WFNY Roundtable: Should the Cavs trade for Kevin Love?
July 15, 2014Trade Wiggins for Love? Why I’d do it.
July 15, 2014
I talked to Brian Windhorst a year ago when the Cavs re-hired Mike Brown and I was taken aback when I started to think about all the things that have changed since then. Brian was gracious enough to join me for about a half hour to talk about LeBron coming back to the Cavaliers. Here are some of the things we discussed.
- The free agent market shakeout after LeBron signed
- The Houston Rockets’ bad off-season (so far)
- LeBron’s relationship to the player’s union and being involved with the CBA
- The culture of the Miami Heat vs. the culture of the Cleveland Cavaliers
- Reporting on a story that directly impacts your home town
- LeBron’s visit to Cleveland for the Zydrunas Ilgauskas number retirement
- What’s next for Brian
28 Comments
I refuse to listen to that trained monkey talk about this city in any way. Not after this week.
I’ll listen to a WFNY podcast when you get Lee Jenkins on đ
Why’s that? I’ve seen quite a few people hating on him, but I don’t really get why. Windy’s in a tough position… he’s an ESPN Insider, so he’s expected to comment a lot on this move, but he was frozen out of inside info from LeBron’s inner circle. I actually appreciated his coverage last week much more than Chris Broussard because Windy was operating from a position of “I don’t know, I haven’t heard anything from the people who would know best, so I’m just assuming everything is going to go logically based on what LeBron has said in the past about winning titles and being on the NBA Mount Rushmore.” Broussard, on the other hand, was collecting opinions from a bunch of people who know LeBron well and/or know him tangentially and compiling that into a belief that he was leaving for the Cavs. After seeing how this played out with Lee Jenkins of SI basically being the only one who knew LeBron’s plans for sure, I was more inclined to label Broussard as the hack and Windy as the responsible one.
Are you chewing gum, Craig?
Morey has been regarded a genius by SportsGuy and SportsGuy alone.
That’s not true… stats guys absolutely adore him (not saying they should or shouldn’t, just stating as fact). He’s a huge player at the annual Sloan conference, whose attendance is growing exponentially.
How long has he been in Houston?
How many times has been in the playoffs?
How many times has he gotten out of the first round?
Neat. Not saying you are wrong. Just saying that your first statement was factually incorrect. These questions are all great questions for the many people who consider Morey a genius.
But you are right Pat, I just shake my head of the love he gets. Makes no sense because it hasn’t really amounted to anything.
You’re an idiot. Brian is probably the best NBA reporter in the league. Plus he’s from here. So GTFO
No.
That’s not how we disagree with each other here.
i hope the brazil loss and accompanying nate silver fail slows the roll of the analytics trend. sports ain’t fantasy. i don’t know how many theo epsteins and daryl moreys have to come and go before the role of stats and analytics is placed in proper perspective. there’s a place for it yes, but pendulum swung too far and it’s been proven that sports are as they have been forever: delightfully unpredictable.
agree with everything but the send-off
ok, this is a preemptive strike against the inevitable bashing.
Windhorst was the best beat writer on any CLE team in my memory. Followed him
first at the ABJ and was thrilled when he came to the PD. The anger that he left for a better job is more than weird. It’s a knee-jerk hate association that never stopped to let maturity in. About on the level of the hilarious Delonte winks and yuks.
Windhorst’s widely respected and for good reason. When he was here we were treated to good on-court analysis, diligent reporting and really high-quality writing.
Compare that with the Marys covering the Cavs and Browns.
Did anyone complain about Windhorst before LeBron left? So he inferred he would break some additional inside stuff about it and never did .. is
skullduggery the only explanation? This is so weird, and this guy doesn’t deserve any of it. I wish he would take a pay cut and return home also, but I doubt I would given the weirdness about him.
end rant
Yep, he’s the NBA’s version of Billy Beane.
Oh good, I guess its just crackling of my headphones then. Sorry about that. Anyways, nice podcast.
He’s supposed to be an insider yet he and the rest of ESPN were scooped.
Windhorst is single white female. Man get off Lebron. He always threw shade towards Lebron when he was on Heat. Now, that he is going back “home”, he in no way finds this whole return back to home story as a little shady. It’s just his love of home…. I love Lebron. Watching him play is a joy, but the way he did Riley was straight up shady. He could have gone to Riley man to man and say why he wanted to go home. But, no he made sure Heat couldn’t make any moves, etc. Ok, find it’s all business, but I thought Wade was his boy? And there are ways to do business. Lebron really needs to check his La FAmilia cause I think they jumped the shark with this last move.
great great great episode Craig. VERY cool insights from Windy.
If you want to bash Windhorst that’s your prerogative but man, anyone who read the PD coverage of the Cavs both before and after he left would know what Brian brought to the table. National coverage of the NBA and getting to be on TV is probably the top of the mountain for a NBA beat writer and I have no idea why people destroyed him for accepting a tremendous career opportunity.
Hoping that you realize that this is exactly the same thing LeBron did to the Cavs when he left for Miami. Nothing new here… if it bugged you this time, it should have bugged you in 2010 as well.
I agree that there was a knee-jerk reaction, and that Windhorst is one of the best beat writers the city has seen in recent decades. However, in making the move to Miami he inextricably hitched his career to Lebron, which some people viewed as expedient and cynical – and perhaps a contrast to the “self-made man” archetype that is so strong in the US. Coupled with the tribalistic anger of him leaving our tribe for Miami, this perception probably plays into the negative treatment he received.
That said, I don’t see how he could have justified turning down the position in Miami, even if the perception is that he is latched on, barnacle style, to the side of a great whale. If I was in Liverpool in the early ’60s and had a chance to cover the Beatles coming to America I’d do it, even if I had to relocate and stop covering Mersey bands in Northern England.
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts” – Einstein
Zach Lowe wants to talk with you.
blackmail is dirty business
What about cool dudes who don’t write about sports very often
Two mentions of Sting in the same day? Cannot believe you scored him for a podcast. Major score.
(but, since you asked, I promise to listen to the next WFNY podcast you are on)