Where's LeBron going? Probably nowhere

Loyal reader Jeff Brown sent me the following link to a Bill Simmons column on ESPN's Page 2. If I may quote from Jeff's email:

Team LeBron is making everyone think they have a chance at LeBron in 2010 so multiple teams clear cap space and weaken themselves competitively in the short-term (like Detroit did) ... which inadvertently gives Bron a better chance to win a title over these next two years! It's devious and hilarious. I love it. I would do the same thing. Can't you see Worldwide Wes whispering to Dumars, "Yeah, LeBron loves Detroit, he could totally see himself there, you should kill your 2009 chances so we can maybe sign with you."

From http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/storypage=simmons/081126&sportCat=nba&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab5pos2

...

The Cavs' chances are increasing for a title this season and next, as we watch teams falling all over each other to arrange their salary caps to make a run at "The King" even though the Cavs can offer him a considerably higher salary than any other team.

Which reminds me, I'm surprised that our loyal hometown hero, C.C. Sabathia, has not yet inked his foregone conclusion contract with the Tribe. I guess he and the Tribe are just making the other teams expend unnecessary energy, in order to wear THEM out and increase the Tribe's chances
in 2009 and beyond.

Jeff (I think) is just joking about CC, but it is truly interesting what's happening with all this talk about LeBron in New York. I don't think anyone's saying there's NO chance LeBron won't sign with a team in a bigger market, but the national media generally seems to have no idea about the salary cap rules that would allow the Cavs to sign or trade for another big name, THEN sign LeBron to a bigger contract than anyone else can offer.

LeBron is far from the main thrust of the column. Simmons also holds forth on who the main contenders are this season, and our Cavaliers are in his top three. (They also seem to be in the "general consensus" top three, from what I have seen.) They've certainly been impressive thus far, and have to be considered legitimate.

Will LeBron be a Cavalier after his current contract expires? I don't know, but I think so. In any case, there's not much point worrying about it right now.

Pathetic

I don't know what to say about the Browns. They were terrible. Brady Quinn was awful, but Braylon Edwards sure didn't help him much.

Would that I had more to say. I just can't bring myself to think about it more.

Whew!

Boy, the Browns danced with the same demon that bit them the last two weeks. (I know I'm mixing metaphors, but it's late.) The difference came down to the kickers: Phil Dawson hit a 56-yarder (his fifth field goal of the game), and Rian Lindell missed a 47-yarder. At 33, Dawson is having perhaps his best season as a pro, as he has hit on 22 of 24 field goals, and set his own career long twice this year. The second of those was the one that won the game tonight.

Brady Quinn wasn't as good tonight as he was last week, going 14-for-36 for 185 yards, but he made a few big throws, and he was good enough to win.It's important to note that he didn't throw any picks. Jerome Harrison's 72-yard run was a thing of beauty, but that Leodis McKelvin immediately answered it with a TD kickoff return.

And the Browns were definitely lucky. Besides the missed field goal, they were extremely lucky that the nose of the ball touched the ground before Ko Simpson could corral it on one lazy duck Quinn threw. (I know, the expression is "wounded duck," but this one didn't wobble. It wasn't wounded. It was just lazy.)

Well, as I said, it's late, and if I didn't have to get up so early tomorrow, I'd write about how the offense failed to capitalize on all the interceptions, and about how awful the kickoff coverage was, and about how Braylon Edwards is so great at everything except catching the ball (though it should be said he didn't drop any easy ones tonight), and about how the only guys who made plays on the Browns defense were guys the average fan has never even heard of before, and about how Marshawn Lynch ran wild on our defense ... but why wallow in it. We won!

Six straight

Due to a shortage of time, I haven't posted anything about the Cavaliers since their last loss. They've reeled off six straight wins since then, after last night's 110-99 win over the Nuggets, and are looking like one of the true heavyweights of the Eastern Conference.

The acquisition of Mo Williams is definitely bearing dividends. Williams led the Cavs with 24 points last night, to go along with six assists. LeBron, despite "only" 22 points, was his usual self, adding 11 assists and eight rebounds. The Cavs ran away with it in the second half, after being down 61-58 at the break.

This is a good-looking Cavaliers team. I look forward to a deep playoff run, presuming everyone stays healthy.

Cliff Lee, Cy Young

To the surprise of no one, our man Cliff Lee took home some serious hardware today. Lee went 22-3 this year with a 2.45 ERA, and there is no question he was the best pitcher in the American League.

There really isn't much I can say in a small space about Lee's 2008. We all know how he struggled in '07, getting sent to Buffalo, then returning in a bullpen role. And we all know how he dominated this year, from start to finish.

A couple of months ago, I wrote in this space that I looked forward to posting a game-by-game account of Lee's season after he won the Cy Young. I do look forward to that, but it's not going to happen tonight. That's well within my rights as a blogger.

Herbert Jude Score, RIP

The great Herb Score left us on Tuesday.

Those of my and adjacent generations remember Herb as the voice of the Indians, which title he held from 1964 to 1997; four years on TV, and three decades on the radio. A native of Rosedale, Queens, Herb retained his New Yawk accent, and I'll always remember how he said, for example, "Jose Can-SECK-o," instead of the more common "Cuhn-SAY-co." But he has been a Clevelander for a very, very long time, and no doubt would have identified himself as such.

I heard an interview with Tom Hamilton yesterday on the Wills & Snyder show on WTAM, and he said the only time he ever saw Herb stand up in reaction to something that happened on the field was when Tony Fernandez hit what proved to be the game-winning home run that sent the Indians to the World Series in '97. It was Game 6 against Baltimore, and Fernandez's run was the only one scored in a pitcher's duel between Charles Nagy and Mike Mussina (neither of whom figured in the decision). I'll never forget the call Herb made on that home run, which occurred in the top of the ninth: "And the Indians are going to the World Series! ... Maybe. They still have to get through the bottom of the ninth."

Herb retired after that season, so the thrilling, extra-inning seventh game of the World Series against the Marlins was the very last game he ever called. His pending retirement was no secret, and I remember thinking how fantastic it would be if the Indians should finally win a World Series in Herb's last game behind the mike. Alas, it was not to be.

And I haven't even mentioned Herb's playing career. I'm not old enough to remember him as a player, but he was one of the American League's best pitchers for a couple of years. In his rookie year, 1955, he went 16-10 with a fine 2.85 ERA and 245 strikeouts -- which would stand as a rookie record until 1984, when Dwight Gooden would break it. (Gooden, ironically, would have a similar career to Score's, but for vastly different reasons.) He followed it up with an even better season in '56, going 20-9, 2.53, 263. He turned 23 on June 7 of that year, and it must have looked like a Hall of Fame career in the making. But a Gil McDougald line drive bounced off Score's eye on May 7, 1957, and he was never the same again. He pitched until 1962, but ended his career with just 55 wins.

Through it all, Herb was, by all accounts, a genuinely nice man, never thinking of himself as a celebrity. I'm sure I would have loved to sit and talk baseball with him over a beer, or a cup of coffee, or whatever beverage he favored. For those of us who have listened to a lot of Indians games on the radio, Herb was an old friend, and there will never be another like him.

Rest in peace, Herb. We miss you.

Cowher in Cleveland?

My friend Hutch sent me this link to a Plain Dealer story about a guy who's running an online petition to get the Browns to hire Bill Cowher to be their new head coach. Obviously, they've been disappointing this year under Romeo Crennel, but it's worth noting that Crennel was at the helm during the team's winningest season in the expansion era. Does a guy forget how to coach in the space of a season? I don't know, but barring a phenomenal turnaround the rest of the season, it's quite likely that there are going to be some serious changes after the season, and Crennel's job is certainly not safe.

So what about Cowher? We know he's got Cleveland roots, spending time as an assistant here under Marty Schottenheimer before the Steelers picked him off. He went 149-90-1 in 15 seasons in Pittspuke, and won a Super Bowl. But that was in an organization that has made good personnel decisions; it bears mention that his replacement, Mike Tomlin, is 16-9 over a season and a half. The Browns, as we all know, have NOT made good personnel decisions over the years, but it's clear that there's enough talent on the current team to be right up there with Tomlin's team. If we'd just won the last two games -- both of which we were leading late -- we'd be 5-4, a game back of the Steelers.

Is Cowher the guy? I don't know, but I don't think Crennel is. We'll see what happens.

Come all without, come all within

You'll soon see what we've got in Brady Quinn.

It seems an odd time to make a quarterback change, given that Derek Anderson actually played a decent game on Sunday. Also, we've got a Thursday night game this week, which gives Quinn a short schedule to prepare as the starter; seems like it would make more sense to start him the next week, with 10 days to prepare.

Former Browns QB Trent Dilfer, speaking on "SportsCenter," expressed the opinion that the decision to bench Anderson was quasi-buffoonish, saying that it was made because the fans wanted it. Whether that's the real reason or not, I cannot say for sure, but I hope we can all agree that if that's the reason, it's a bad reason to make a quarterback change.

"There are so many layers of dysfunction that this decision represents," Dilfer said. "It shows a total lack of discretion and wisdom at the very highest level of the Cleveland Brown organization."

All that said, the question remains: Is Quinn the guy? I have no idea, but we're going to start finding out on Thursday. What we do know is that Anderson has been spotty at best this year. Maybe Quinn can do better. I sure hope so.

Coming from ahead to lose

I don't have a whole lot of interest to say about today's Browns game, but I do want to discuss what I consider to have been the play of the game. I don't mean to blame Braylon Edwards for today's loss -- there's plenty of blame to go around -- but if he'd come down with that deep pass when the score was tied in the fourth quarter, he probably would have scored, and it would have changed the whole complexion of the game. It's impossible to know for sure, of course, but I think there's about an 80% chance the Browns would have won.

You may notice I have not named the Browns' opponent today. I'm not sure if this will be a hard and fast rule going forward, but at least for now, I'm not using their name. In fact, I'm not saying about that team, except that I freaking HAAAAAAATE losing to them.

On a side note, the Giants trounced the Cowboys 35-14 today, to improve to 7-1. The Browns are still the only blemish on their record. I'd like to see the Browns that took the field that day again, but I've come to terms with the fact that I probably won't see them again this year. Maybe if we could play undefeated teams every week, we could win some games. I hope the Titans are still undefeated when we play them in week 14.

Cavs fail another test

The Cavaliers have played two games against the NBA's elite, and have lost them both. Last night's 104-92 loss to New Orleans was disappointing, given that the Hornets were playing without starters Tyson Chandler and Peja Stojakovic, not to mention the fact that the Cavs were actually winning as late as the six-minute mark in the fourth quarter. You'd think that if one of the teams were to fall apart down the stretch, it'd be the one playing without two starters.

The difference in the game -- statistically, at least -- was turnovers. The Cavaliers made 18 of them, to the Hornets' 14. That's not a big difference in and of itself, but the Bees made better use of the turnovers they got, converting them into 26 points, compared to the 12 points Cleveland got off New Orleans' TOs.

LeBron didn't have a great game, scoring just 15 points on 6-of-15 shooting. He did dish out 13 assists and got seven rebounds and three steals, but as the Plain Dealer's Brian Windhorst reports, he went 2 1/2 quarters without hitting a single bucket from the half-court offense. When your all-world perennial MVP candidate and defending scoring champion goes dry for that long, it's pretty tough to win.