While We’re Waiting…

While We’re Waiting aims to be the round-up of the recent WFNY-esque information for your morning viewing.  Have something you think we should see?  Send it to our tips email in the sidebar.

“I’ve been punched in the face many times before, I shook that off,” West said. “We’re on a roll here, we can’t have no pity party for me. I’m going to try not to feel sorry for myself, it hurts but I can still wear my pinky ring.” – Delonte West

“When West went down the Cavs were cruising, up 10 points and playing tremendous defense. Oh, and West had 11 points and three rebounds in what could’ve been the start to his best game of the season when he went down.  For the cherry on top of the adversity pie, LeBron James was battling a cold and it contributed to his worst game of the season.” [Brian Windhorst/Plain Dealer]

Asked how much more prepared he is to be a head coach now than he was in 2006, [Eric Mangini] answered:  “I’d say light years is a fair assessment. There’s probably a laundry list of things we can go through. There are so many different areas that you’re involved in, whether it’s personnel, staff, game-planning, game-day management, interacting with the team — any of those things. They’re all areas where I go back and look at my notes, I look at the different feedback that I’ve gotten from players and coaches. I’ll try to incorporate all that stuff into the decisions that will be faced moving forward.” [The OBR]

“Now, as LeBron’s dominance becomes at once more fluid and rational, I keep thinking of the autism scale, a metaphor that inevitably posits Tim Duncan. A performance like LeBron’s thrashing of the Celtics [that] night was, at both ends of the floor, consummate. You couldn’t hope for a better synthesis of form and function, style and substance, physical gifts and basketball acumen. It’s that stretching of possibility we’ve always marvelled at in LeBron, except this year, this night, he not only reached those limits—he kept on extending them.” [Bethlehem Shoals/Free Darko]

“”When your bullpen is good, you know you can scratch and claw to get back in a game, then take a lead, and you know they’ll hang on to it,” said Wedge. “It gives the entire team confidence.” Wedge knows there are holes to be filled in the starting rotation. He knows [Travis] Hafner and other players need to come back from injuries and/or disappointing seasons. He knows the Indians are not a perfect team; but neither is anyone else in the Central Division.” [Terry Pluto/Plain Dealer]

“Do the teams lose more and by larger margins when the star’s individual performance is bad?  For LeBron and the Cavs, the answer is yes: there is a 0.24 correlation between LeBron’s GameScore and Cleveland’s points margin. It’s more magnified in “Bad ‘Bron” games (0.32) but valid in good/great ‘Bron games (0.13). A solid connection exists between LeBron’s individual performance and Cleveland’s performance. Makes perfect sense, right?  But the Lakers seem much less dependent on Kobe’s performance: the correlation between Bryant’s GameScore and the Lakers’ result is a smaller 0.07.” [Tom Ziller/FanHouse]