Cavs roster full of no-names with no game

January 12, 2011, 12:14 am

By Billy Witz
FOXSports.com
WITZ ARCHIVE

LOS ANGELES – Leave it to Phil Jackson to crystallize the state of the Cleveland Cavaliers these days.

The Lakers coach was asked before his first look at the post-LeBron Cavs whether these types of games, against overmatched opponents, bored him.

On the contrary, Jackson said.

"I'm looking forward to seeing these new players on their team that I've never heard of," Jackson said, drawing laughter from the group of reporters gathered around him.

"I'm serious," Jackson protested.

You mean there are players on the roster you've never heard of?
 
"I wasn't familiar with their names," Jackson said. "They were undrafted players who were free agents, some of them from the D-League. I'm not up on all the personnel in the game anymore. There are some guys I didn't know, and they're pretty good players."

And doesn't that say it all about the return of the Cadavaliers, who have gone from having the best record in the NBA last season to the worst mark this season.

Goodbye, LeBron James.

Hello, Alonzo Gee.

Good day, Manny Harris.

Greetings, Samardo Samuels.

And welcome, Christian Eyenga, who like Harris is a starter and undrafted rookie free agent (though he came off the bench Tuesday because of a sprained ankle).

What was once one of the NBA's marquee rivalries — last Christmas, with foam fingers flying, it was LeBron and Shaq vs. Kobe — became a spectacle of another sort Tuesday.

The Lakers walloped the Cavaliers, 112-57, and yes it was that close. Those are the fewest points the Lakers have allowed since they moved to Los Angeles, and the 55-point margin of victory was their greatest since 1972.
 
And for the Cavaliers, their 21st loss in 22 games was remarkable, even for their standards.

Who knew the D-League had a franchise in Cleveland?

"It's definitely by far one of the most embarrassing moments that I've been a part of as far as the game of basketball," said Cavaliers veteran forward Antawn Jamison. "I don't know how much of this I can take, but this, by far, is rock bottom."

Taking this all in nearby was James himself. Through a quirk of the NBA schedule, the Miami Heat are in Los Angeles to play the Clippers on Wednesday. In fact, the Cavaliers and Heat were supposed to stay at the same hotel just off Rodeo Drive, but when Cleveland found out, the team switched hotels.

Alas, the game was too much for James to let pass.

Late in the fourth quarter, James posted on his Twitter account:

"Crazy. Karma is a b****.. Gets you every time. Its not good to wish bad on anybody. God sees everything!"

After "The Decision," apparently, comes "The Derision."

Jamison, either too humiliated or too classy, took the high road, shrugging his shoulders over James' tweet.

"If he feels that way, he's entitled to his opinion," Jamison said. "I've got more important things to worry about — I don't tweet, I don't Facebook. Hey, if he feels that way, I'm sorry he feels that way. But I've just got to worry about the guys who are part of this organization."

Said Lakers guard Shannon Brown, a former teammate of James' in Cleveland: "I know what he meant."

Being subjected to this from the Cleveland bench was Byron Scott, who had 48 minutes to ponder what may have been the blunder of his career when he took the Cavaliers job last summer while James was considering where to take his talents.

Presuming Jackson retires at the end of this season, it's fair to say that Scott — the former Lakers guard who took the New Jersey Nets to the Finals twice and was the NBA coach of the year with New Orleans — would have been in play as a candidate to replace Jackson.

Last season he was a guest in the suite of Lakers owner Jerry Buss – on the night Jackson, who was unsure whether he was wanted back, became the Lakers' winningest coach.

Scott also enjoys a good relationship with Kobe Bryant, whom he mentored when Bryant came into the league.

Asked before the game what consideration he gave to the Lakers' job opening last summer when he interviewed with the Cavaliers, Scott said: "None. I can't think about what's going to happen in the next two or three years."

What about the next 12 months?

"I couldn't think of that either," he said. "I wanted to take what I thought was the best opportunity. When I started having conversations, I thought that was a great opportunity, a great job no matter what LeBron was going to do.

"Do I regret that decision? By no means."

Then his team went out and made Scott look like an eternal optimist, less than forthright, or a fool.

The Cavaliers missed nine of their first 10 shots, and by halftime had scored 25 points. When Bryant, Derek Fisher and Ron Artest checked out for good — with 1:49 left in the third quarter – the Lakers led by 51 points.

"That was embarrassing," Scott said. "Guys looked scared, looked flat-out scared. You're playing against the world champions. Instead of just competing and playing as hard as you can, you guys look scared, you look scared to death."

It was such that even the cold-blooded Bryant felt empathy for Scott. "Absolutely," he said. "Absolutely."

Such there-for-the-grace-of-God feelings might have extended further up the Lakers' hierarchy. Where, after all, would the Lakers have been if Bryant, like James last summer, had left when he was a free agent in 2004?

"That's quite a question," Jackson said. "It's open to so much speculation. This was my counsel to Dr. Buss when they traded Shaquille (earlier that summer) — whenever a big impact player leaves, there never is an equal amount that can be traded that fills the vacuum in numbers for one superstar in basketball. Kareem, Chamberlain — you look at all those trades in days past, and none of them got to the point where they could replace that one individual that was as dynamic as those guys. It makes sense when you have a player that fits and it works to try to keep him."

That's a reality of the NBA that Cleveland is having to live with, one that is being driven home, one loss at a time.

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