Written by Brian McPeek

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You have to give credit to the Orlando Magic. While their fans rubbed their hands and eagerly awaited the winner of the Cavaliers-Boston series the Magic players just sat back and waited to mop the floor with the winner. They licked their lips, penciled in the Finals dates on their calendars and then stretched back in their La-Z Boys in anticipation of another chance to play for a title.

It’s quite sporting of the boys from Orlando to spot the Celtics a 3-0 series lead. I can’t wait to see the Magic start kicking some ass now.

I’m not sure if the Celtics played possum all season long or if there is just momentum and wind in their tired, old sails. But they are on an epic roll. At this point I’m hoping they do win a world title. Not because I like the Celtics. But rather because them winning would take some of the sting out of the Cavaliers collapse. Looking down the road a month or so, if the Celtics win the title, one could look back and come up with the theory that the Cavaliers just got bull-dozed by a championship team with three potential Hall of Famers on the roster. History may well indicate the Cavaliers were the most difficult bump in the Boston road if things keep going this way.

If that happens then some of the hard feelings some of us harbor for the way the Cavs went out will be scarred over. It may not be the stone cold truth, but we all rationalize on a daily basis to get us past difficult times.

The media will help. When they’re not writing “Where will LeBron Go?” columns they’ll be toasting the professionalism and skill of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. They’ll be falling all over themselves trying to praise Rajon Rondo for his coming out party. What I’m saying is that anything that causes people to think twice about the Cavaliers stunning demise in the semi-finals is a good thing.

So although it’s a bitter pill to swallow, well, I’m closing my eyes, popping that pill, throwing my head back and hoping something that tastes really awful will numb the pain and fog the memory of a terrible event that would be best forgotten for the time being.

Baller or Blackboard Guru?

I have a lot of friends who are huge NBA fans. I bounce thoughts and rumors off of them to get some input and to help formulate my own thoughts and opinions. And almost to a man these NBA guys believe the Cavs have reaped as much benefit from a technical coach like Mike Brown as they possibly can.

Brown came in as a player’s coach and he’ll leave (and he WILL be leaving shortly) as a guy who ingrained a defensive philosophy into a team lacking one but also as a guy who, despite big regular season win numbers, couldn’t coach a team to the tile.

Most of the guys I talk to believe the next coach needs to be a former player who’s been under the heat lamp of competition and can finish off the Cavs’ competitiveness. They think a guy like LBJ, if he comes back, needs to respect the coach as much for his ability and experience in playing the game as he does for his ability with X’s and O’s. And it makes some sense to me. Brown was fine for a young team on its way up. He impressed upon them the importance of competing on the defensive end of the court and showed them that good defense could lead to easy, highlight reel offense.

James himself went from a guy who thought defense was the time when you didn’t have the ball in your hands to an All-Defensive NBA regular. That defensive mentality is embedded in the core of this Cavaliers team. They lost that defensive focus and intensity when Mike Brown lost his team a few weeks back. But it’s there.

The next coach needs to be a guy who played the game at this level. He can’t and won’t be a guy who graduated from film coordinator to assistant coach, to top assistant coach to head coach. A guy like Mark Jackson, who played 17 seasons in the NBA and is a credible NBA analyst, may be a possibility. But it’s going to be either someone like that or a coach who’s won a title or two who lands this Cavaliers gig.

Now, all bets are off if this team gets blown up. I don’t what kind of coach they’ll seek at that point and I hope to God I don’t have to find out.

Walking a Fine Line

Regardless of whom you want to see coach the Cavaliers going forward, LeBron James should have no say in the matter whatsoever. If you want to play nice and seek players’ opinions about a candidate then knock yourself out. But at the end of the day, entrusting or forcing that organizational decision to a player is a recipe for disaster.

James has enough sycophants around him 20 hours per day. He doesn’t need and won’t ultimately respect another coach who bends to James’s will and puts him on a pedestal. James is going to need to grow up and realize that coaches coach and players play. While he may have an opinion regarding whom gets the Cavaliers job he needs to work on his game this summer and show up wherever he signs ready to quit whining and pouting and start accumulating the titles he believes he’s entitled to.

James’s reputation as an entitled prima donna is in full bloom already. I’m not sure if the guys he’s surrounded himself with are willing to admit that or even if LBJ sees it himself. But it’s a fact. His reputation took a huge hit with the Boston series. If he wants to get off the ‘Best Player Who Never…’ list he’ll make an informed decision about where the best place for him to play is and then he’ll get to playing.

Can One Be Very Ambivalent?

I’m not sure if there are varying levels of ambivalence or if that’s an oxymoron. I do know that I’ve never been less interested in a baseball team than I am with the current version of the Cleveland Indians.

I think the biggest reason for that is that they have no identity. They don’t seem to be a promising young team consisting of a talented core of players who are learning to win and play at the major league level. If they are, which players make up that young, talented core?

They’re not a team loaded with veterans just marking their time until they ht the halfway point of the season and then turn it on to chase down a playoff spot. If they are, who are the talented veterans that you think are pacing themselves.

This team’s identity is simply that of a bad baseball team that’s paddling in major league waters with no direction and seemingly no map. They have far more concerns than bright spots and far more roster spots being held by unproductive players than spots being kept by legitimate prospects and All-Star caliber guys.

I still watch and listen as much as sanity will allow. But this is a really difficult team to like or to relate to.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: maybe they need to get rid of Eric Wedge and Derek Shelton. Wedge is not inspiring any production out of Jhonny Peralta or Luis Valbuena and Shelton can’t get anything out of Travis Hafner or Russell Branyan. Maybe a Hispanic manager should be brought in to relate to the Latino players and Shelton should be replaced by the next name on the ‘Hot Hitting Coach’ list.

Maybe that would light a fire?

Weekly Lou Marson Watch

Our underwhelming hero and every day catcher is still stuck at one RBI in 95 ABs. That means he still trails Tim Lincecum by the same two RBI that he trailed him by two weeks ago. It also means Jays starter Shawn Marcum, who knocked in a run during an interleague game Sunday, has now also gotten even with Marson on the season. I don’t feel like looking for AL relief pitchers that may have knocked in a run so suffice it to say that Marson is still struggling at the plate as he has for the first two months of the season.

The good news is a grand slam will move him ahead of Matt LaPorta in RBI for the Tribe. Actually, that’s not really good news when I think about it. Okay, the good news is that Marson has only one more passed balls than RBI and his average is now up to .202.

Never mind.

Let’s just say Marson perfectly sums up the 2010 Cleveland Indians for me. That would be safe.