Frye cut, Quinn to start?

As a number of media outlets have reported, Ken Dorsey was spotted in Berea yesterday afternoon at Browns headquarters. This is the same Ken Dorsey who’s played mentor to Brady Quinn and who played for offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski at Miami. It’s the same Ken Dorsey who was cut last week, seemingly in favor of Derek Anderson, but at this point one has to speculate that the person whose job is in jeopardy is Charlie Frye.

The Plain Dealer suggests the Dorsey might be a stopgap until Brady Quinn is ready to start. Should this prove true — should Dorsey start this weekend against Cincinnati — then what we’ll be witnessing is the ultimate bungling of a roster. What happened against Pittsburgh that didn’t happen in the countless hours of practicing that made it obvious that Dorsey and not one of the other three quarterbacks is the guy who should be starting for the Browns? I know Frye and Anderson stunk up the joint, but it’s not as though Dorsey did anything on his end to improve his stock. Apparently at this point in the Browns season “not sucking” is worth a starting job by virtue of a lack of “decent” or “pretty good” or “solid” or “worthwhile” quarterbacks on roster.

Bibby not coming to Cleveland

That sound you just heard was an exhale from all the basketball fans in Cleveland with a strong command of the intricacies of the game, like who is a good player and who is an over-paid, under-performing, on-the-back-nine-of-his-career, downward-spiraling player. Mike Bibby falls into the later category and, thanks to a timely Mikki Moore signing (1), the Kings are no longer interested in signing a big man, which means they are no longer interested in Drew Gooden, which means that trade between the Cavs and Kings is off. This is all according to Brian Windhorst, who wrote this in his blog.

Though it took an unsightly mistake on the part of the Kings (Moore’s contract) to terminate the possibility of a trade for Bibby — and not, as one would expect, the collective knowledge of the Cavs’ FO — all that matters now is that the Cavs aren’t saddled with another albatross of a contract tied around the neck of a player who will not help the team in proportion to the amount of money he is paid. The Cavs have Larry Hughes and that’s about all the team can handle right now. Frankly, that’s probably all the aforementioned basketball fans can handle as well.

Other notes pilfered from Windhorst’s post:

* Shannon Brown was not impressive in the summer league. No surprise there. Brown has yet to look comfortable playing basketball professionally. He is a tweener without the benefits of either side: not the handle of a PG or the shooting ability of a SG. It’s probably too early to call his career a bust, but it’s not too early to predict that he’ll never amount to much more than a 7th man on a mediocre NBA team. That’s not to slight him: he was a late first round draft pick; very few players ever make it that far; it’s not your fault, Will.

* Daniel Gibson continues to impress. Does anyone else find it mildly interesting that the Cavs were obviously targeting Gibson before last year’s draft, that Gibson was clearly interested in playing for the Cavs, and yet he ended up going in the 2nd round and will forever outshine the player drafted ahead of him? On one hand you have to wonder about how wise it was to let Gibson fall all the way to the 42nd pick when it seems as though he was the player the team wanted all along. On the other hand, getting him in the second round is actually going to be a boon for Gibson because second round draft picks sign shorter rookie contracts than first round draft picks. That means Gibson will be a free agent sooner, which means more money sooner. So by letting Gibson fall to the second round the Cavs: a) risked not drafting him at all, and b) put themselves into a position to be more financially burdened by him should he turn into a stud player. Which is what any GM wants from a draft pick, right? What’s done is done and Cleveland fans should probably just be thankful that a Cleveland team made a good draft pick. But it would be nice to have the complete story on Gibson and the Cavs. It would also be nice to know what goes on in Danny Ferry’s head, what with this and wanting to trade for Bibby.

Then again, maybe not.

fn 1: Moore signed a 3-year, $18M contract with the Kings. Dave Berri provides a nice explanation of how Moore — a career journeyman who had made just about $10M for his career — came to sign such a lucrative contract. The key? Playing time.

Trent Green in Brown and Orange?

As I mentioned a few days ago in my post about the Phil Savage interview that the Plain Dealer published, what you hear from Savage regarding the upcoming draft can never be taken at face value. In the PD article Tony Grossi wrote:

The Browns general manager flatly stated on Monday the team is not interested in adding an experienced quarterback to the roster. But he did not rule out drafting a quarterback – in later rounds, if not the first.

So you can forget about Trent Green, David Carr, Daunte Culpepper, Anthony Wright or any other veteran quarterback coming to Cleveland.

You heard it there first, folks. Straight from the mouthpiece for the horse’s mouth. The Browns are not interested in adding an experienced quarterback to the roster. You can forget about Trent Green coming to Cleveland. Savage’s position on this matter is unequivocal. It’s Frye, Anderson, or a rookie QB to be named later.

With that in mind you should probably ignore this article from today’s Sun Sentinel, titled “Brows reportedly courting Chiefs QB Green.”

Chiefs President/General Manager Carl Peterson told the Kansas City Star on Wednesday that he was approached by the Cleveland Browns about potentially acquiring Green, who is on the trading block.

“We agreed to talk some more later this week or the first of next week,” Peterson said. “[Savage] said he wants to talk some more with his head coach and offensive coordinator. But he did ask whether this thing was over with. [DZ: “this thing” is Green being dealt to the Dolphins.] I said, ‘No, not at all.'”

Perhaps Savage changed his mind between Monday and Wednesday, going from Absolutely No Experienced Quarterbacks to Hey, Trent! More likely, though, this is just another example of how you cannot believe anything any general manager says ever.

Which raises the conundrum: If you can’t believe anything a general manager says, then what are you to make of the Chiefs’ general manager saying the Browns are interested in Trent Green?

Perhaps the rule should be: You can’t believe anything a general manager says ever about what he’s going to do in the NFL draft.

Thanks to Rebuilding Year for the heads up.

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Would Corey Maggette help?

Reports have surfaced that the LA Clippers are actively seeking a trade for G/F Corey Maggette. As of Monday one columnist thinks that the Spurs, who were considered to be one of the few teams interested in Maggette, are likely out of the running to acquire the former Duke player since other teams — such as Golden State — are in better positions to offer the Clippers more. One report speculates that Cleveland is interested in Maggette and might be one of the few teams engaged in talks with the Clippers’ front office.

I cannot speak to the validity of any of these reports. The former doesn’t mention the Cavs and the later suggests that a package of Wesley, Pavlovic, and a future first-round draft pick could be enough to win over the Clippers (the article says the LAC is seeking a veteran, a young star, and a first round pick). As any of you who’ve either watched a few Cavs games this season or read this blog know, Wesley and Pavlovic are not very enticing trade prospects. Wesley hasn’t played much; when he has he’s been unproductive; and that he hasn’t played much given the utter lack of productivity from the back court is a glaring signal of his ability to contribute meaningful minutes in the NBA. Pavlovic is stuck behind LBJ, which for the moment might be a good thing because the Cavs could always spin Pavlovic as an “unproven talent with a high upside” instead of something more closely related to what he’s done as a Cavalier, which would probably read “disinterested player with a knack for being on the wrong end of highlight films” (visions of a Wade-to-Shaq by way of a behind-Sasha’s back-dribble dance in one’s head). Also, the Cavs don’t have a first round draft pick for the 2007 draft, which is a major problem for this deal because future first round draft picks are not as sought after given that a) the 2007 draft class is rich in talent and b) the Cavs are a really good team that should keep improving. Undermining the report about the Cavs acquiring Maggette, then, is the idiotic package the report cites as the sort of package that would allow the Cavs to land Maggette.

No matter. It’s fun to speculate. Let’s do so now.

Suppose the Cavs could acquire Maggette without giving up any of the starters. Would such a move help the team?

Maggette has been an above-average G/F for most of his time in the NBA; in each of the last four seasons (2004-2007) Maggette has been above-average, his below-average seasons coming in 2000, 2002-3. For his career Maggette has a Win Score per minute average of .166. This season Maggette’s Win Score per minute is .180 (average for a shooting guard is .125; for a small forward, .152) and a WP48 of .135 (average is .100), so Maggette has clearly been a productive player this season.

A weakness of his on offense is inefficient shooting — his career average of .95 points per shot is slightly below league average, mostly attributable to his unjustifiable propensity for attempting three pointers (31% career shooter from downtown) — but he makes up for his shooting from the field with excellent shooting from the line — he’s a career 82% FT shooter who routinely averages more than 10 FTA per 48 minutes. This season he’s averaging a staggering 13.1 FTA per 48 minutes. Although he’s averaging only 15.6 points per game this season, he’s averaged as many as 22 ppg in the past. So he can score.

The Cavs do not need help in the front court. Again, for anyone who’s followed this blog or the team this much should be clear. LBJ will forever be holding down the 3-spot. Gooden/Marshall/Varejao/Ilgauskas hold down the 4-5 spots. The front court is beyond solid.

The problem with the Cavs is that the team does not have a back court. I mean, there are players — Snow, Jones, Hughes, Gibson — who are put on the court with the express purpose of playing, say, shooting guard. But there is a gap between “playing shooting guard” and “playing shooting guard well”; a gap that has yet to be covered with anything approaching regularity by any of these players. As the season wears on the chasm between “play” and “play well” is bound to expand, what with Eric Snow aging like Robin Williams in Jack and the compound buildup of bumps and bruises on the fragile body of Larry Hughes posing an increasingly greater threat of missed games due to injury.

The point being that Corey Maggette would best be used — and this is the only way the trade would would make sense — as a shooting guard. An added benefit is that Maggette is big enough to spell LBJ. But any notion of Maggette as a 3 while LBJ plays the 4 and someone else (Varejao or Ilgauskas most likely) plays the 5 is questionable at best. No, Maggette would only function as a shooting guard, which means that the odd man out is Larry Hughes, presuming Hughes is still unwilling to play PG.

Corey Maggette is a better player than Larry Hughes, so if adding Corey Maggette means less Larry Hughes then it is reasonable to think that Maggette would help the Cavs.

But then what becomes of Larry Hughes? The only way Hughes will have any trade value is if he plays. Of course, if he plays he has a greater risk of injury and injured players usually don’t have much trade value. Such is the conundrum of Larry Hughes. Maggette could also become a free agent after the season (he has a player option for ’08; this is a reason why trading Gooden for Maggette would be a very dumb move), and if the Cavs are unable to trade Hughes during this season then signing Maggette would be next to impossible and also a really bad basketball move — you just don’t employ two highly-paid shooting guards on one team. If the Cavs trade for Maggette they must think they’d be able to move Hughes. “Leasing” Maggette for a season — paying him this season and then hoping he walks — would undermine any faith Hughes would feel the team has in him. If his ego is as delicate as his body, this spells disaster. So Hughes would have to go. But who would take Hughes’s big contract? Even Isiah Thomas isn’t that bad of a GM and Danny Ferry has yet to show that he possesses the sort of ability of finesse the string of deals necessary to both bring Maggette in and ship Hughes out. But this is exactly the sort of thing that would need to happen.

The chain of cause and effect with a trade such as this is more complex and requires more time than I’m willing to give it. Suffice it to say that: a) Maggette is a better guard than any other guard on the roster, so employing Maggette would improve the team, but b) to employ Maggette would require the sort of basketball management moves the Cavs are not in a position to make, so c) I do not think Maggette will be a Cav this season.

Charlie Frye: QB Score: Week 17

Charlie Frye is nothing if not gutsy. Playing with a broken deeply bruised wrist — on his throwing hand, no less — Frye courageously stepped into the great fire of Reliant Stadium to face the mighty Houston Texans, a team that promptly reminded everyone — Frye, the coaches, the fans — just why the Browns seem so distant from the good light of the playoffs. Final score: 14-6.

QB Score: -5
QB Score per play: -.13

If you look here you will see the QB Scores for all qualifying NFL quarterbacks this season through week 16. What immediately stands out is the relative strength of the starting quarterbacks of this year’s playoff teams. Only Matt Hasselback, Eli Manning, and Rex Grossman have performed below average. Hasselback, of course, was injured for part of the season and Manning is guiding a sinking ship. Grossman is the only one of these quarterbacks that objectively stinks, in other words. In football isolating individual performances from the team is exceedingly difficult to do, so don’t read these QB Scores as absolute evidence that if tomorrow the Browns went out and signed Peyton Manning the team would suddenly go 11-5. But it is difficult to ignore the influence a quarterback can have on a team (see: Tom Brady) and to think that there is no relationship between the quality of a quarterback and a team’s chances of winning is overly optimistic (at least in the case of Browns fans who think that Frye’s is the arm to lead the team back to the postseason).

Here are the cumulative QB Scores for this season:

Frye
QB Score: -244
QB Score per play: -.51

Anderson
QB Score: -60
QB Score per play: -.47

Anderson played far less than Frye and the status of his shoulder is still uncertain, but based on their play this season there is no reason to support appointing Frye outright as the starting quarterback next season. Assuming Anderson is ready to go next preseason and no other quarterback in camp is a viable option as the starter, there ought to be an epic battle for the starting job between Frye and Anderson.

Of course, if Anderson and Frye are the only two quarterbacks in camp next year with a shot at earning the starting job then the Browns will have huge problems. After replacing significant portions of the coaching staff the next aim needs to be finding a quarterback. In the comments section of this blog there has been a fair amount of discussion going on concerning who the Browns need to bring in.

One name that I haven’t thought of since last year but who now looks like a fairly reasonable possibility is Matt Schaub of the Atlanta Falcons. Schaub is a restricted free agent this season and will become an unrestricted free agent after next season. With all the changes going on in Atlanta and with Mike Vick under contract for 10 billion dollars over 59 years Schaub would definitely leave as a free agent in 2008 — he is really good and some team will offer him starter’s money — so the Falcons will probably be actively seeking a deal this off season. Early indications seem to favor a trade with Oakland: Randy Moss for Matt Schaub. This trade would allow Oakland to select Calvin Johnson to replace Moss. One columnist thinks Atlanta should trade Schaub and ATL’s first and second round picks to either Detroit or Oakland for either team’s first draft pick and then use that top pick to select Johnson. This would be better than the Moss-for-Johnson deal for the Falcons by a wide margin, so let’s follow this trade rumor out a bit and see if it could lead to Cleveland.

Brady Quinn will be one of the first two draft picks, so that eliminates one of Oakland or Detroit from the Schaub trade. If the remaining team decides that, say, Joe Thomas is too good a prospect to turn down (and after today’s bowl game Thomas certainly looks better than advertised), which is entirely possible, then the Browns may very well be in the ideal position to step into this trade. Atlanta would still get Johnson, only at a cheaper price, which would satisfying them I am sure. The Browns would get a really good quarterback and an additional second-round pick, which this season looks like an incredibly enticing possibility. With the depth in the 2007 draft class sliding down to the middle of the first round wouldn’t necessarily preclude the Browns from getting an elite player, and with an additional second round pick the Browns could always role that into a higher draft choice, essentially trading down to #1o and then trading back up to #7, which would mean that the Browns would get a starting quarterback by giving up five spots in an incredibly deep draft. This would be a really, really, really big win were it to happen.

The potential foil is Tampa Bay. The Bucs are not in the market for a starting quarterback, having just resigned Chris Simms. But the Bucs are in the market for a wide receiver, meaning that a trade with Atlanta is highly unlikely. And if Johnson is off the board when the Browns draft then Schaub is probably off the trading block as well (at least as far as draft-day trades are concerned). So winning that damn coin flip could be a huge deal after all.

Coleman dead; Dellucci an Indian

Casey Coleman died yesterday after a long and noble battle with pancreatic cancer. The sports boadcasters in Cleveland generally fall into two camps: absolutely terrible or absolutely wonderful. Colemen was the leader of the absolutely wonderful camp. He’ll be missed.

***

Fox Sports is reporting that the Indians have reached a three-year, $11.5M deal former Texas and Philly OF David Dellucci. Ken Rosenthal suggests that Dellucci will platoon with Jason Michaels in LF while Choo will man RF. Casey Blake will play 1B, meaning that Garko could very well be used as trade bait in the Indians’ ongoing effort to find a solid RP.

Cavs update 8/19

Yesterday the Cavs signed Scot Pollard, formerly of the Indiana Pacers, to a one-year, $2 million contract. He’s a career 4.7/5 player who’s best known for his ever-changing hairstyles. He will share time with Varejao (and Marshall) in relief of Gooden and Ilgauskas, probably playing about 10-15 minutes per game. Pollard is a solid defender who is best offensively when running in the open court, which suits him quite well to this Cavs team. He won’t score a lot of points, but then again the power forward position is not relied upon to provide much in terms of scoring anyway. Anyone who can bring some form of toughness to the frontcourt will be well appreciated. If anything, we won’t have to watch Varejao hack Rasheed Wallace in retaliation for Wallace’s brutal elbow to Ilgauskas’s head–Pollard will certainly be doing the dirty work, a role he embraces with glee. Speaking of which, that no one else stepped up when Wallace put a huge gash in Z’s head is very troubling. Who would have thought the skinniest guy on the team would also be the player with the biggest balls? If there was a single moment in which Varejao endeared himself to me (and to a lot of Cavs fans) it was when he (somewhat) violently hacked Wallace to the floor. Where was Gooden? Where was Marshall? Where was LeBron? Oh, I know where LeBron was–buddying it up with Wallace after the game. For all of David Stern‘s silly worrying about the urbanization of the NBA, nothing signals that all the tattoos and shiny jewelry are just a weak front to cover up the gentrification of NBA players more than the hug session that went on after that Cavs-Pistons game. You think Dennis Rodman or Bill Laimbeer would have been hugging it out like an episode of Entourage? Hell no. Anyway, I could go on, but I’ll stop.

The Cavs also traded Martynas Andriuskevicius to the Bulls for second-year guard Eddie Basden. This trade was partly motivated by financial considerations–Andriuskevicius’s contract is guaranteed while Basden’s is not. Andriuskevicius is also far from an NBA-ready player and the Cavs don’t have the roster space to keep such a player around. Trading him to the Bulls is less about his skill than about the Cavs’ current and future roster options. Also, the Cavs will save on letters for the back of jerseys. Basden played very little for the Bulls last season. Twice he was the Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year. He’s 6-foot-five and can only play SG, so he comes to the team with a fairly limited range. If he plays at all–first he must beat out Stephen Graham in training camp–it’ll be in spot duty as a defensive stopper.

Basden gives the Cavs about 47 SGs/SFs. Not surprisingly, the Cavs are actively seeking trades for both Sasha Pavlovic and Luke Jackson, according to the Akron Beacon Journal, and the first team to offer anything within the vicinity of a serviceable player will likely walk away with Damon Jones (and his contract). Pavlovic and Jackson are both in the last years of their contracts. Jackson is beginning to look like Larry Hughes but without the skill. That is to say, a player who can’t avoid hurting himself. Pavlovic will always be remembered as the rube on the wrong end of this Dwayne Wade highlight. Assuming he’s able to overcome the stigma of being attached to a play that’ll likely be shown in countless highlight reels for the rest of Wade’s career, he could turn into a solid backup SG/SF capable of starting in the occasional game.

Cavs update 8/13

Drew Gooden is still not signed and there might not be any movement on those negotiations until restricted free agent Chris Wilcox accepts an offer, according to the Lorain Morning Journal. Wilcox, 23, compares favorably to Gooden, 24. After being traded from the Clippers to the Sonics late last season, Wilcox averaged 14.5 ppg on 59.2% shooting and 8.2 rpg, all in 30 minutes per game. For the season he averaged 8.1 ppg and 5.3 rpg. Gooden, in just less than 30 minutes per game last season, averaged 10.7 ppg on 51.2% shooting and 8.4 rpg. The Sonics have offered Wilcox a three-year deal worth approximately $21 million. Should Wilcox accept the terms of this contract expect to see the Cavs use it to move Gooden’s agent away from the $10 million per year, long-term (4-6 years) contract he’s seeking for his client.

Then there is the luxury tax. Right now the Cavs have about $55 million committed in salaries for the upcoming season. The luxury tax line is set at $64.5 million. A most unfortunate chunk of the cap is being spent on Larry Hughes, whose base salary this season, according to the Akron Beacon Journal, will be about $13.4 million, or $3 million more than last season. This after Hughes reached $2 million in incentives last season, the largest of which he earned after the Cavs won their 47th game…despite playing in only 32 games. Donyell Marshall reached $400k in incentives last season, bumping his salary this season to $5.63 million. At least he played in 81 games. The $55 million does not include Gooden.

But the Cavs already have nearly $60 million committed to the 2007-08 team, when LBJ’s new contract starts. And as the ABJ points out, “[the 2007-08] total also does not include Anderson Varejao, who will be a free agent and in line for a massive raise on his $945,000 salary this season.” Unless the Cavs turn into the Knicks, there is no way the team will pay to employ both Varejao and Gooden without first dealing away other players to clear room under the cap. The looming luxury tax, according to the ABJ, is

…the reason the Cavs haven’t been eager to use their salary-cap exceptions ($5.2 million for the mid-level and $1.8 million for the biannual) this summer – especially in a free agent market they think is weak. If Gooden takes the one-year deal to become an unrestricted free agent next summer, using both exceptions this summer would make the Cavs a taxpayer now. Simply put, the Cavs are not willing to cross that line just to sign a player like Gooden or any other free agent. Someday, Gilbert might do it if he feels his team is close to a title, and the spending could put them over the top. That day is not at hand.

It should be no surprise, then, that the Cavs have not offered Reggie Evans a contract, though the Timberwolves have ($1.75 million). The Nuggets, equally worried about the luxury tax, remain the frontrunners to sign Evans.

The big gamble facing the Cavs is the following: The Cavs can afford to out-spend the Nuggets, so if salary matters to Evans, the Cavs are in a position to pay more for his services than the other interested teams. Doing so would mean that Gooden won’t be a Cav next season, which means the Cavs would have to find a team willing to do a sign-and-trade for Gooden. This team would have to be willing to part with at least one first-round draft pick. Then the Cavs would sign Varejao. The gamble is that if the Cavs traded away Gooden this offseason they would do so at least in part to sign Varejao, a player who has not been a starter for any meaningful length of time and who still is a raw talent. A fair compliment to Varejao, however, is Reggie Evans, who is essentially a really strong, athletic big man. There are ways to rearrange the roster so that both Gooden and Varejao could remain Cavs, but those ways–get rid of Damon Jones and Eric Snow–are less gambles than savvy business moves.

That said, Eric Snow is not the problem facing the Cavs this season. Yes, his contract is crazy (owed about $20 million over the next three seasons) and, when combined with his age, makes trading him nearly impossible. But Snow was also the Cavs’ best defender last season, and the distance between Snow and whoever was #2 wasn’t even close. Snow often found himself guarding PGs, SGs, and SFs, and occasionally guarding PFs. Snow might be a liability on the offensive end since he can’t shoot, but he also doesn’t turn the ball over (4.2 apg/1.4 tpg), which is a more important quality for a PG than shooting ability. Plus, the Cavs’ offense wasn’t the problem. Per 100 possessions the Cavs averaged 108 points, which easily puts them in the upper half of all teams (the NBA average was 106.2). Snow is a perfect player to have on the roster to teach the young guards how to play–and the Cavs have a lot of young guards (Jackson, Hughes, Gibson, Brown). That Snow was the starting PG last season and will start this season as the starting PG says more about the front office than it doesn’t about Snow. If there is an aging player owed a ton of money whose utility to the team is declining each minute, it is not Snow—it’s Ilguaskas, and there is nothing about Ilguaskas’s personality that leads me to believe that he’s a good player to teach up the young centers in the way that Snow is a good player to teach up the young guards. Where was Ilguaskas this past postseason? On the bench, because he’s one of the Cavs’ worst defenders and he’s as detrimental to the offense as Snow. (Which is not to say that Ilguaskas is as poor on offense as Snow–he’s much better than Snow. It’s only to say that the style of play that suits Ilguaskas is not the style of play that suits the Cavs as long as LBJ is on the court.) Varejao’s postseason coming-out party was as much the result of necessity–the Wizards and Pistons were killing Z with their athletic big men–as it was the result of Varejao playing his way into the lineup. Z can still be a great player, don’t get me wrong. Often cited during Cavs games is that Ilguaskas is one of only one or two ‘true’ centers in the Eastern Conference. It’s always meant as a compliment. But it should be a red herring, since the type of player capable of rendering Ilguaskas a liability is the type of player who will never be classified as a ‘true’ center.

Cavs rumor update 8/2

According to a report in the Akron Beacon Journal, the Cavs “met Tuesday with free-agent forward Reggie Evans at an undisclosed location outside of Cleveland”. The Reggie Evans Sweepstakes has come down to two teams: The Nuggets and Cavs. To sign Evans both teams would have to dip into their $5.2 million mid-level exception money, but since the Nuggets are only $3 million under the luxury tax line–and unwilling to cross it–the Cavs are able to offer Evans more money. The Sweepstakes will come down to whether Evans is willing to take a hometown discount to stay in Denver.

The Willoughby News-Herald reports that movement on either the Evans signing or Gooden resigning could happen as soon as today. According to the article:

Sources say something major is going down with the Cavaliers today.

Since there have been no reports that the Gooden conversations have yielding anything in the last two weeks, it’s probably safe to assume that, should this bold claim turn out, Evans signing with the Cavs would be the major something.

Players who won’t be Cavs next season

As was reported on this site late last week, free agent Devean George was offered a contract by the Dallas Mavericks but didn’t sign it because he was still looking at other offers. Specifically, the Cavs were interested in George (and so were the Suns). Well, George has agreed to sign a two-year $4.2 million contract with the Mavs.

Meanwhile, another free agent the Cavs are targeting—Reggie Evans—wants to stay in Denver but may not because to sign Evans to much more than a $2 million contract would require going over the luxury tax line, something the Nuggets seem reluctant to do.

If the Cavs don’t sign Gooden–and there is no movement in the negotiations as far as I can tell–Evans is the next best option. If Evans stays in Denver…well, let’s hope the Cavs resign Gooden and, if that doesn’t work out, that Evans follows the money.

In other news, former Cavs benchwarmer Jeri Welsch is (finally) out of the NBA. He’s signed with Spanish team Unicaja. That was a traded first-round draft pick well spent.