Cavs continue to hum

Watching from my window as the snow continues to fall ...

The Cavaliers sleepwalked through a lot of that game last night against the Kings, but two guys who didn't sleepwalk at all were (of course) LeBron James and Mo Williams. Mo scored 43, which is the most a LeBron teammate has ever scored; and they came within two Williams rebounds of being the third set of teammates since 1989 to each have a triple-double in the same NBA game. Mo was a huge addition to this team, and is the main reason why a team that struggled to stay above .500 last year now has the NBA's best record. The All-Star reserves are about to be announced, and I admit I haven't looked at the stats of players Williams might be up against for one of those spots, but it sure seems to me like he deserves to go. It's hard to believe all Danny Ferry gave up for him was Joe Smith and Damon Jones.

The Cavs are now 21-0 at home, the fifth team in NBA history to stay undefeated after more than half the season's home schedule. Of the other four, only the '95-96 Bulls (who started an NBA-record 37-0 at home) went on to win the title. Interestingly, the second-longest season-starting home winning streak belonged to another team in the same conference, the same year. Shaquille O'Neal's Magic, who lost to those Bulls in the Eastern Conference Finals, went 36-0 before losing their first home game in '95-96, a year after starting 21-0 at home and losing in the NBA Finals. The other team to start 21-0 at home was the '77-78 Trail Blazers, who won their first 26 home games and went on to lose in the Western Conference Finals. We are students of sporting history here at Of Fair Hooker.

As mentioned here earlier this week, Zydrunas Ilgauskas hopes to return tomorrow night in Orlando. Whether he makes it back for that marquee matchup or not, he'll be playing again soon. Delonte West will take a little longer, but should be back around mid- to late February. If this team can stay healthy after that, I'm really not sure anybody can stop them.

Happy Monday

Today's thoughts are brought to you by the number 18.4:

* George Kokinis is the new architect of the Browns' fortunes, as we all expected. They didn't get him in time to represent the team at the Senior Bowl, but he'll be running the show at the combine next month. Kokinis and Eric Mangini are old friends and both former Belichick guys, which could be good. Or bad. All I know is they've got to be better than Phil and Romeo. (I'm not saying they are better, simply that they've got to be. They've just GOT to be!)

* I don't know how long this has been up, but I just noticed the Plain Dealer's Web site is advertising the fact that they have every Browns game story ever available now on their Web site. You can search the database here. You can search by season, or by opponent, or by how many points the Browns scored or gave up, or by whether they were at home or on the road, or by whether they won, lost or tied, or by some combination of the above. I just did a search for overtime games that the Browns won, in which they scored at least 30 points, and came up with nine results dating back to a 30-27 win over New England in 1977. How freaking cool is that?

* The Cavaliers just completed a darned nice road trip, in which they went 3-1, their only loss to the Lakers. And they're about to get one of their key pieces back, as Zydrunas Ilgauskas is planning to return to the court for Thursday's game against the Magic, in a matchup of Eastern Conference heavyweights. The Celtics seem to have righted the ship again, and the above-named trio of teams are the clear class of the conference this year. Anyway, it'll be good to get Z back. Anderson Varejao played well as the starting center in his absence, but Z has four inches on him, and believe me, that makes a difference. And I like Andy bringing the energy off the bench. Z's broken ankle has cost him 14 games this year, and the Cavs have gone 10-4 in those games. That's darned nice, but they're 24-4 in games Z has played, so they've clearly missed him.

* LeBron James was named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week for the fourth time this year. We've become so spoiled by this guy. If he didn't play for my team, I'd be sick and tired of him. But he's already a strong candidate for best athlete in the history of Cleveland team sports. Sure, I'd vote for Jim Brown right now, perhaps followed by Tris Speaker, and you have to consider guys like Otto Graham and Bob Feller, but LeBron's definitely in the conversation. And he just turned 24 last month.

* There's not much going on with the Tribe right now, but pitchers and catchers report in less than a month. ESPN's Tim Kurkjian breaks down the Tribe and the entire AL Central in this piece, and concludes that the division is up for grabs. The page includes a video clip of Peter Gammons talking Tribe on Baseball Tonight. Interesting stuff.

* Go Cardinals!

Dante Lavelli, RIP

As I sit here typing this blog post, I'm picturing you as you read it. I may or may not know you, but the picture I have is of somebody like me, a guy in his late 30s who's been watching the Indians, Browns and Cavaliers fail to get a championship over and over and over again. It's possible that you personally are a woman in her 90s, sitting in New Delhi and, having just heard of Cleveland for the first time, decided to investigate and clicked links until you got to this site, but I guess that's pretty far-fetched.

So chances are that, like me, you don't remember Dante "Gluefingers" Lavelli's 11 years with the Browns, nor the seven championship teams of which he was part. He was Otto Graham's favorite target from the team's inception in 1946, leading the AAFC in receiving as a rookie and catching the winning touchdown pass in the title game. Four years later, in the Browns' first year in the NFL, he caught 11 passes in the NFL Championship Game against the Rams.

Bill Livingston's column in the PD is worth reading. It's about how loyal Lavelli was to the Browns organization, never speaking his mind about Modell until the day he announced the Browns were moving. Then he let loose on Modell, who had betrayed the city in a way Lavelli didn't respect. Livingston also mentions how Lavelli "did not so much catch the ball as attack it." It sounds like he was a lot of fun to watch, if you were a Browns fan.

Lavelli only caught 386 passes in his career, tied for 193rd on the all-time list. Of course, there were only 12 games in the regular season then, and the running game was greatly favored; at the time he retired, he was second on that list (behind Tom Fears). He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1975.

Happy Monday, sports fans

Having dug out from under the weekend's storm, I have the following thoughts about what's going on in Cleveland, sports, and most especially, Cleveland sports:

• The Cavaliers' win over the Celtics on Friday night was indeed satisfying, but let's not forget that, though the Celtics still have the Eastern Conference's third-best record, they came in on a major slide, having lost their last three and five of their last seven. The Cavs are currently a half-game behind the Lakers for the NBA's top record, and topped ESPN's power rankings this week.
• Our guys are 3-1 since Zydrunas Ilgauskas went down with an ankle injury. Anderson Varejao has been starting in Z's place, and has done a fine job. And J.J. Hickson has gotten some extended playing time during that stretch, and has looked pretty decent.
• The Indians signed backup catcher Kelly Shoppach to a one-year deal worth $1.95 million today, avoiding arbitration. Leaving aside the ridiculous money a backup catcher can make these days, Shoppach's a key piece for the Tribe next year, as Victor Martinez increasingly becomes an ex-catcher. Here's a question you probably wouldn't have gotten if you weren't already reading an item about Kelly Shoppach: Who led American League catchers in home runs in 2008? No, not Yogi Berra.
• Cy Young winner Cliff Lee has announced he will not pitch in the World Baseball Classic this year. As an American, I kind of think that's too bad. The other participating countries will all put their very best players on the field, but U.S.-born players just don't take it seriously. That said, I can't really blame him. He doesn't want to jeopardize his regular-season performance. I don't want him to either.
• Michael Aubrey, a former top corner infield prospect whose career has been hampered by injuries, has cleared waivers. He was taken off the 40-man roster to make room for Carl Pavano. Aubrey turns 27 in April, and most hitters peak around age 27. I hope he can get it together, but I'm not highly optimistic. We'll see.
• The stinkin' ex-Browns or the stinkin' Steelers will be AFC champs. That's depressing, to the extent that the results of a sporting event can be depressing.
• As if we didn't have enough reason to root against Baltimore, the Browns have interviewed George Kokinis, the director of player personnel over there, for the vacant general manager post, and can't sign him until the Cravens are eliminated. If he's the guy. I have no idea if he should be or not, but it kind of sucks that we have to wait to find out.
• Rickey Henderson got into the Hall of Fame on his first try, and Jim Rice got in on his last try. Henderson is a worthy first-ballot Hall of Famer; Rice is a pretender. No offense to him; he was a fine player, but several others are more deserving. (Blyleven, Dawson and Raines come to mind.) Too many voters don't understand how much Fenway Park inflated Rice's numbers. But there are other undeserving Hall of Famers, and Rice is certainly less glaring than some.
• U.S. Sen. (and Cleveland resident) George Voinovich announced his retirement from politics today. As a fiscal conservative, I admire Voinovich and would have been interested in seeing him run for president. He's an honest politician, which is far too rare. Would that there were more like him in Congress -- not to mention other offices around the country. See? I know about things other than sports.

Random thoughts

The quick-hit style of a previous post or two seemed popular, so I'm going to do that again now.

• The Cavaliers have lost two of three, the latter of which was to a Wizards team that is now 7-26. Yes, that's disappointing. (And yes, LeBron did travel, at least according to the traveling definition as I understand it.) But the same night, the Celtics lost to a Knicks team that finished the game at 13-19, and they lost again last night to the Bobcats team that came into tonight's game at the Q at 13-22. It's the NBA. It happens. The NBA's best record nonetheless resides in Cleveland. (And Los Angeles, yes.)
• Ohio State sure disappointed by not pulling out the Fiesta Bowl, but at least they didn't get blown out like they did the last two years in the national championship game. And the Texas Longhorns had about as good a claim to a title-game berth as Oklahoma or Florida. As loyal reader John Arthur Hutchison said, we can at least be happy they beat Michigan and won a share of the Big Ten.
• The Indians have had a fairly quiet offseason, but that doesn't mean they haven't done anything to improve. I love the Mark DeRosa trade, and the Carl Pavano signing is a low-risk, high-reward proposition. Pavano has been oft-injured for the last four years, but he did go 18-8 for the Marlins in 2004, and at 33 (tomorrow), he certainly could bounce back. His base salary of $1.5 million may seem like an awful lot to you and me, but it's not much to a Major League Baseball franchise. He has a chance to earn $5.3 million in incentives, and if he does the things that kick in those incentives, the Indians will gleefully pay that out.
• The NFL Hall of Fame today announced 17 finalists. None of them played for the Browns, but Cris Carter had a great career for the Buckeyes. Good luck, Cris. (I assume he's a regular reader of Of Fair Hooker.)

He's the Mangini!

To the surprise of none, Eric Mangini is the new head coach of the Cleveland Browns, and I think it's a good choice. He becomes the Browns' first coach with previous NFL head coach experience since Terry Robiskie, who hardly counts because of the interim label; before that, you have to go all the way back to Nick Skorich, who coached the Eagles from 1961-63 before taking the helm in Cleveland from 1971-74. So the year I was born was the last year an experienced coach started the season as the Browns' coach. And look how big I've gotten! (I know you can't see me through the computer, but trust me, I'm a decent-sized fellow.)

For them what's curious, Skorich took over a team that had gone 7-7 in 1970 and led them to the playoffs in his first two years in Cleveland, but never won a playoff game with the Browns. That's interesting, but not particularly relevant; I just thought I'd mention it.

Mangini was born the same year I was, which makes me shake my head a little, but if the Constitution says you can be President at age 35, the Browns can certainly afford to hire a man who's about to turn 38 to be their coach. He went 23-25 in three seasons with the Jets, with one good year (2006, when they went 10-6), one bad year (2007, 4-12), and one mediocre year (2008, 9-7 after starting 8-3). It's hard to evaluate coaches, but give me a guy who's had some success as a head coach over a guy who's never done the job before any day. We Browns fans all know how successful a coach can be in his second job. And Mangini has Cleveland ties, having served as a ball boy for the Browns during the Belichick era. Yeah, that still counts.

Eric Mangini (I assume you'll read this), welcome back to Cleveland. We're excited to have you on board. (That's right, I presume to speak for all Browns fans. If you disagree, that's what the comment option is for.)

Happy New Year

Some thoughts on the various sporting action from New Year's Day and the last few days of 2008:

• Pete Carroll said after USC's 38-24 win over Penn State in the Rose Bowl that "in all due respect," he doesn't think anybody can beat the Trojans this year. Setting aside the incorrect preposition and the fact that somebody actually did beat USC this year, he's got a point. Southern Cal was one of seven teams from BCS conferences to win all but one of its games, and they earned the right to play for the national title just as much as Florida or Oklahoma did. (So did Penn State, for that matter.) We're not going to see a playoff anytime soon, I'm afraid, but this should have been a playoff game.
• Penn State could have won that game if they hadn't made so many big mistakes. This despite a Rose Bowl-record .800 passing percentage and 413 yards from Mark Sanchez, who was simply outstanding. Penn State turned the ball over too many times, and got a turnover of their own called back because of an offsides penalty -- which was one of too many penalties they committed against too good a team.
• The Lions weren't the only Big Ten team to fall on Thursday. Michigan State couldn't hang with Georgia in the Capital One Bowl, and after earlier losses by Northwestern, Minnesota and Wisconsin, the conference is now 1-5 in bowl games. Ohio State has a chance to make them 2-5 by beating Texas on Monday night in the Fiesta Bowl, but that's going to be tough. If not for Iowa's drubbing of South Carolina in the Outback Bowl yesterday, we could be looking at a Big Ten goose egg.
• Beanie Wells hasn't decided yet whether he'll play on Saturdays or Sundays next year. Selfishly, as an Ohio State fan, I'm hoping he sticks around another year, but if I were him, I'd go for the money. If he stayed in college another year, he might win a national title, but he would risk a very expensive injury.
• I didn't watch the hockey game that was played at Wrigley Field yesterday, but I love that there's one outdoor NHL game every year. Many hockey players grew up playing on ponds in the wintertime, and I kind of feel like that's the way the game was meant to be played. And in watching the highlights, it was kind of neat to see the hand-operated scoreboard being used for hockey.
• The Cavaliers lost their fifth game of the year the other day (on LeBron's 24th birthday), to a pretty good Heat team in Miami, two days after beating the same team in Cleveland. At 26-5, they've still got the league's third-best record, and I'm still optimistic about their chances to win it all. But they've got to get home court over the Celtics. And don't look now, but the 25-7 Magic is a threat too.
• For those who, like me, jones for baseball all winter, you should check out this Tim Kurkjian column about the Indians' outlook for 2009. Kurkjian concludes that the Tribe "could rebound in a big way," and I think he's right. Did you know our guys had the AL's second-best record after July 9 last year? That all came after the Sabathia trade, too. (Special thanks to my good friend John Arthur Hutchison for sending me the link.)
• Speaking of baseball, the MLB Network debuted yesterday, and thank goodness for that.