The Amar'e Treatise

Well lets get a few things out of the way.
1) Wow, after using WordPress for my WDW blog, going back to Blogger is no fun.
2) With that being said, I am slightly out of touch on the NBA due to my internship last fall. I've seen every Cavs game, but have watched very few other games. Obviously, I wish I could see some Suns games right now in order to give more accurate analysis, but I do not have that luxury.
3) I doubt I will be covering new ground. I closely read all of Windhorst's stuff on cleveland.com and John Krolik is an amazing writer for ESPN Truehoop at Cavs: The Blog. Therefore, I'm sure my opinions are somewhat based upon analysis I have already read from them.
4) I won't be proofreading this. I'm sure there will be times I say 'we' when I mean the 'Cavs'. I'm sure there will be misuses of your. I just want to get my thoughts out there. If you leave a comment about an error, I'll gladly correct it.

Alright... here goes the stream of consciousness:

The assumption is that the trade is Z/Hickson for Amare. The further assumpion is that Z will be immediately bought out and can rejoin the Cavs in 30 days. That makes the trade essentially JJ Hickson for Amare Stoudemire. (P.S. If this trade goes through, I'm really going to have to spend 15 minutes learning how to spell Stoudemire without having to look it up.)

Amare is 20/8 in the bank. I repeat... 20/8 IN THE BANK. Anytime JJ hits either one of those numbers, it is cause for jubilation. From the simplest standpoint, it is a no-brainer. But let's delve deeper.

COMPLAINT: Amare doesn't play defense.

RESULT: IRRELEVANT

From Krolik's manifesto: Amare and Hickson's team defensive numbers are virtually identical on a per 100 possession basis (They give up 111.6/111.1 points while on the floor respectively.) Thus, it wouldn't be a noticeable downgrade. However, you must imagine that Stoudemire will be playing 30+ minutes as opposed to the 20 minutes that Hickson currently is.

But we'll come back to that in a bit.

COMPLAINT: Amare and Shaq can't coexist.

RESULT: REASONABLE

I don't have any film to watch to be able to make a definite decision. This is what I know. Amare makes a good amount of his points off of the high screen roll with Nash. Varejao makes a good amount of his points off the high screen roll with LeBron. It is much believed that Varejao can't play with O'Neal (which is part of the reason for JJ starting), and the Mo-Parker-James-Varejao-Shaq lineup is still the most used lineup, but many of those minutes were from the first 6 games when the Cavs were still trying to figure out how to play together.

But look at JJ's stellar play recently. Most of it he is scoring like Varejao, except using thunderous dunks instead of crazy behind his head circus layups like Andy. He is either running the high screen roll or cutting weak side off of penetration. I don't see why Amare would be hampered here. But... it is by far the biggest risk.

But that does lead to...

COMPLAINT: Where do the Cavs find minutes for Amare?

RESULT: OH SH... WAIT A MINUTE

Like I said above, Stoudemire and Varejao get most of their points off of the high screen roll. This means they cannot play together. Well they could, but results could be disastrous.

Orrr.... would they?

According to basketballvalue.com JJ and Varejao have combined to be the frontcourt for about 160 minutes (counting only units that have played together for more than 5 minutes to compensate for sample size). The only one that has a negative rating is Gibson-Parker-James (23 minutes) and I think the reason is pretty obvious. Surrounding LeBron with two players who are unreliable from more than 10 feet and two players who are unreliable from inside the 3-point arc seems like a pretty bad idea.

So break it down like this. (Once Z is resigned after the 30-day waiting period.)

Center: Shaq - 20, Z - 20, Amare - 8
Power Forward: Amare - 22, Varejao - 26

So you cut Amare's minutes by 3-5 or so which is probably good with his knees/injury history, and you cut Varejao's minutes by about 4 which will allow him to be even more of a pest down the stretch. Plus you only have to combine Andy/Amare for 8 minutes (or less if the Cavs go to a small lineup with LeBron at the 4) which should be sustainable as long as players like Mo and Delonte are on the floor.

COMPLAINT: Oh wait, that's pretty much all of the complaints about Amare.

RESULT: Personally, I don't think the Cavs need to make a trade to win the title this year. They match up favorably with all the teams in the East (as I wrote about for LeBrowns Town way back in August) and have shown they can beat the Lakers. Don't forget that except for the anomoly of last year, the Cavs have owned the Lakers since LeBron came to the North Shore.

However, this trade is as much for long term as it is for this year. Look at the Cavs Salary Numbers. Let's assume the Cavs stand pat and LeBron resigns this summer. His salary will be somewhere around $17mil and escalating each year. With all the contracts the Cavs have, that will put them right around the projected salary cap of 54 mil. And they will have no Center. Sure they will have Shaq's bird rights and be able to go over the cap to resign him for a year or two, but that is not a long term solution. Same with Z. (However if they do trade Z and then resign him after PHO releases him, Z does lose his bird rights, so the Cavs would have to use an exception, either the Bi-Annual or the Minimum Salary. There's also a Veteran exception but I honestly have no clue how that works or if Z would qualify for it if he is bought out.) So next year isn't that bleak really... BUT

2011/2012 is. Again no center (except for a 40/36 year old Shaq/Z if resigned as detailed in the last paragraph), but the only players that would be on the roster in this hypothetical scenario is LeBron, Mo, Varejao, Daniel Gibson, and JJ Hickson, and they would still be almost at the cap (or probably over since who knows what will happen with the CBA for that season).

There are two types of assets in the NBA. Young talent and expiring contracts. The main young talent the Cavs have is JJ Hickson. After Shaq/Z expire this offseason, the most valuable expiring contracts for next year are Delonte's 4.5 mil and Moon/Parker's 3 mil. Sorry, I don't see getting many quality players for 6 mil of Moon and Parker.

It is for THAT reason that the Cavs must make a trade for SOMEONE. They need another quality player locked up long term. Amare fits that bill (whether he opts out or not) and is only two years older than LeBron.

For this year Amare is High Risk, because the Cavs can win the Title without him. But for the future, he is neccesary.

Bye JJ, its been fun.

It's My Life

"Its nowwwww or never..."

As many of you know, I currently don't have a job and am not taking classes at the moment. At least, until I move to Orlando for my Internship with Walt Disney World. Therefore, I have a lot of spare time. I've spent a lot of it reading and writing.

Here's some of the results.

I've started a new blog solely about my internship with Walt Disney World at http://wdwpiblog.andysite.net

I've also been doing some freelance writing for other places. I wrote a Cavs Eastern Conference preview for a new blog called LeBrowns Town run by former Buckeye TV colleague Brian Rosen. It is one of the featured articles on the Plain Dealer's Cleveland Sports Blog network today.

Link to the Cleveland.com story.
Direct Link to my article on LeBrowns Town.

In addition, I may be writing some rants in the future for another former colleagues blog/podcast - mindbleach.net

They say Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder, so until next time. Farva out.

Thursday's Top Three Terrific Topics

I considered doing this last week, and think I'll try to make a it a weekly thing. Three thoughts for things that happened recently. This week (as many will be) will focus on the crazy in sports.

1. Ron Artest is crazy.

Don't get me wrong, I love the man. But he's crazy.

"I remember one time when it was um .... one of my friends ya know he was playing basketball and they was winning the game and it was so competitive, they threw um, they broke a piece of leg from a table, and they threw, and it went right through his heart and he died right on the court."

[EDIT: Apparently he's not that crazy... a 1991 New York Times article verifies the story]

Thank you Los Angeles Times for finally putting this clip on YouTube. I was searching for it last night because it might be one of the funniest things I've ever heard. That was of course after he was ejected last night for GETTING elbowed in the throat... Which leads me to...

2. Joey Crawford is crazy.

By far, the NBA referee with the quickest technical in the business, and by far the most hot headed of any ref.

His highlights include...

• Pushing Damon Jones out of bounds
• Ejecting Tim Duncan for laughing on the bench
• Ejecting Kenyon Martin for complaining about back-to-back calls when he was fighting through picks

There's been speculation in the Cleveland media that Crawford does not like this Cavs team, but after last night where he ejected Artest for what should have only been a technical, hopefully he will be done reffing for the rest of the playoffs... Just like last time... against the Mavs in 03... and against the Spurs in 07... oh wait...

3. Manny Ramirez is crazy.

Earlier today, MLB announced that Manny Ramirez would be suspended for 50 games for violating baseball's substance abuse policy. Later on, ESPN reported that the banned drug he took was a female fertility drug.

However, this isn't nearly the most crazy thing he's done. By far, that honor goes to when he was playing LF and he cut off a throw... from the CF. I just tried for 30 minutes to find a clip, but the MLB are a bunch of copyright nazis over 5 year old clips. Which I'd be fine with.... IF their clip site worked!

So after all this searching... I'm left with just one question...

What did Manny ever do to people in Wyoming?

UPDATED: LeBron to be named MVP at 4PM

UPDATED: 2:34PM - Cavs.com is now announcing that the press conference will be held at 4PM EST and be broadcast live on Fox Sports Ohio and online at cavs.com. As to be expected, ESPNews will be showing the event as well.

According to ESPN and excellent Cavs-Beat Writer Brian Windhorst, Lebron James will be named the NBA's Most Valuable Player later today.

He had yet another amazing statistical season, averaging 28.4/7.6/7.2. Technically, these numbers are slightly down from last year's NBA scoring leader season of 30.0/7.9/7.2, but his team also won an additional 21 games. Combine that with his improvement on defense (so far as being the runner up for Defensive Player of the Year), and the voters were easily swayed to pick "The Chosen One" over scoring champ Dwayne Wade or last year's MVP Kobe Bryant.

Also, by averaging 7.2 rebounds for the second straight year, he became the first Forward to average 7 assists in back-to-back seasons since 90/91. He joins Bird and John Havlicek as the other forwards ever to accomplish that achievement.

In yet another show of hometown love and team unity, the Cavaliers will travel down I-77 from Independence to Akron to join LeBron during his acceptance of the award at his alma mater--Akron St. Vincent St. Mary High School. The school was most recently publicized during James' 60 minutes shoot where he finger rolled in a shot from the opposing free throw line.

James continued his dominance in the post season averaging 32.0/11.3/7.5 in the first-round sweep of the Detroit Pistions. The Cavs were the only team to sweep their first-round opponent and are currently in the middle of going 8 days in between games before facing the Atlanta Hawks this Tuesday night at Quicken Loans Arena. The Cavs intend to honor his MVP season before the game. The game starts at 8PM EST, and will be broadcasted on TNT.

Onion Genocide

Those that know me know I love grill/cookout/ballpark food. About two and a half years ago, I blogged about how the stove in my house didn't work, so I bought a grill. There were many cookouts held on the porch, with the staples of hamburgers and hot dogs. And of course if you are having a hot dog, you need 2 toppings--Stadium Mustard, and Onions. (An obvious exception can be made if there is chili available, although most chili dogs include onions and ballpark mustard actually compliments the chili nicely.)

On the fourth of July, I made hot dogs, ate Lays Potato Chips, and drank a Refreshing Ice Cold Fountain Coca-Cola Classic... The Most American Meal EVER. Hell, I even mentioned via my mobile blog that We Aren't in Cleveland when I went to Winter Haven for a spring training game because of the lack of Stadium Mustard. Thus, my position on hot dogs is very well established.

So this past Wednesday, former VS coworker of mine and Red Sox fan Jess invited me to go see the Red Sox/Indians game in Cleveland. I may have to blog about the game later, because it was one of the 5 best games I've been to even though the Tribe lost.

But anyways, when I go to a baseball game, I need two things--a hot dog, and a pretzel. So around the fifth inning, we decide to go get the foodstuffs, and go to the concession stand near our seats. After getting the food, I go to the condiment stand looking for the onions and ballpark mustard. There's 4 big containers... ketchup, mustard, ballpark bustard, and EVEN Mayo?!... but that's it. I look high and low, walk around the entire pillar, go down to the next condiment stand... No onions. I'm completely baffled, but said screw it and figure it'll just be something to bitch about later.

After the Indians bullpen manages to blow it and then lose in extra innings, we go back to the parking garage to go home. Jess starts to go through the little mini-program that has the rosters and stadium information in it. She turns the page and finds this heading:



Hmm well, that's convenient. And what's that little subtext right below it?



Hah. That's smart. Put Hot Dogs at every concession stand at a baseball game. What a novel concept. But this doesn't solve the quandry of why there are no onions... until we get down to the H's in the alphabetcal listing...



WTF? There are only onions at 4 places in the ballpark? Are you kidding me? The only proper response I can think of is to break back out Sound 7!

I realize it's improper, but I'm simply at a loss for words for how you can only put onions in 4 places (And being at a loss for words does not a good blog make). I didn't realize Swine Flu could be transferred via onion, and I can't think of any other possible reason to perform a onion genocide at the ballpark.

So Progressive Field, I implore you. Bring back the Onions, the final touches on the American Baseball Game Meal. I realize no one goes to your games (according to ESPN, the attendence was 19,137 - under 45% of capacity). At times, I felt like there was about a 5:1 food worker to fan ratio. BUT the team never sacrifices (grumble Eric Wedge), why must you sacrifice the mass distribution of onions?

Chuck Follow Up

For anyone that doesn't know what Chuck is after my last post, or has previously watched an episode and didn't enjoy it...

Watch this 5 minute scene from the season finale Monday Night. And note that this happened in the first 20 minutes of the episode.

If you can't appreciate the comedy ("Why are you letting Sam Kinison and a Indian Lesbian ruin your wedding?"), the references (Back to the Future - "Watch me for the changes"), the bad puns (Shotgun Wedding/You Rang"), the action sequences, the dramatic sequences... ALL set to three different versions of Mr. Roboto (starts with the actors singing, into a orchestra version created solely for the show, and the actual Styx song)...

If you can't appreciate ALL of that... honestly, I want nothing to do with you because you have no taste and your existance on this earth is a detriment to society because the skin on your body could be better served by giving it to patients with skin cancer.

That is all.

Finale and a Footlong

As many people know, one of my favorite things is primetime television. Sadly, there hasn't been any good new series in a long while. And this is coming from a guy who watched Armed and Famous.

My list of shows killed in the past couple years (off the top of my head):
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - Aaron Sorkin is a God. I even paid $22 dollars for a Studio 60 shirt from the NBC store to try to support this show. Cancelled after one season.
Shark - James Woods can do little wrong in my eyes, especially when acting like a smug ass. Cancelled after two seasons.
Life on Mars - The first 16.8 episodes were good. I'm acting like the ending didn't happen because even though it appears that the writers did leave hints about the end throughout the entire series, I still feel like I got kicked in the balls after watching it. Cancelled after one season of ~17 episodes
Standoff - A serial drama about FBI negotiators starring Ron Livingston of Office Space fame. Granted, you can only negotiate a crisis so many ways and that became clear in the second half of the season, but still sad that it was... Cancelled after one season.
The Knights of Prosperity - One of the funniest shows I have ever watched. Originally based off of stealing from Mick Jagger, which turned into Kelly Ripa, and was going to eventually be Ray Romano but ABC axed the series right when the Romano arc was starting. I still have it saved on my DVR hoping one random Saturday night in the summer ABC will play the last 6 episodes. Cancelled after one ~13 episode season. 6 episodes remain unaired.
Andy Barker, P.I. - Another 6 episode sitcom that didn't get renewed. Brought to you by Conaco (Conan O' Brien's production company) and starring Andy Richter as a unwilling Private Eye. Cancelled after one 6 episode season.

I can go on and on. Especially if I want to include alternative programming like It Takes a Thief, Thank God You're Here, 1 vs. 100, Duel (Mike Greenberg saying, "Screen up" is one of the best things ever), Kid Nation (granted even I stopped watching that), Power of 10 (still have episodes on my DVR), The Singing Bee (Joey Fatone from *NSYNC as a game show host? Count me in)

But anyway, pretty much the only Primetime shows left on my DVR Series Manager right now are Surviving Suburbia (Bob Saget's new sitcom), Rules of Engagement (David Spade is awesome), Scrubs (two episodes left), and Family Guy. All of these are 30 minute sitcoms.

There is only one hour long show left... and that is Chuck. Originally I was hesitant to watch it because I thought it would be cancelled after one season, but since it made it to a second season, I binged through the first 20 episodes in three nights during Christmas. A great show about a guy that works at a Buy More [Best Buy] for the Nerd Herd [Geek Squad], who gets all of the US Govt's secrets in his head and is forced to go on spy missions with his CIA/NSA handlers. Here's a great 3 minute clip where he has to listen to Tom Sawyer to get the highest score in Missile Command... to disarm actual missiles. And how anyone can be against a show that uses Rush in a plotline is beyond me.

Anyways, the finale is tonight, and the fans/actors have created the 'Finale and a Footlong' campaign to help convince NBC to renew Chuck. Here it is from lead actor Zachary Levi's blog:

5. On April 27th be sure to BUY A $5 FOOTLONG from Subway and if possible, drop a note in the comment box at the franchise letting them know you’re participating in the Finale and Footlong campaign to save NBC’s Chuck, of which Subway is a product placement sponsor.

So go to Subway today, and get a delicious footlong. Support good television programming. Because like Big Mike says when you bite into a Chicken Teryaki sub, "A little taste of the Orient, right here in Burbank."

Startin' Up Again

So the blog is coming back again, this time with a slightly different spin. There won't one theme to it like previously when it was all humor; it will now be a stream of consciousness... whatever comes to my mind. (And yes, I realize I've said this before).

Right now, I have three main topics that will probably be covered. Sports (with an emphasis on the Cavs), Contemporary Events/Ramblings/Rants, and Humor. While some people will clearly be disinterested in some of them, they can simply skip that entry.

At some point if I ever find the time/inclination to, it'll probably be moved off of Blogger (granted, it's already on my own website). That way if you to just deal with certain topics you can just go to something like cavs.andysite.net. I'm sure its possible somehow, simply a matter of if I care enough to figure it out.

To end with just a little bit of actual content for this entry, I provide you one of the things that has made me laugh in the past week. If you've watched TV at all in the past couple months, you couldn't have missed this Heineken commercial. Well, as with any decent commercial, you quickly get tired of it when it's played every break.

Well, this past week, the Cavs debuted a new sketch on the Q-Vision in between quarters during the victory over the Pistons. It has since been posted online, and I simply am going to tell you to watch it. As much as I hate the word, this team has ridiculous chemistry and brotherhood. But that means nothing if they don't play well. However, I imagine they will because like Delonte says at the end, "It's the Playoffs man, It's the Playoffs."

So the Cavaliers present their Playoff Proposal. They're Ready (and up 2-0 against the Pistons with Game 3 starting as I write this). Are you?

Coming up tomorrow/later this week/in the future: Baja Fresh and the Coke Machine that Wasn't, Tracing the lineage of the current Cavs Roster, and OSU's Spring Game.

We must be in a recession...

This is why I'm hot

Winter Haven got jokes

So on the pa system, they were giving out the weather back home... And to quote, "It's springtime on the south shore of lake erie... And there's 7 inches of snow". The entire crowd then erupted into louder laughter than for any of the 5 Indians home runs hit so far... Bitches.

You can tell we're not in Cleveland

Listenin to the radio...

"Let me tell you why I love spring break in central florida. All the hot midwestern girls come down looking all virginal and... Wow, i'm a dirty old man. I'm 25 and i'm a dirty old man"

Colbert

So i stopped by the National Portrait Gallery, and yes... Stephen Colbert's portrait is next to the bathrooms above the water fountain

Healthy

Thanks epa!