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| Monday, January 22 It's not good to be Clevelanded By Jeffrey Denberg Special to ESPN.com |
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There are six Great Lakes cities in the NBA. Look out the window on any one of them and what do you see? Sleet and snow streaking through shades of gray. George Vecsey, the columnist from the New York Times, had a name for this. "It's Clevelanding," he once said.
Such a pithy term may also be used to describe basketball disasters. Ergo, the Chicago Bulls are Clevelanding this season. So are the Wizards and the Nets. Look at poor Golden State, injury piled upon injury. The Warriors roster has been Clevelanded. When Anthony Johnson, a reserve guard for the Hawks was traded to the Cavaliers on the second day of January, his season was utterly Clevelanded. A few weeks before, boarding a team bus in the foreboding chill of of this Lake Erie port, poor Johnson spat out these words: "Why would anybody want to live here?" he said, angry even to be dealing with the elements for a few moments. "I mean if you have a choice, why would you want to live with this cold and snow? This is awful." A native of the gracious city of Charleston in South Carolina, Johnson has no choice until Aug. 1. Poor Cavs. Jim Paxson did something important over over the summer by unloading Shawn Kemp, only to see fate do a Cleveland on his roster as Zydrunas Ilgauskas was knocked out of another season with the agony of da feet.
Paxson signed Bimbo Coles to four years. Coles had knee surgery. He traded his backup center, Andrew DeClercq, for Matt Harpring. Lo and behold, Harping had ankle surgery. Lamond Murray broke a cheek bone. Brevin Knight was shopped to Toronto WHILE he was on crutches. No sale. Knight missed all camp, plus November and most of December before they unloaded his $5 million annual cap number to Atlanta for Johnson and Jim Jackson. You think anybody noticed? Not SportsTicker, which provides boxscores to ESPN and USA Today. For weeks Jackson couldn't get a mention in a boxscore. He was listed as Mark Bryant because he wears the ex-Cavs forward's old number, 2. No sign of Harpring for a long time, a woman in the Cavs PR office said last week. "They don't know he isn't with Orlando anymore." In this case, the Cavs were Rodney-ed -- no respect.
"It's sad what they go through," ex-Cavs guard Bob Sura said of his old team, looking like he meant it. Just look around at the Warriors depleted numbers (Larry Hughes, Adonal Foyle, Erick Dampier and Danny Fortson out with broken bones and surgeries). "You know, I hope I didn't bring this with me," Sura said. Such rotten luck Clevelanded Mike Fratello's coaching career and can't do much for poor Randy Wittman, who had his team in first place in the Central Division until calamity struck. The Cavs' disastrous seven-game (1-6) trip ended in Denver Friday night. So, they come home and what does the NBA schedule maker give them? The Trail Blazers. Looks like they get Clevelanded again.
A look back at the past week This hardly bodes well only a few days after the anniversary of Michael Jordan's installation as president of this moribund team. When he spoke to The Washington Post last week after his first year on the job, he typically did it from his home base, Chicago. He has not been in MCI Arena to see the Wizards play since the Dec. 6 loss to the Clippers, which prompted Jordan to rip his players. The question is whether an absentee landlord makes a difference.
One former Wizards coach says no. "He's not gonna be around all the time so it doesn't make a difference," Gar Heard stated. Heard is the Hawks assistant who was fired by Jordan soon after he took the job. One man close to the situation says the bigger problem with the team is the division in the locker room and the inability of coach Leonard Hamilton to make a strong impression on their players. "They run to [GM Wes Unseld] whenever they have a problem and Wes always sides with the players." He said Unseld is untouchable so long as Abe Pollin owns the team. The insider continued, "Michael would have an impression on the fans. If he showed up here with any regularity it might do the players some good, but mostly it would make the fans feel that Michael really cared about the product on the floor. Now, they see it as out of sight, out of mind."
It will be difficult to only see Kidd again as a guy who plays the game the right way. Kind of like fellow Oakland native Gary Payton, suspended Friday night by Sonics coach Nate McMillan.
Jeffrey Denberg, who covers the NBA for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. |
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