.J. Hickson. I'm always like, "oh yea..... Byron Scott is the Cavs head coach. Sweet."

Anyways, I really enjoyed the feature on Coach Scott in today's Plain Dealer:

After playing 10 seasons with the Lakers, winning championships in 1985, '87 and '88, Scott played two seasons with Indiana and one with Vancouver before returning to the Lakers in 1996-97 to help mentor a young Kobe Bryant.

He finished his playing career in Greece in 1997-98, then joined the Sacramento Kings as an assistant coach for two seasons before being named head coach of the New Jersey Nets in 2000-01. The Nets finished in sixth place that season, but reached the NBA Finals in 2002 and 2003, losing to the Lakers the first time and the San Antonio Spurs the second. Scott says the memory of losing those two series as a coach fuels him more than his three titles as a player with the Lakers.

Fired by the Nets midway through the next season, Scott took over the New Orleans Hornets in 2004-05 and the team slowly improved from fifth place in the Southwest Division to fourth and then first in 2007-08, when he was named the league's coach of the year. In the middle of his five-year stay, the team spent parts of two seasons in Oklahoma City after the 2005 devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Scott, who still owns a home in New Orleans, called that situation the biggest challenge of his career.
"You're talking about people's lives," he said.

Scott, an old-school guy who still has a Doobie Brothers ring tone on his flip phone, faces another challenge here, rebuilding the Cavaliers after James took his talents to South Beach. But his former Laker teammates are confident Scott will succeed here.

"He's going to do a great job," Abdul-Jabbar said. "The fans in Cleveland will be very pleased. He knows the game and he relates to the players in a very positive way. He knows how to win. He did a great job in New Jersey, went to New Orleans and did a great job. In terms of knowing his job and being able to get the job done, they don't have any worries."

Added Johnson, "When he got the Cleveland job, I was really happy for him. Of course, I wish it was with LeBron. But it's not. Byron will still do a wonderful job. He has been a winner wherever he's been. He knows the game inside and out. He brings a championship pedigree with him. And he's a player coach. Byron will do well.

"I think when you look at what has all happened to Cleveland, he's the perfect guy to come in and coach, because he's going to take this as a challenge and he's going to work hard to hopefully one day bring them what they've been missing and that's a championship." 

I really don't think the Cavs are going to be as bad as pundits seem to think.  For instance, Yahoo has the Cavs going 12-70 and ESPN isn't that much better, ranking them 27th overall (behind such teams as the Warriors, the Pacers, the Clippers and the Nets). Is Cleveland going to be a championshp contender? Hell no.  But they aren't going to be the worst team in the league.

Book Review: Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

I really enjoyed The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.  It wasn't really what I was expecting, but it was extremely interesting and I liked it a lot.

I started this book thinking it was a self-help(ish) book about how people could use checklists in their every day lives to keep themselves organized.  Heh.  This is something I always tell myself to do more. 

But Gawande focused his attentions on the use of checklists in three major fields: airplane pilots, medical facilities (mostly surgery) and building construction.  Each industry used checklists to help navigate every complex procedures and to make sure everyone was on the same page.

By going through a checklist before surgery (or flights), it helped make sure that those small, but critical, steps aren't missed and that everyone was prepared if things did in fact take a turn for the worse.

Gawande also discusses how people don't want to use checklists even though they're really freaking effective. We love the idea of the maverick doctor or pilot (don't tell me what to do!) and the idea of making every follow these checklists seems weird.  We don't want these professionals to lose their autonomy.

But people make mistakes. Even the best of us. And going through a checklist can help prevent... well... these preventable mistakes (stuff like wrong dosages or procedures).  Using a simple checklist drastically cut down on many routine errors and saved lives (Gawande helped devise the checklist in this link).  It really is amazing how well they worked. It's practically a miracle drug.

And while Gawande never brings up using a checklist in your every day life, it isn't too hard to reach that conclusion on your own. If these simple checklists can help surgeons and airline pilots, I'm pretty sure they can help Ben Cox.

The book itself is fairly short, clocking in at 224 pages and Gawande is a good writer.  I wouldn't say the book flew by but it wasn't a long tedious slog to finish either. Anyway, I recommend it. It's definitely interesting and possibly even useful.

Would he have still counted against the cap?

Mo Williams didn't care for LeBron's decision either:

Mo Williams is 27, healthy and has three years and $26 million remaining on his Cleveland Cavaliers contract. But none of that mattered much to him this summer after he watched LeBron James leave the Cavs to join the Miami Heat. Williams said he was so depressed by James’ exit that he considered walking away from the NBA.

“That’s how bad it got,” Williams said. “I contemplated it. I really sat down and envisioned life after basketball. …I really saw myself not playing.


“It just didn’t make sense to me. …It doesn’t make sense to me.”

 I can't say I'm really surprised.  I mean, Mo Williams thought about retirement, that's not really all that crazy.  He's going from one of the best situations in the NBA to one that is decidedly worse.

“This summer was very, very stressful for me,” Williams said. “I really lost a lot of love for the game this summer.

“You play this game for one reason. You play to win games and win championships. I couldn’t understand why a lot of things were happening to our organization, to a really good basketball team. I couldn’t really understand it. And when you don’t understand things, it can really stress you out.”

Williams is slowly adapting to the new Cavaliers, who, along with their new coaching staff, will have a new offense that will be heavy on pick-and-rolls. Scott might play Williams at shooting guard with Sessions or Daniel Gibson running the point. In addition to being relied upon to score more, Williams inherits additional leadership responsibility with James and veteran center Zydrunas Ilgauskas gone.

“It’s crazy because ever since [James left], everybody I see, they approach me and say, ‘Hey, you’re going to be able to play your game now,’ ” Williams said. “ ‘You are going to be able to show everybody what you got,’ or ‘you’re going to be able to do this.’ I was happy with my role. We were winning basketball games. I was coming home every night a winner.

“Who can’t love that? That is what playing a role on a team is all about. …Everybody can’t be the star. I was perfectly comfortable being that piece.”

I can understand how Mo could be so upset.  Hell, we all felt upset and we weren't the guys going to work with LeBron everyday. The Cavs certainly looked like they had good team chemistry these past couple years. I can see how one could feel jaded after their team captain declared that he's taking his talents to South Beach.


 One of the more frustrating things (speaking as a Cavs fan, though I'm sure this is true for members of the organization) about LeBron leaving is how close they were to a championship.  Yes, the Cavs folded early in the playoffs these past few years but you don't win 60 games entirely due to one player. The Cavs had stumbled a bit but they were heading in the right direction.

Teams have to learn how to win, then have to make the playoffs, then have to win in the playoffs, then they had to deal with being expected to win and then they win.  That's how these things tend to play out.  The Cavaliers struggled mightily with being the favorites.  Mike Brown was better at coaching overmatched, scrappy underdogs than dealing with a veteran ballclub that was expected to win.  They were at that last step.

And then LeBron left.

So am I surprised that Mo was jaded and contemplated retirement? Not really. I can completely understand how LeBron's decision could affect him so much.  Now, had Mo actually retired? Ya, then I'd be shocked. But he didn't.

Jawad

The Cavs resigned Jawad Williams to a one year deal:

The Cleveland native has decided to accept the Cavaliers' one-year qualifying offer and will sign it this week, agent Kevin Bradbury said. The sides have been in talks for months with Williams hoping to secure a multi-year deal. But the small forward has decided to settle the contract issue in time for training camp, which starts Sept. 28.

The contract is for $1.02 million, but is not fully guaranteed. But that is a position Williams is used to, as he made the team in each of the last two seasons out of camp with nonguaranteed contracts.

Williams had talked with several other teams, including the San Antonio Spurs. But as a restricted free agent he had limited options because the Cavs had matching rights.

"Jawad has stated from day one that his desire is to stay home and be with the Cavs," Bradbury said in a text to The Plain Dealer. "Jawad did not want to hold out and wants to get to camp and help the team get back to the playoffs. He's excited to be coming home to Cleveland again."

Good.  I like how Williams plays there game.  He's in control and he doesn't try to force things.  If he's got someone smaller guarding him, he'll go down to the block, if he's got someone slower on him, he'll take 'em off the dribble.  He's not spectacular at any one thing, but he plays a complete game. 

Obviously, this isn't a make or break move, but I like what Jawad brings to the table. 

LeBron's Special on ESPN hurt LeBron's popularity, reports ESPN

I for one am shocked, shocked, I say!

The Q Scores Co., which conducts popularity polls, has James rated as the sixth-most-disliked figure in American pro sports. The results, known as "Q Scores," were reported Tuesday by CNBC.

According to the report, James is viewed in what the company considers a negative light by 39 percent of the general population. In January, while still a Cleveland Cavalier, he was viewed positively by 24 percent of the population, negatively by 22 percent, according to the figures from The Q Scores Co.

"LeBron's positive score at that time [January] was the highest we had ever seen it," Henry Schafer, executive vice president of Q Scores, told CNBC.

The company's current tally puts James' drop in positive rating in the past seven months at 41.5 percent. Q Scores considers James to be viewed in a positive light by only 14 percent of the people polled.

Who could've known that taking a shit on your hometown fans during a nationally televised special would hurt the 'ole Q Rating?

(And yes, I know LeBron doesn't feel that Cleveland is his hometown.  But he's from Northeast Ohio.  Most people in Northeast Ohio root for Cleveland teams. This is dumb).

Missed both of em

Due to work, I missed both the Ohio State-Miami game and the Browns season opener against Tampa Bay.  Though to be fair, I did see the 4th quarter of the OSU, so I didn't miss the whole thing.

My main thing I take away from both these games is how annoyed I am with the fans of these teams.  The Buckeyes won fairly easily but my Twitter feed was full of people calling Pryor overrated and bitching about Tressel-ball.  During the Browns game, people were freaking out about Mangini and some were even calling for Seneca Wallace.  Awesome, only took about a half.

I mean, all Jim Tressel does is win a crap load of games. Sure, he can be conservative at times but the dude wins.  Period.  Pryor is kinda difficult, because he looks so good at times (like his 2-play, 80 yard drive) but then he'll botch some short out pass (he throws too hard, kinda like Derek Anderson).  Sometimes I feel as if OSU are pissed that Pryor isn't better than he is.  

And the Browns... I like what Terry Pluto had to say:

They have a new quarterback in Jake Delhomme who is desperately seeking a fresh start and a revival of his confidence. They are a team with limited talent, a team that must win with shrewd coaching schemes, smart players and an approach to the game that avoids big mistakes.

Exactly.  The Browns best players are their kicker and their return man.  They can't afford fumbles inside the red zone or throwing picks at the end of halves.  I'm always pessimistic about the Browns but I think they should be better this season, but as Josh Cribbs tweeted:  

 today it was browns vs browns, & the browns lost... 

The Browns have the talent to beat other teams, they just can't lose their mental focus and beat themselves. 

Because you're the oldest guy in the NBA

Shaq (via NBA Facts & Rumors post about the Cavs):

"I like that they play together and nobody really worries about shots, " O'Neal said. "When I was with Cleveland, guys who couldn't even play were worried about shots. Why was Mo (Williams) taking 15 shots, and I'm only taking four? If LeBron takes 20 shots, that's cool."

The Cavs had a lot of problems last season but "not enough shots for Shaq" wasn't one of 'em.

Neat

So remember that letter to the editor I wrote awhile back? Someone read it.

Mr. Cox - Good letter to the editor. Keep speaking out- your comments matter. Sherrod Brown

Not a bad way to spend a Thursday

Ohio State looked pretty good in handling Marshall (though the Thundering Herd kept tripping themselves.  OSU played well but Marshall coughed up some balls) and the Browns looked actually competent.  I'm basically in love with all of their running backs. And I know it's a preseason game, but man, you gotta love Phil Dawson.

I like fall

Tonight, September 2nd, the Buckeyes kick off the football season against Marshall.



September 12: Browns open their season against the Bucs in Tampa

September 12: new season of Venture Bros begins.  The trailer looks super awesome.



September 15: surgery for my deviated septum. I should be able to breathe! Huzzah!

September 16: new season of Always Sunny in Philadelphia begins

September 21: Civilization 5 will be released.  I'll have no life for a solid 3 weeks.

September 21: Tor will release the prologue to the Towers of Midnight as an ebook.

Gonna be a good month.

I concur with Coach Scott and the cranky old guy

Terry Pluto:

Joe Tait recently had a long meeting with Scott. The broadcaster said: "I really liked him. The minute he referred to the stuff at the arena away from the game as 'all that crap,' I yelled, 'You are my man!' He has a sense of humor, but you can see that he's all business. He's what the team needs at this point."

I've written about this before, but I don't particularly care for all of the in arena entertainment stuff (though I'm fully aware it's not for me. I'm a hardcore fan).  I hope Scott can convince Gilbert to tone it down just a tad (fire breathing scoreboard!!!) but I worry that without LeBron, we could see an increase of that stuff. 

I dunno, I've felt that if you put out the best basketball team you can, people are going to show up to games.  And if you keep them interested in basketball (as opposed to all the extra crap) maybe they'll become a fan of the game of basketball and keep coming back.  But I'm a huge NBA fan (courtside seats for Cavs-Spurs preseason game in Pittsburgh! Whooo!), so they don't really need to worry about me, I already like their product. .

The rest of Pluto's column is full of his usual goodness, per usual. 

(On an unrelated note, apparently Browns' rookie Joe Haden was at the Caddyshack lounge last night while my friends and I were playing.  I didn't see him.  They must've been zooming back from Detroit, eh?). 

This and that

In case you missed it, here's some of the stuff that I was writing about yesterday:

Danny Ferry lands in San Antonio.

Ohio State-Michigan game could be moved to mid-season.

The Cavs's Chinese investors have backed out.


The OSU basketball team is finally getting a legit cheering section.

Go check 'em out. Gracias.

On a slightly different note, I'd like to inform everyone that a couple of my friends are guest bartending at Caddyshack in downtown Cleveland.  Another friend's band, Falling into Fire, will be providing the entertainment. And for some reason, they're letting yours truly go on stage between FiF sets and allowing me to play some songs. Should be a fun time. Come on out!

T.G.I.F.

For the foreseeable future, on Friday's I'm going to be the content supervisor over at LandLoyalty.com (formerly LeBrownsTown... had to change that name for some reason...).  I should have a few posts over there each Friday covering a variety of topics. And if anything breaks (Browns cut McCoy!!) I'll be the guy posting the quick takes and links.  Should be fun.

The 27th will be my first go round, so bear with me (but I think you'll enjoy 'em.  Come comment!)

So come check it out: LandLoyalty.com

If this happens, I'll lose what little faith I have left

Really guys? The Browns might cut their third round pick?

former University of Texas standout Colt McCoy might need to prove himself in the Browns’ final two preseason games to make their roster.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, McCoy, a third-round pick in April, is among one of eight players “on the bubble” for Eric Mangini’s team. That includes fellow QB Brett Ratliff, and two young running backs, James Davis and Chris Jennings.

This is dumb.  I can't imagine the Browns cutting McCoy. I know Ratliff is a Mangini guy but still.  You don't cut third round draft picks before they've even played a down in a meaningful NFL contest.

Wasn't the plan to have McCoy hold a clipboard all year anyways? The kid has some talent, no? Is it really that big of deal to carry four quarterbacks on the roster? I mean, with the way the new Browns have gone, they're usually picking guys up off the street for the final couple of games anyways.

More catchy songs with cuss words

Being the Reel Big Fish fan that I am, I've developed a love for catchy, sunny songs that are chock full of f-bombs and bitterness. I dunno, maybe my perverse combination of optimism and disappointment comes from following Cleveland sports all these years. Anyways, this song by Cee-Lo (from Gnarls Barkley) hits me right in my sweet spot.

Cee-Lo - Fuck You

Book Review: Sway by Ori and Rom Brafman

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior is a very interesting book. Basically, the book is about why we do certain (re: dumb) things.  Brafman brings up a lot of interesting studies (including a few sports examples, which I'll get to in a bit) and he talks about how we categorize things and people and how we're biased to our initial diagnosis, even in the face of evidence.

The Brafman's writing is approachable (nothing too jargony) and the book is a fairly quick read (it clocks in at just under 200 pages).  In fact, I wish Sway was a little longer and more fleshed out.  Brafman tends to jump around ("to better understand problem X, we must first learn about some seemingly unrelated study") and I could've gone for some more info.

Brafman discusses a study which found that NBA's players playing time depends on his draft status (don't tell Adam Morrison):

Staw and Hoang found that the variable most responsible for an NBA player's time on the court - "above and beyond any effects of a player's performance , injury, or trade status" - was his draft selection. Even after controlling for all other factors, in a given season "every increment in the draft number [e.g., getting drafted ninth instead of eighth] decreased playing time by as much as 23 minutes."  Incredibly, draft order continued to perdict playing time all the way through a player's fifth yaer in the NBA, the final year measured in the study.

But draft order had even deeper inplications.  Being picked late in the draft increased a player's likelihood of getting traded to another team and ultimately affected the longevity of his career.  "A first-round draft pick," found Staw and Hoang, "stayed in teh league approximately 3.3 years logner than a p layer drafted in the second round."

Now remember, Staw and Hoang had isolated draft order from all the other variables. That means that if you have two players with the exact same toughness, scoring and quickness record, the one in picked earlier in the draft would get more playing time, be much less likely to be traded, and have a longer career than his counterpart, who-although he turned out to be just as good-had the misfortune of being picked later in the draft.

Let's pause here.  Are Staw and Hoang saying what we think they're saying? If we think aobut this rationally, once a player is picked, his draft order shouldn't matter. After all, coaches and mangers should only be interested in a player's level of productivity on the court and his overall fit within the team.  Once the draft is over, the draft number becomes an arbitrary statistic that gives no indication of how he'll actually perform on his new team.

But here's where value attribution meets up with a sway called diagnosis bias-our propensity to label people, ideas, or things based on our intial opinions of them-and our inability to reconsider those judgments once we've made them.  In other words, once a player is tagged as a "low pick," most coaches let that diagnosis cloud their entire perception of him.  It's as if each athlete wears a permanent price tag on his jersey.  [Pages 69-70 in the hardcover]

This seems crazy but it kinda makes sense.  I'd imagine that a player drafted in the first round is going to get more chances to prove himself or figure it out because he's been deemed to have "first round talent" (and who knows, maybe he can get even better!).  I wonder if draft status affects NFL players in the same way (I imagine it does, but not quite to the same degree).

The book is filled with a whole bunch of examples like this.  Another interesting idea is that we have the tendency to follow the group, even if we think/know the group is wrong unless someone else speaks up.  The thing is, the someone else speaking up doesn't even have to be right themselves, they just have to speak out against the group (basically make it OK to contradict the masses) and then we feel comfortable doing the same.

Anyways, Sway was a fun, quick, read and I highly recommend it.  The examples were quite interesting and it really makes you think.

Two equally awesome, yet completely unrelated videos

This is all kinds of awesome.

Urban Disc Golf Project #3:

I've been wanting to get a portable disc golf basket for quite some time and this video isn't helping. If you aren't familiar with disc golf is fairly simple: you throw a little Frisbee disc (though not actually Frisbees) into a basket and each throw counts as a stroke, like in golf. I started playing a few years back and I'm just now getting decent. As of now, I plan on playing a tournament at Hudson Springs Park this Sunday ($25 entry fee, check-in is at noon if anyone is interested). It's not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

The second video has nothing to do with disc golf.

I came across this video on Boing Boing and not only is it hilarious, it's also catchy as all hell.

Rachel Bloom - Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury (um, not safe work language)