Remember when Kyrie Irving started his NBA career by shooting 2/12 in a 104-96 loss to the Toronto Bobcats?  Cleveland fans were ready to make a visit to the I-480 bridge and the small but vocal minority who wanted Derrick Williams and Brandon Knight were temporarily vindicated.  Kyrie Irving obviously proved them wrong and he turned out to be better than expected.

The small amount of fans who opted to watch Summer League basketball instead of the season premier of Breaking Bad were treated to a sub-par performance from the newest Cavaliers guard.  Dion Waiters took 11 shot and missed 8 of them.  The fact that he missed shots was not that concerning.  It was how he missed them.  There were field goal attempts taken that lacked any rhythm and he missed in many different ways.  Sometimes it was wide-right and other times it was way too short.

This is not to say that there weren't any positive things to take away from Dion Waiters' professional debut.  He split multiple defenders and had an amazing basket in the paint in the second half.  It is important for him to try and take advantage of that skill-set of his when his jump shot is not falling.  Waiters also converted on a huge basket late in the fourth quarter that put the Cavs up 64-63 with 12.8 seconds left.  The Cavs could not stop the Kemba Walker from scoring on the ensuing possession and things got weird after that.  Down one and with the ball, Dion Waiters paid homage to Chris Weber and called a timeout that his team did not have.  The officials called a technical and the Cavs lost by a final score of 68-64.  Waiters finished with 10 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 1 steal in 31:43 minutes of play.

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Chris Grant loves veterans.  It doesn't matter whether or not they can play or are hopelessly inefficient.  There have been rumors tying the Cavs to Derek Fisher, Michael Redd and Brandon Roy.  These are all players who either have a long history or were once elite at their craft at one point in time.  Young teams need players who have spent time in the NBA to show the more inexperienced guys the ropes.  This is a valuable skill that can pay dividends for a team trying to find its way.  It would be great if the Cavs could acquire a veteran who actually can play.  Doing so is easier said than done because these are players who typically acompany large salaries or who do not want to spend the prime of their career tutoring a young team on how to act like professionals and play winning basketball.  The Cavs have had to settle for veterans like Anthony Parker and have been rumored to have interest in Derek Fisher because they simply do not have an option of acquiring a veteran who still has skills.

Until now.

The Houston Rockets are up to something.  Daryl Morey, the GM of the Rockets, has made a series of puzzling personnel moves and is apparently trying to get Dwight Howard from the Orlando Magic.  Houston had three first round picks in the 2012 draft.  Additionally,  Morey has made a series of trades.  The Rockets also tendered large contract offers to Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin.  The most bizarre transaction took place on Thursday night when Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported that the Rockets will use the amnesty provision on big man Luis Scola.

Although his NBA career didn't begin until 2007, Scola's was drafted 56th overall in the 2002 draft by the San Antonio Spurs.  The 32 year old power forward is 6'9" and is the exact type of veteran the Cavs can use.  He averaged 15.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 2.1 assists in 31 minutes per game last year.  Other than his more the adequate statistics, the most impressive thing about Luis Scola is that he is never injured.  He has played 386 out of 394 possible regular season games.  Scola is a skilled offensive player who would fit in very well with the other Cavalier big men. If you take a look at his field goal percentages from different areas on the court, you see a player who scores efficiently from just about anywhere short of the three point line.

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The newest buzzword that sports fans love to use is "loyalty."  It is a loaded word.  Need proof of it?  Here is exhibit A and exhibit B.  Using the phrase "loyalty" in an attempt to argue that athletes should spend their career playing for teams whose ceiling is limited pulls at the heartstrings.  Sometimes the idea of losing a great player hurts, so it is easier to guilt them into staying or questioning their character when they leave.

Dwight Howard should leave the Orlando Magic.  He has not been a perfect employee.  Howard has been nothing but a headache for the team for the past few years and it all came to a boil this past season when he and teammate Jameer Nelson reportedly had to be separated because they almost came to blows on at least one occasion.  Dwight Howard has not handled his situation very well for the Magic, but the his team has also failed him.  Howard and the Magic is a classic case of one or two bad personnel decisions and countless bad and expensive roster moves that were made in response.  Drafting someone 11th overall in 2005 who has yet to play for your team sets off a chain reaction that is akin to trying to go up an escalator that is moving downward.  You may be able to pull it off, but before you know it you just handed out $118 million dollars to a one-dimensional player.

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It is early July in Cleveland, and that can only mean one thing: A frustratingly-low amount of activity in the free agency front.  Every year, there are rumors about who the Cavs will target.  Like clockwork, the Cavs strike out swinging and come away empty-handed.  Sometimes the Cavs can swing a deal with a player and they are able to bring in the talents of Joey Graham, Devin Brown or Tarrence Kinsey.  When that happens, Cleveland fans find themselves wishing nothing happened at all.

Watching free agents sign with teams like the Portland Trailblazers, Houston Rockets, Brooklyn Nets and Minnesota Timberwolves is irritating.  We are tired of watching the Cavs lose and do not want to suffer through painful losses in order to secure talented players through the draft.  It would be nice to be able to sign a player like Nicolas Batum or Roy Hibbert and to speed up the rebuilding process exponentially.

Unfortunately for the Cavs, the franchise is not close to contending.  If both draft picks from the 2012 draft pan out, they will be closer than they were a year ago.  Having said that, they are not going to be an attractive destination for free agents.  In order to secure a player like Batum, the Cavs would have to offer him more than the 45-50 million that the Timberwolves offered him.  In addition to the massive amount of money it would cost to lure him to Cleveland, he is restricted and the Cavs would likely find themselves doing the bargaining for the Portland Trailblazers.  The nature of unrestricted free agency makes it so the potential suitor would have to really overpay so the old team would be willing to let the player walk away.  

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