Open Thread: Tribe Goes for Series Win in the Twin Cities
June 4, 2009Former Tribe Owner Dick Jacobs Passes Away
June 5, 2009While 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.
We can all thank David Stern for keeping this story in the news a week later: “Upon further review, LeBron James’ decision not to shake hands with the Orlando Magic or speak to the media after Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals is going to cost him. And more than just on the sports talk shows. NBA Commissioner David Stern announced before Game 1 of the NBA finals on Thursday that he had decided to fine James $25,000 for his actions. This was after Stern initially said on Monday that James would not be fined. Stern informed James, who is recovering from surgery to remove a growth from his right jaw, in a phone call on Wednesday” [Brian Windhorst/Plain Dealer]
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For now, I’d even take the shift manager at Beer Ahoy every fifth day. “You wanna send Fausto down to the minors? Fine. Who is going to come up then? Uh.. Hello? Bueller? Anyone? Exactly. Fausto Carmona CANNOT be sent to Columbus to get his act together. If this continues in the coming weeks and Jake Westbrook is ready to roll, then fine. But now is not the time. For god’s sakes, Jeremy Sowers pitches tomorrow night at U.S. Cellular Bandbox. Lord have mercy.” [Dump Casey Blake]
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Take from this what you will: “The Browns have lost another member of their immediate support staff. Marty Lauzon has resigned as the team’s head athletic trainer for what the Browns say are “personal and family reasons.” He follows Pat Dolan, who stepped down as video director last month, and the parting of ways recently with Dr. Anthony Miniaci, who had been the head physician. The 40-year-old Lauzon, a native of Montreal, had been a member of the team’s training staff since the organization’s rebirth in 1999, including the past four in his current post. He had taken over for Mike Colello when he was let go.” [Steve King/The OBR]
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Charlie V to the rescue? “I understand the situation Milwaukee is in financially,” Villanueva told Coleman. “They don’t want to go over the cap or what not (actually the luxury tax level). Whatever team decides to make the best offer, I’m going to think about it. “Cleveland definitely is not a bad spot. I’ve played with LeBron. I played with LeBron in the McDonald’s All-American Game, and we played well together. Is there a possibility? Yes. Will it happen? Time will tell” [Charles Gardner/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
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The bus trip that won’t go away: “The NFL Players Association is looking into the Browns rookies’ voluntary bus trip to Hartford, Conn., last week and also the length of time players are spending at the team’s facility for a voluntary minicamp or OTA day. “We are in the process of reviewing the matter,” NFLPA spokesman Carl Francis said in an e-mail response after speaking with someone in the union’s legal department. A league source also said the NFL has been asked to look into both situations.” [Mary Kay Cabot/Plain Dealer]
29 Comments
Can’t believe the bus saga is still going on.
I wish football was here already. So bored with sports right now.
Charlie V is a nice player, but he is really not much of an upgrade over Andy Vereajo. Doesn’t make much sense to me.
Kirk Saarloos Ahoy!!
Well, if they played well together in a HIGH SCHOOL ALL STAR GAME, by extension clearly they will play well together now, seven years later.
I can only imagine how well CV, AV, and Big Z would get along after the choke-slam Villanueva administered in the one game this year.
hector – charlie V is a HUGE upgrade over AV. this guy is the same age as lebron. he is a budding star. he has gotten better every season and is just getting better. he is an extremely athletic 6 foot 11 forward who is even a decent three point shooter. he can rebound (6.7 last year). he can score (16.2 ppg last year). he shot 45% from the field last year and can even block a few shots.
Charile V can hit a jumper and has 3 point range. he has more size (or at least weight) than Andy as well. He may not hustle as well, but he has a much more rounded game
on the bus thing — who among us would be happy showing up at new hire training and be “asked” to travel 20 hours in a bus on a weekend for the boss’ personal charity. it’s total b.s. and not one of us would be happy about it.
it’s like when judge schmales had danny stop by his house.. and mow the lawn. except mangini had him do it fifteen times.
A lot to cover this morning:
If the NBA was going to fine LeBron, they should have done it immediately, not waited several days. All of this nonsense with rescinding fouls, taking away triple doubles, and fines days later undermines the credibility of a league with some serious credibility issues anyway.
Villaneueva is an interesting name, but I wonder if he’s an unselfish enough player willing to play second fiddle to LeBron. As we saw with Laura H, that’s not always easy for players to do.
Carmona has to be sent down. It’s irrelevant who they bring up to take his spot in the rotation. This season is OVER. Wins are irrelevant. All that matters is that our young guys get playing time and good experience. Right now Fausto is broken down. He’s simple ineffective. Sending him down the C-Bus to right the ship is a necessity. What happens to the major league club while he’s gone is irrelevant. Besides, even if winning was important, it’s not like he’s helping them win games anymore or even conserve the bullpen.
Also, I’m sure they’ll be a post about this soon, but former Tribe owner Dick Jacobs has died. May he rest in peace.
I agree with Mike…..but I don’t know if CV’s personality would fit in with the Cavs. He seems very self centered (i.e. Twittering at Halftime).
Of course Mo’s personality (or at least the perception) changed when he came here from Milwaukee (which is Algonquin for “the good land”)
Not an upgrade over Andy? The fact that he can dribble and score and also will probably cost as much or less than Andy are all pluses in my book. Andy really has an inflated sense of self worth and if somebody is willing to pay a flopper that can’t shoot and can only impact the game coming off the bench….than fine. The Cavs should spend that money on somebody like Charlie. And screw “Team Chemistry” by the way. I’m pretty sure winning brings everybody together.
@#8 AMC – yes, we’ll have something at 10am about Mr. Jacobs.
@ Tom, it was actually pronounced “Meel-ee-wah-kay”.
SOOOOOOOOO tired of hearing about this bus trip. It’s not like it was a broken down school bus, with only 3 wheels and a donut. I’m sure this was a top of the line charter bus. For the opportunity to make a pro football team, i’d take a greyhound to Alaska.
i think bill simmons wrote a piece roughly about how a 41% three point percentage for one guy isnt the same as for another guy. we can criticize that kobe or lbj arent that good of shooters, but those guys dont get open looks like most guys could get. mo shot decent from three in years past, but that was when he was the #1 guy for Mil with Redd always out. the defense keyed in on him. he rarely took uncontested shots. now with lebron, he got ALOT more open looks and look at how his FG% went up.
i would expect a similar up-curve for Charlie V (or any solid scorer) here. Charlie V was really their best pure scorer last year so defenses had to key in on him. and he still shot REALLY well. put him on cle with lbj, and his FG% might hit close to 50%.
im not going to attribute one halftime twitter to this guy being a headcase or being selfish or self-centered. the league is what it is now – guys are online more and they twitter, even if at halftime. yes its dumb to me, but im not part of that generation. im sure my parents thought atari was dumb too. lebron knows charlie well from high school. those 2 go way back. if lebron thinks charlie v would be a good addition, the cavs might go for it. it not, they wont. theres very little history on charlie v (that i know of) being selfish. if that one twitter is it, i can live with that. im not going to make more of it than it is, just like how im not going to make any more of lebron handshaking fiasco than it is. larry hughes on the other hand had years and years of selfish play and injuries to show who he was.
i think charlie v is a pretty good player, with offensive talent.
we need offensive talent, he also provides that mismatch that we could use. he’s a 6’11” 250 guy that can hit the 3.
he’s not known for his defense, but i think if you give him enough time with mike brown, he can change that.
i’m of the belief that you can take an offensive type player and get him to play defense much easier than to take a defensive type player and get him to make shots.
we need a guy who can hold his own against a dwight howard. kendrick perkins was able to do that in the boston series, and boston pushed them to 7 despite not having 2 bigs.
i don’t think we have that. if we did, some things may have been different in our series with the magic.
i really like chris kaman on the clippers, i think he could give you more than andy could.
I like Kaman to, but the fact that he only played 30 games last year worries me. He played 56 the year before, 78 in 05-06, 63 in 04-05 and 82 his rookie year. Seems that he’s on a downward trajectory. Maybe splitting time with Z would keep him healthy, but it’s a risk.
forget kaman – unless the clippers are willing to throw in the rights to blake griffin or even eric gordon, i dont want any part of chris kaman.
kaman is on a downward trajectory AND making on average $11million through 2012. no thanks!
Charlie V would be an enormous upgrade over AV, make no mistake about it.
Also, I’m not sure I understand how tweeting at halftime makes someone a bad teammate. I’m pretty sure dragging coaches away from their teams at the beginning of the 2nd and 4th quarters for these B.S. interviews which contain no substance is a little bit more detrimental.
@ #15 – It was in his first year with the team and he surely was working hard at it, but Mo’s defense was suspect in the playoffs. Not sure if Mike Brown can get a ton out of players on that end even though it’s his forte.
Would be interesting to see what MB could do with a guy like Charlie. Have heard some internet grumblings that LBJ has really taken it to the team about improving this offseason – I’m pretty sure LeBron telling guys to play D will be a bigger deal than MB doing so.
@ #19 – You assume that these coaches actually do something in the 2nd and 4th quarters. I based on the Orlando series think the more you keep MB away from the bench the better.
On Charlie V – sign him. Start Andy at #5. Bring Z in for offense off the bench. Play the two that are meshing the best in the late 4th quarter.
Browns Bus Saga – Mangini and Co. have done a lot of good but this was a mistake. Clearly. They should just take their medicine and be done with it before it becomes bigger.
@ 21: so they will re-sign Andy at the price he will demand and also pay CV the huge bucks he’s obviously looking for? Don’t think so, they’re really both power forwards, although Andy obviously fills in at center. That type of luxury tax hit to fill the same position twice is too rich even for Dan Gilbert’s blood.
What are the chances they get CV and Bosh both?
Also, an addition of someone like CV lets them sit one of the guards and have LeBron play the 2, Andy the 3 when they want to.
That lets them have serious size advantages on teams without losing too much quickness.
I like the idea of bringing Charlie Villanueva to the Cavs. Charlie is a versatile player than brings explosive offensive abilities and can cause mismatch problems at both ends. People always criticize his defense, but look at Dirk in Dallas, same difference. He has a lot of potential and with the right coaching staff in place, he can excel to become an all-star type player. I remember when he scored 48 pts as a rookie – natural talent like that standing at 6’10” doesn’t come offend, believe me.
I wish Mangini would have just ridden the bus too, then it wouldn’t be a big deal to me. I believe in leading from the front. When digging trenches and surrounding the Celtic cities in Gaul, Julius Caesar did not sit and watch his men do all the work, he took off his cloak and grabbed a shovel. And his men loved him for it and moved faster than any army was supposed to be able to move at that time and they pulled victory from the clutches of defeat many times. That is the type of leader that would get me on the bus. I would have been pissed if I was told to do it and then the coach goes and jumps on a chartered plane.
On the Cavs thing, I posted on the other thread about Sheed, that I am not sure we can afford Villanueva. The guy I want is Shaq. We should have traded for him at the deadline. He is at least quicker than Big Z will especially want one more title next year with Kobe seemingly going to get his 4th in a week. Shaq will want to stay ahead of Kobe.
Hate to break it to you Jeff, but Mangini isn’t Caesar.
The closest Mangini comes to Caesar is walking past the salad bar at the buffet.
Guys play video games, watch TV, take 10 seconds to twitter at the half ALL the time. So, that isn’t a big deal, Skiles is a headcase (I.E. Not letting Ben Wallace wear a stupid headband during games in Chicago). He’d be a good upgrade over Andy. I think the Cavs would pay Andy $8-10 mill, but at the same time, is it really worth it? He can’t really hit an open shot and isn’t big enough to defend Centers. We’ll see.
Forget LBJ pressuring the Front Office to get things done. They got him an All-Star PG, they got him a 2 guard that seems to be able to lock down any wing player in the league. We signed a Veteran big man heading into the playoffs. Why doesn’t LBJ take a look at himself and talk about his unforced turnovers in the finals minutes of Game 1, 3, 4, and his jump shooting in Game 6? I love him and I support him fully, but it’s not like he isn’t at fault at all. There were plenty of times when his Defensive rotations were absolute garbage and he refused to drive to the lane and went 3 for 18 from outside the paint. The ball should’ve run through Mo and Delonte more than LBJ just calling for it and hoisting up J’s from a step inside the line.
Hopefully we draft a good back up PG (grevis vazquez) or true SG. We need Hickson and Darnell to really put in work this off season and be big contributors next season.