The Redemption of the King. Vince McKee
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The Redemption of the King - Vince McKee страница 7
Название: The Redemption of the King
Автор: Vince McKee
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Спорт, фитнес
isbn: 9781578605729
isbn:
Jerry Mires also recalled the epic game fondly:
That was amazing! That was one of the most amazing things and performances I have ever seen in any sport during any generation in the history of sports in the United States of America and all the galaxies combined. It was just out of this world! I’m a LeBron James critic in a lot of ways, but that was just like basketball at its highest form! It was like some of those moments over the years that you see with guys like MJ and Larry Bird, where they just take a game over. LeBron James just took it over and dominated—he just refused to lose. That was basketball at its highest form, that run right there!
The Detroit Pistons focused all of their efforts during the game-six battle on trying to stop LeBron. They held him in modest check through the beginning of the game, but it would only be a matter of time before LeBron broke loose. With the Pistons’ attention elsewhere, it allowed rookie sensation Daniel “Boobie” Gibson to get open for several three-pointers. By the night’s end, Gibson had hit 5 three-pointers on his way to a game high of 31 points. The plan on focusing solely on LeBron exploded in the face of Detroit and allowed Gibson to come out red-hot, eventually leading Cleveland to the series-clinching win.
Roda also provided his impression of the clinching performance from Gibson and the Cavaliers: “It was Boobie who really went off that night. LeBron James’ numbers were good, but he was so exhausted from the incredible game five that it had a carry-over effect and Boobie Gibson was there to pick up the slack in game number six.”
Despite the outcome in the NBA Finals—a sweep by the San Antonio Spurs—the run of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2007 playoffs will always be remembered as the coming-out party for LeBron. Carman gave his reasons as to why they couldn’t get past San Antonio in the finals: “The San Antonio Spurs were a complete team full of great shooters being coached by a legendary coach in Gregg Popovich. They played great team basketball. It is humbling, but it shows you what to do as a measuring stick on how to reach that next level. In a team sport like basketball you have to be humble and not let one guy take over.” In a matter of four years the Cavaliers had managed to rebound from having the league’s worst record to reaching the NBA Finals. It was a remarkable turnaround, and now the only question remaining was not if they could get back to the finals, but when they did, could they win it all?
CHAPTER FOUR
Acquiring Talent
for LeBron
It was a quiet off-season. The team signed only one free agent of note: Devin Brown, a five-year veteran who had spent time with San Antonio, Denver, Utah, and New Orleans. He was a solid backup shooting guard, and with Larry Hughes’s injury concerns, the Cavaliers needed to have a reliable backup. The night before the opening game, the team received some good news: They had come to terms on a contract extension with Sasha Pavlović, who was holding out at the time. He would not be ready for the first few games but would return to action in time for their six-game West Coast road trip only a few days away. Cleveland got off to a slow start with the holdout of Anderson and an injury that kept LeBron out for seven games. It was looking as though a return to the finals would be a much harder and longer journey than the prior season.
The Cavaliers were still struggling to find their stride and slumped into a 14–17 record as the calendar turned to 2008. It was at this point that the team finally snapped out of its coma and got hot, eventually turning it around and achieving a winning record later into the season. As the Cavaliers entered into the last week of February with a 30–24 record, there had been rumors for a while that the Cavaliers chemistry wasn’t as good as prior years and that a major shake-up could happen. Despite the winning record, general manager Danny Ferry still felt that the team needed a change in order to return to the later rounds of the playoffs.
On February 21, 2008, Danny Ferry pulled off a blockbuster that no one saw coming. He took part in a three-team trade with the Chicago Bulls and Seattle SuperSonics that would change 25 percent of the Cavaliers’ roster. As part of a three-team trade, the Cleveland Cavaliers traded Donyell Marshall and Ira Newble to the Seattle SuperSonics and sent Shannon Brown, Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes, and Cedric Simmons to the Chicago Bulls; the Chicago Bulls traded Joe Smith, Ben Wallace, and a 2009 second-round draft pick (Danny Green was later selected) to the Cleveland Cavaliers; the Chicago Bulls traded Adrian Griffin to the Seattle SuperSonics; and the Seattle SuperSonics traded Wally Szczerbiak and Delonte West to the Cleveland Cavaliers. It was a crucial trade that brought on high risk but also the chance for a very high reward.
Roda explained why it was crucial for the trade to happen and his belief regarding why it occurred:
They had to bring in some veterans. They were coming in off of a season where they had been beaten in four straight games in the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. Even though some of the games were close, they needed to tweak the roster since they were already figuring out how to try and keep LeBron James as a player in Cleveland. So when you’re doing whatever you can to make him happy and make the team better, you need those two things in concert and have to do both if you want to get it done. They were trying to show him that they were going to do everything that they possibly could to make the Cavaliers a championship team and keep them at that level. I give Danny Ferry all the credit in the world. Was it the greatest trade? Clearly no, because they didn’t win a championship. But Danny Ferry had the pressure of trying to find the best deals out there to improve the Cavs chances of winning and also keep LeBron James. Danny was doing his job as a general manager to bring in the most talent he could to maintain the level of play for the Cavaliers at a championship level and keep LeBron James happy, so that is why he went all in. I give Danny Ferry a lot of credit—instead of just standing by and doing nothing, hoping that they would get back there again, they went all in. It didn’t work out, but I at least appreciate a general manager [who] if he’s going to go down, he’s going to go down swinging. Danny tried numerous times to get the right pieces and parts to make this a championship team. Unfortunately, they were unable to get back to the finals that season.
Carman also gave his thoughts on the big trade:
When you look at it now, that was the beginning of them trying to see what is going to be in the future. I have always thought that LeBron was so young that at this point, they were trying to see who they could bring in to please him. Now there is a difference in the resolve of LeBron that there wasn’t back then. We were already wondering if we could hold on to him, and he very much let that go on. He catered to those who believed he would leave for New York or Los Angeles. I think that there was a little bit of distrust in what he was going to do. You were hanging your hat on LeBron and wondering what he was going to do from time to time. You just tried to make him as comfortable as possible and make some moves to try СКАЧАТЬ