Cavs Hoping Strong Draft Class Makes Them A Contender Again

By: Nate Wadley

It all started with “The Decision” last July. Throughout the entire summer, Cleveland fans held on to only a ray of hope that the kid they had embraced as a hero would elect to remain with the team that drafted him, the team that had built their city around him. Yet that all came to a screeching halt when LeBron James told the world that he would be “taking his talents to South Beach”. From then on, everyone knew that the Cleveland Cavaliers perennial runs through the playoffs were over. But nobody expected their first season without the King to go like it did. A dreadful 19-63 record (which at one point consisted of a 26-game losing streak) haunted the Cavs players, organization, and fan base for what turned out to be a painful year. While the Cavs are at home watching the Playoffs, LeBron is making noise down in Miami, the same city that will host the Dallas Mavericks in game one of the Finals on Tuesday night.

As for the Cavaliers, it can’t get any worse…right? Correct. Experts and analysts have shown that this year’s draft class is sure to be weaker than years’ past. However, Cleveland will potentially have the first, second, AND fourth picks in the first round. Kyrie Irving, Derrick Williams, and Kawhi Leonard stand in those three spots in ESPN’s mock draft in which the Cavs will draft.

Kyrie Irving left Duke early, exiting the campus after being injured for half of his freshman year. Yet at the young age Irving is at right now, he dominated the games he played and shows unbelievable potential at the NBA level. Irving is considered to be a true point guard, yet can score whenever need be. He has a knack for the game and his basketball IQ is very high for a kid his age. In time, Irving just might be one of the elite point guards in the NBA.

Derrick Williams came alive in the NCAA tournament last year. Proving to all the critics that he was not just a post presence, Williams has developed a jumper from anywhere inside the arc. His knack for getting to the rim will surely draw multiple defenders, opening countless opportunities for kick-outs. With a 6’8, 240 frame he’s a little undersized for his position, but his strength and versatility will surely prove that he can play against anyone.

After his team had a breakout season, Kawhi Leonard decided to leave San Diego State and enter the draft. A 6’7 small forward, Leonard is a flexible player and feels comfortable playing power forward as well. Leonard repeatedly dominated the offensive boards at the collegiate level and shows great tenacity as a defender. He’s a threat to score both inside as well as outside and will surely draw attention from defenses around the league.

It is a term used in college year-round; “this was a rebuilding year”. Well, we can say that about the Cavs, but as a team they never had the players (or will?) to compete with anyone last year. Yet trade negotiations are flying around the league and the Cavaliers may just end up with the first, second, and fourth overall picks. When LeBron left, Cleveland fell to rock bottom of the league and was constantly a source of amusement on SportsCenter. If they are able to snatch these three picks, the Cavs may just end up being a contender once again.

Nate Wadley is the brother of Zach Wadley and is a contributor to the World of Wadley site. He is a senior in high school.

Scottie Pippen Puzzles and Angers Fans with LeBron Comment

The day after the Miami Heat sent the Chicago Bulls packing for the offseason former Bull and one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players, Scottie Pippen, caused a stir with a comment that hit ESPN and all other sports media outlets in no time. Pippen was a guest on the "Mike and Mike in the Morning" show on ESPN radio and offered his take on LeBron James, a player who he had just watched in the Eastern Conference Finals, and what his legacy might be once his playing days are over.

"Michael Jordan is probably the greatest scorer to play the game, but I may go as far as to say LeBron James may be the greatest player to ever play the game because he is so potent offensively that not only can he score at will but he keeps everybody involved.

You have to be on your P's and Q's on defense. No guy on the basketball court is a threat to score with LeBron James out there. Not only will LeBron dominate from the offensive end as well, but he's also doing it on the defensive end, which really makes him the complete package. He's able to get in those passing lanes, shoot those gaps and create transition opportunities where he is pretty much unstoppable," Pippen said.

This comment has angered many basketball fans and definitely Chicago Bulls fans, but what is Pippen really saying? He calls MJ, his former teammate and who he will forever be linked with, the greatest scorer of all time, but it's no secret that Jordan is widely considered the greatest player to ever step on the hardwood. For a man who is who he is because of Jordan to come out and say this definitely raises some eyebrows. I'm not sure he meant to slam Jordan like it comes across because he later said via Twitter that LeBron isn't on MJ's level yet but he definitely could be by the end of his career. While that may be true I think the general opinion is that that will never be true. Kobe Bryant has also drawn comparisons to Jordan and some fans thought that if he would have led the Lakers to the title this season that he would be on Jordan's level. Maybe, but we wouldn't really know for another ten years or so after it all sunk in.

To have this argument about LeBron vs. Jordan right now is silly. James is in his eighth season and has zero rings. He has several years left before retirement and, when he finally does step away from the game, we can start comparing and debating. Right now it is all a bunch of, "LeBron could be..." and, "LeBron has the talent to be...." What Scottie said is a little overboard but he corrected himself later and that makes the statement more valid. If he says, "LeBron could be as good as Jordan," then I think that is a true statement.

However, I do not think it is right for Scottie Pippen to come out and say this. I don't care if he thinks it or not, it just shouldn't be said from his mouth. It looks terrible and Scottie comes across as still envying Michael a little bit. I can only imagine the smirk on Jordan's face when he heard of Pippen's comments and I wouldn't be surprised if MJ wanted to come back one more time just to school LeBron and show him that he has a long way to go before he reaches His Airness. Pippen's comments would have been okay if they came from Magic Johnson or Larry Bird but when it is Pippen, a guy who has superstar status mainly because he played along side Michael Jordan, that doesn't look good.

Also, I don't think many people are rooting for LeBron to surpass MJ as the so-called Greatest Player Ever. Too many people love Michael Jordan and don't want to see LeBron catch him in MVP's or titles. For now, they don't have to worry but if James ever does win six titles it will be interesting to see how fans react. He may have dug himself into a hole he will never get out of by signing with the Heat. Once he joined forces with Bosh and Wade many people, including Jordan, looked down on him as a star who was giving in. What's funny is that if James had stayed in Cleveland and won a title it would have been so similar to MJ's first title in Chicago it would have been scary. Both players joined bad teams and lost in the playoffs a few times. Jordan eventually won the title but LeBron gave up. That right there could forever keep James from reaching the top of the mountain.

LeBron should feel respected that Scottie Pippen said those words but for now he can't worry about those comparisons. Michael Jordan, in my mind and many others, will always be the greatest player who ever played and Pippen should think long and hard next time before he says something like he did today.

A Fan's Frustration With the Heat

I want to be a journalist and that means that I can't be biased. I'm not writing this for journalistic purposes though, but instead writing it strictly from a fan's perspective. I have watched all four games of the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat series and I am a huge Bulls fan. While the Bulls did earn the number one seed in the Eastern Conference I have never thought that they were the best team in the league. The Miami Heat and even the Boston Celtics seemed much more primed for a championship run and I think this series has shown that there is plenty of work to be done in the Chicago organization.

Derrick Rose is a superstar and I think he definitely deserved the MVP award but, like his team, he has much work to do with his own game. His shot is still suspect and his decision making has been poor throughout the series. At the end of regulation Rose should have tried to take the ball right to the rim. If he did he would have had a higher percentage shot plus the increased probability of drawing a foul. Instead of going to the strongest part of his offensive game he decided to shoot a jumpshot over the 6'8" LeBron James and the shot had no chance. It is plays like that that show DRose still has work to do and that is understandable considering he is still very young. I don't want to sit here and bash the guy because he has done so much for this team but the reality is that he is has room to improve, something that should scare the other teams in the NBA.

As for the Heat, they are really everything that I think is wrong with sports. Reggie Miller tried to tell us that the Heat are just having fun but that is not what I see. I see a bunch of egos yelling, screaming and trash talking their way through the game. Are they doing it for the team? No. They are doing it for themselves and their own personal image. LeBron James could care less about the Heat organization. He simply wants to quiet the critics that say he will never be in the same league as MJ or Kobe. In my mind he never will be no matter what happens. He took the easy way out in trying to win a championship and he will forever be remembered as a traitor and, to some, a quitter. He is all about himself and his own image and his cockiness and arrogance has lost him thousands of fans. He is playing some great basketball right now and I can't deny that but he is also never reached these heights with his ego. The fun-loving kid we once adored in Cleveland is all of a sudden the cocky jerk we hate in Miami. That's real talk.

Chris Bosh is the lesser version of James. Unlike James in Cleveland he had zero chance of winning a championship in Toronto and his superstar status is nowhere near LeBron's. For that, I cannot fault him in leaving for Miami. However, I do find it annoying that he has also taken to the cocky, trash talking style that James has adopted. Bosh is a soft player who comes across as a coward much of the time. Yet, like James, he is playing some great ball this series.

Dwyane Wade is a fan favorite but he has not been the same this year. It is unfortunate but that's the way this Heat team is. It all started with LeBron's televised Decision and then the three-man powwow held at the arena with the new Miami Heat fans. Most of whom had never cared about Heat basketball in their entire life. However, I dare say the Heat have the most fans in the nation all of a sudden and that is strange. People in Illinois and Indiana rooting for the Heat???? That doesn't seem right but that's what we call the bandwagon in the sports world. Go ahead, jump right on with the other million or so "fans" and ride with LeBron, Wade and Bosh to all eleven titles they promised to bring to South Beach. Should be a real fun time. It will be more fun though to keep rooting for the same Chicago Bulls team that we Illinois people have rooted for since we were born. Even through the roughest years in the post-Jordan era we watched and waited and now it seems the Bulls time has come.

The Heat say they are going to win eleven titles but I'll side with Michael Jordan when he says the Bulls have six more championships coming in the near future. When they do start winning those titles I would say alot of those so-called Heat fans will want to hop on the Bulls fan bus. Too bad the true fans have it filled to capacity.

Harmon Killebrew: A Twin For Life

Harmon Killebrew

This past Tuesday the world lost a baseball legend when former Twins Hall of Famer, Harmon Killebrew died of esophagal cancer at 74 years of age. 21 of his 22 MLB seasons were played in Minnesota and his name is basically synonomous with the Twins organization. That is something that, in the past, was common because players weren't traded or moving around in free agency as much. Nowadays that hardly the case. No small market team is lucky enough to keep a Hall of Fame-caliber player these days because they almost always leave for a bigger market and more money in free agency. In the past there are a handful of small-market teams who have had a player that spent his entire Hall of Fame career with them but that is a dying thing.

The St. Louis Cardinals are one of the great franchises of all time and Stan Musial is the player that everybody thinks of when they think of the Cardinals. Musial spent all 22 of his MLB seasons in St. Louis and put up phenomenal numbers. For those older Cardinal fans he is the face of a proud franchise. For the younger generation of Redbird Nation the name that goes with the team is Albert Pujols. Pujols is in his 11th season and all have been in St. Louis. He has won the Rookie of the Year award, three MVPs, a World Series title and has compiled 415 home runs already. He is the perfect man to join Musial in the fan's mind but there have been talks of him departing St. Louis for more money. To make that talk even worse, many have speculated that he could join the rival Chicago Cubs and, during the Cardinals-Cubs series in Chicago, he was seen hugging Cubs' GM Jim Hendry. Not exactly what the Cardinals fans want to see.

Al Kaline has to be mentioned right along with Killebrew and Musial after he played 22 seasons, all in Detroit. He had 3,007 hits and 399 home runs in his Hall of Fame career and his number 6 is retired forever in Detroit. Kaline played at the same time as Killebrew and both men could hit the ball with the best of them. In Detroit, Kaline is a hero but there may never be another player like him for the Tigers. Those type of players are just hard to come by.

There are several other players like the three mentioned above. Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr., George Brett are three others who spent their entire careers in smaller markets. Today there is Pujols in St. Louis, Justin Verlander in Detroit, Todd Helton in Colorado and perhaps Joe Mauer in Minnesota. Derek Jeter and Chipper Jones have spent their entire careers in New York and Atlanta respectively but those are bigger markets who have had several great players. In the Yankees organization Jeter will go down as just another great player along with Dimaggio, Mantle and Ruth. Chipper will not so much be remembered for his individual achievements, but more for the team success he enjoyed in the 90's.

It is sad that money drives players so much these days that they don't show the same loyalty that they used to. A player playing in the same city for his whole career is the rarest thing in sports almost, especially if that city is in a smaller market such as Kansas City or Cleveland. Harmon Killebrew is a legend in Minneapolis and will forever be remembered as arguably the greatest Twins player of all-time.

Bulls Stay Under the Radar

Dwyane Wade and Derrick Rose

It was two series clinchers at opposite ends of the celebration spectrum. The Miami Heat handled the Boston Celtics faster than many thought possible to move on to the Eastern Conference Finals, a place they had been penciled into long ago when the Big Three came together. Their counterpart is the NBA-best Chicago Bulls. With 62 wins Chicago led the NBA in wins and has sewed up home court advantage all the way through the playoffs. The Bulls took down the Atlanta Hawks in six games and now the much anticipated matchup against the Heat will start Sunday night. It's a superstar driven series with two MVPs, a Finals MVP, multiple all-stars and the Coach of the Year on the sideline.

If you were able to watch the end of the series finales for both teams then you saw the Heat looking like little kids who just got the perfect gift from Santa Claus and you saw the Bulls who looked like this was just another day on the job. Isn't it funny how the Bulls, a team that no one projected as the best team in the East, acted as if this is what they expected and the Heat, a team that was pegged as one of the best teams ever before they even stepped on the court, acted almost surprised they were going to the Conference Finals. LeBron James screamed and yelled, Dwyane Wade took a victory lap and after the final buzzer sounded the two embraced for probably 20 seconds too long. Doc Rivers and several Celtic players stood around waiting to shake James' hand but they didn't get the chance. LeBron was knelt down on the floor almost in tears...apparently not the first time a Heat player has cried this year.

In Atlanta a night later the Bulls disposed of the Hawks with relative ease but there was no yelling, screaming or tears of joy. Even though this is a franchise that is far removed from their proudest years, suffered through awful losing seasons and was rejected by almost every big free agent this summer, Derrick Rose and the Bulls acted as if they had done this before. They were just moving on to the next game. That's the difference between the Bulls and the Heat: the Bulls stay under the radar while every little thing the Heat say or do is magnified by a million. The Heat do everything big. It's not enough to go to Miami in free agency, you have to go on television for an hour segment to announce it. Of course once all three players were there it wasn't enough to just all meet up, no way, they had to throw a big party for all of Miami--before they had ever played a game. The Bulls signed Carlos Boozer and it was big news in Chicago but wasn't the stop-the-presses kind of news that the Heat generated. Rose is the MVP yet he is not the most hyped player in this series.

Even though the Bulls are the number one seed I think it would be considered an upset if they defeat the Heat because, like it or not, the Heat are very good. They have three great players and role players that can rebound and knock down the outside shot. The Bulls need Carlos Boozer to show up for every game and for Luol Deng to be able to make his own shot. Rose has looked like Superman but this is going to be his toughest test yet. One thing is for sure, the Bulls will not be intimidated because they already defeated the Heat multiple times and the Bulls are a team built on toughness. The Heat celebrated after defeating the Celtics and that may make this season a success for them. For the Bulls, there is work to be done.

Osama, 9/11 and Sports

Shea Stadium a week after 9/11

By now everyone has heard the news that the United States conducted an operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. President Barack Obama informed the nation at about 11:45 p.m. on May 2nd and it is one of those moments that you will always remember where you were. Although the war on terrorism is far from over, the killing of bin Laden, and the reaction of the American people, is a symbol of the continued healing America is going through nearly 10 years after the horrific events of September 11th, 2001. For those who lost loved ones that day it is a bittersweet moment. President Obama said it is "a good day" for America, but it is also one that brings back those haunting images and memories of what happened to the World Trade Center buildings, the Pentagon and in an empty field in Pennsylvania.

Where does sports fit into all of this? We get so worked up over a silly little game that, in the grand scheme of things, means nothing. However, after the 9/11 attacks sports took a week off as our nation began the recovery. When baseball took the field again one week later, people were moved by the New York Yankees and Mets who wore New York Fire Department and Police Department hats during their games. A moment of silence was taken before every game and baseball seemed to be part of that healing process. Especially for fans in New York, it was three hours where they could escape from everything else that was going on around them. Of course, nothing could make someone forget about the events that had occurred a week before, but baseball served as a short distraction for a nation that was hurting.

It was a day that everyone remembers where they were. On September 11th, 2001 I was riding the school bus to fourth grade when I noticed that nobody was outside playing on the playground like we normally did before school. The bus driver said that we couldn't go outside and we needed to go straight in to the gym. Later on we saw the events on television and those images will forever be seared into our minds. In contrast to that, last night's message is another event that we will always remember where we were. Going back to sports, the scene in Philadelphia was touching as the Mets and Phillies played on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. News spread throughout the stadium about the killing of bin Laden and fans chanted, "U-S-A! U-S-A!" The players looked around and had no idea what was happening but the scene was one that will leave you with goosebumps. David Wright, Mets third baseman, said afterward, "As proud and as great as the moment was being on a baseball field -- you multiply that by a million and that's probably what they're feeling at the fire houses, at the police stations." Bobby Valentine was commentating the game and said he would never forget that moment or the feeling he had when he was manager of the Mets in '01 and they took the field for the first time after the attacks.

In the big picture sports are a small thing but they have proven to be a healing factor and, as last night showed in Philly, a group of people can come together, no matter what team they root for, and be one as a nation. Thousands at the ballpark stopped caring about the baseball game on the field and shifted their attention to more important matters. At a time when fan violence is at an all-time high and people are ending up in the hospital just because of what team they root for, it was a great feeling to see fans of two teams come together and cheer for America. Americans all over have a good feeling after the death of the mastermind behind 9/11 but let us never forget those who were lost on that terrible day. God Bless America.

The link below describes the fan reaction in Philadelphia.
http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/news/story?id=6463361

Photo courtesy of New York Daily News