HOOPSWORLD | Basketball News & NBA Rumors

In today’s edition of the NBA At 2: Byron Scott talks about the challenges facing the Cleveland Cavaliers…Houston wants a center, but what’s the cost?…Ray Allen earns Community Assist…NBA Chats.

When Will it End?
Bill Ingram

The Cleveland Cavaliers are in a class by themselves again this season, though not quite the class they would like. Last year they were atop the Eastern Conference . . .this year they’re at the bottom. The reasons are obvious, and well-documented. LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal and Zydrunas Ilgauskas are gone, Mo Williams and Anderson Varejao are injured, and the Cavaliers have now lost a record 26 games in a row.

The losing has been hard on everyone, but perhaps most on head coach Byron Scott. Scott is much more accustomed to winning, whether as a championship player with the Los Angeles Lakers or the head coach of the New Jersey Nets team that made it to the Finals and then a very, very good New Orleans Hornets squad. Scott recently admitted he’s losing sleep over his team’s streak of futility.

"You know, I tell the guys every night that we lose a game it hurts to my core and I think about it all night long. I wake up during the middle of the night four or five times, but when I finally get up it’s a brand new day and I think about us getting better as a basketball team. I don’t think you can dwell on the last game or the last 20, whatever the case may be. You have to move on and keep trying to improve as a basketball team, keep trying to help these guys improve as players. It hurts, obviously, because I’m not used to losing and we have a lot of guys here who aren’t used to it, but in the long run I think we’ll all be better because of it."

That may be true, but the process between getting better and being better seems to be a lengthy one. As much as Scott is looking for specific improvements, he can’t seem to get them all at once.

"It’s funny because every time we point to one thing we think we need to improve on the something else gets us. It’s like putting your in a leak in a boat and then another one starts and you start to run out of fingers. That seems to be the norm with us right now. We’ll talk about defensive rebounding one night and then that night it’s turnovers that hurt us. We’re still trying to put it all together. We have a bunch of young guys who are still learning, and we’re relying right now on three or four young guys that we didn’t anticipate playing at all this year. Like I said, I think it will benefit us in the end."

In the meantime, Scott is not taking the losing lightly, nor is he making excuses for his team. He’s taking the positive approach, making sure his team is focused on "when" the streak will end, not "if."

"I’m not questioning ‘if,’ and I hope they’re not questioning it, either. I made that point to them in the locker room because if they are questioning it and we keep playing the way we’ve been playing and keep improving every single game then it’s not a matter of if we’re going to win another game, it’s when. I wanted them to understand that I have all the confidence in the world in what we’re doing as a team and what we’re doing as a staff. They just have to continue to believe in what we’re doing, continue to go out every single night and put forth the same effort, and it will happen."

Many thought the streak might come to an end last night, when the Cavaliers hosted the struggling (but not quite AS struggling) Detroit Pistons. Instead, Cleveland came out of the gate flat and never caught up in a 94-103 loss. Scott was not amused, but his resilience and his positive attitude have been constants throughout the losing streak.

"I think it comes back to me, first of all," says Scott. "I’m the leader of this team, and I think they follow my lead. If they come into practice and I’m down and I’m disappointed I think they could see that and feel it. I come in every day very spirited, very ready to go, enthused about going to work and they see that every single day. I think that’s going to rub off. I’m not a loser. I’m not used to this. I’m very used to winning, and it’s going to take us a little time, but we’re going to get back to it."

Scott is also putting a brave face on the losing streak, and while it has to be eating away at him he says he doesn’t dwell on the record-breaking number.

"To be honest, I don’t care about that. I know it goes down in history, but I don’t care about that. I just care about this team and these young guys getting better. I don’t look at the numbers. This is the second one I’ve been involved in. As a player I was with the Vancouver Grizzlies when we lost 23 straight and now as a coach. I have a short-term memory when it comes to that kind of stuff. Next year I won’t even know what the number is, won’t even think about it."

Of course, next year the Cavaliers will have a very high draft pick in the mix, which will help immensely.

Nothing tests the character of a head coach like a losing streak, especially when his roster is not constructed in such a way as to easily snap the streak. Despite the losing, Scott remains a steady, confident leader for his young charges. As hard as the losing has been on the Cavaliers, it would be even harder with a lesser coach at the helm.

Rockets Targeting Centers in Trade
Jason Fleming

Portland Trail Blazers center Marcus Camby has been linked to the Houston Rockets before and is now being linked again as a possible trade target, along with L.A.Clippers center Chris Kaman and Sacramento Kings center Samuel Dalembert.

That the Rockets want to make a trade is not news. That they want a starting caliber center also is not news. The team has plenty of assets they could move, including the ending deals of Yao Ming (whose contract is mostly covered by insurance), Jared Jefferies, Shane Battier, and Chuck Hayes totaling $34.3 million. With just $41.7 million on the books for next season, the Rockets have the ability to take back a contract with more years on it if they think it will help them out.

Houston has indicated they have no plans to trade point guard Aaron Brooks, in the last year of his rookie scale contract, an asset who could change some team’s minds for any of these previously listed centers. 

But do any of those potential targets make sense?

{AUTHOR_BOX}Dalembert’s $13.4 million deal is also expiring, but what would motivate the Kings to do a deal with Houston? They don’t want to take on more salary then they are sending even if they are nowhere close to the luxury tax, because then they are just paying more for a team that won’t be getting better. The Rockets won’t give them additional assets either, such as a first-round pick, for Dalembert. With the Rockets into the luxury tax at commitments of over $74 million (Yao’s contract could possibly be reduced for lux tax purposes because of his injury), they don’t want to take back more than they send either.

Kaman is owed $12.2 million next year and would be a nice fit in the middle next to Luis Scola, but with players like Kevin Martin and Kyle Lowry on the wings it would be nice to have that new center be a shot blocker. Kaman is a decent defender and solid rebounder, but is not the kind of center who strikes fear into the other team’s slashing guards. Trading for Kaman would likely entail sending Jefferies or Battier, plus another player to make the salaries work. Or it could be Jefferies AND Battier, but is that enough to induce the Clips to trade top center (when healthy)?

And Camby. Camby’s injury history is lengthy and he is currently out after having arthroscopic surgery on his knee three weeks ago. He practiced with the Blazers yesterday, for 30 minutes, but it’s been deemed unlikely he returns to games until after the All-Star break – just a few days before the trade deadline. Given Houston’s history with injured centers (see Yao Ming), is this really who the team should target? Camby’s trade value is right around $10 million (depending on the source, because his contract is so heavily incentivized), so the cost would be Battier or Jefferies plus another player. Portland would desperately need a big man if they traded Camby. Would the Rockets trade Jordan Hill in such a deal and would that be enough for the Blazers?

One commonality between all three of the players mentioned is while the team involved would be willing to make a move, they aren’t dead set on trading their center.

It’s clear the Rockets want to make something happen before the trade deadline. So too would any of the aforementioned teams, but they don’t all have the same goals and finding the common ground for a deal could be difficult.

Is that enough for a deal to happen? Maybe. Stay tuned.

Community Assist Award for Ray Allen: The NBA today named Boston Celtics guard Ray Allen as the recipient of their NBA Cares Community Assist Award for January. Allen earned the award for his work with the families of soldiers stationed overseas and for his work with Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in Project 351, working towards building leaders for tomorrow in today’s youth.

“It’s crucial to support today’s youth because they are the next generation of leaders,” said Allen.  “Building technology labs and just taking the time to speak with them goes a long way.  I had a lot of people that helped me growing up and I want to do the same for our youth today.”

Allen also worked with the league in creating video vignettes that will air throughout the month of October about African-American leaders such as Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, W.E.B. Dubois, others.

Allen will receive the David Robinson Plaque to with the award and the NBA will donate $5,000 to a charity of Allen’s choice.

On top of all of that, Allen was named as a reserve for the Eastern Conference to the 2011 NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles and will take part in the Three-Point Shootout during All-Star Saturday festivities.

NBA Chats: Joel Brigham, based in Chicago and covering the Bulls as well as the rest of the NBA, will take your questions today at 4:30pm Eastern. Lang Greene, based in Atlanta, will take your questions tonight at 8pm Eastern.  All the upcoming chats can be seen here – and all the chat wraps are here.