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Cavaliers behind the scenes: Diesel-powered ride
May 20, 2010
Bob Finnan
RFinnan@News-Herald.com
The 2009-10 season started so promising.
Optimism ran amok at media day on Sept. 28, even though there was an omen of bad things to come when the electricity went out.
Newly acquired center Shaquille O’Neal had to be interviewed with available sunlight.
It didn’t keep him from charming the assembled crowd.
Guard Delonte West spoke to the media that day at Cleveland Clinic Courts. He wouldn’t speak again for the rest of the season.
Cavs officials kept teasing the media.
“I think Delonte is just a day or two away from talking,” they’d say.
In essence, he had no intention of speaking. By the end of the season, no one wanted to talk to him anyway.
The following is a season-long diary of some of the weird and (hopefully) humorous happenings surrounding the team:
Who’s that guy?
At the annual Wine & Gold Scrimmage at the University of Akron, O’Neal was checking back into the game.
“I’m in for, er, that big guy,” he said.
He was referring to center Luke Nevill, a 7-foot rookie from Utah.
“I don’t know his name,” Shaq said.
That’s all right, Shaq. No one else did, either.
Belly grab
You’ve heard of a belly laugh? How about a belly grab? After practice one day, O’Neal came up behind Akron Beacon Journal writer George Thomas and grabbed his stomach and shook it.
Enough said.
Tony Tiger powered
O’Neal was asked about a comment an NBA owner supposedly made about steroids.
“What would Shaq be like on steroids?” he was asked after a preseason game against Dallas in Pittsburgh.
“I don’t want to comment on that because I didn’t hear what (the owner supposedly) said,” he answered.
O’Neal looked at me and asked if that’s something I think the owner would have said. I shook my head no.
The Cavs center then put his arm around the reporter from Pittsburgh and said, “The only steroids I use are Frosted Flakes.”
Charles Atlas-like?
Cavs coach Mike Brown had a good idea O’Neal would get himself in pretty good shape for training camp, especially when he got in the swimming pool against Olympic champion Michael Phelps in his ABC television show, “Shaq Vs.”
“I knew he wasn’t going to come out wearing a Speedo and looking like me,” Brown said.
Truth comes out
Despite being one of the biggest men on the planet, O’Neal often whispers during interviews. You’d think he’d have a bellowing voice.
Why does he speak so softly?
He admitted one day he talks low and mumbles just to mess with the media.
Thanks, Big Fella.
Free-agent talk
Before a game at The Q, LeBron James was being asked about possibly playing in New York.
O’Neal just happened to be walking by. He urged James to say he was going to play for the Knicks in free agency.
“I’ll give you $5 million to say you’re leaving,” O’Neal jokes. “C’mon, $10 million. I’ll bring it to your house in a bag.”
James didn’t bite on the gag.
It was really funny when it happened. It’s not so funny now.
Rough night
Thomas was carrying his laptop, press notes, notebook (and probably a big pretzel) out to his seat at the Target Center in Minnesota on Oct. 30.
He turned the corner and ran into a kid who worked for the Timberwolves. The collision knocked his laptop out of his hands. It hit the floor and the screen cracked.
Poor George. It made for a terrible night for him when the laptop didn’t work. A sportswriter without his laptop is like a master chef without his knives or a virtuoso without his violin.
Clyde is the man
Former Knicks guard Walt “Clyde” Frazier, who played briefly in Cleveland, got on a crowded elevator at Madison Square Garden with yours truly.
A lady who works at the Garden couldn’t keep her eyes off him.
“I see you in my bathroom every day,” she said.
Frazier, never one to be tongue-tied, didn’t know what to reply. He smiled and thanked her.
She was referring to her husband’s “Just for Men” formula for gray hair, for which Frazier is a spokesman.
I couldn’t stop laughing about the whole scene, which was good since the night started so terribly. Cavs basketball communications coordinator Tora Vinci had forgot to put my name on the media list. I got to the Garden, only to find no credentials and no seat. I dropped a few names and talked my way in.
Tora’s ears had to be ringing.
Night to forget
I gave Thomas a ride to The Palace of Auburn Hills from our hotel on Nov. 25, Thanksgiving eve.
We placed our computer bags in my trunk.
Once we arrived, I reached down to unlatch my trunk and felt the cable go limp. I’d been living life dangerously since I had the car. My trunk key didn’t work.
I realized I couldn’t get in my trunk, which isn’t a good thing since my computer bag contains my credentials, laptop and digital recorder. Of course, not only my stuff, but Thomas’ as well.
I went into the Palace’s command center and called AAA. The guy on the line said he doesn’t bother with locked trunks. I’m so happy I’ve been a member of AAA Plus for more than 25 years.
He suggests a locksmith. The three I call in the Auburn Hills area don’t even answer the phone (remember it’s about 7 p.m. on the night before Thanksgiving).
The Palace has a tow truck that jumps cars in the parking lot. That guy was afraid of being liable for any damage I might do to my trunk lock and won’t help me. I finally go to that guy’s boss, and he told him to meet me at my car.
I ask for a screwdriver and hammer, and start pounding the crap out of my trunk lock. After 10 minutes of pounding, I work up a good sweat, but still can’t get in.
Finally, I got in the backseat and tried to gain entrance into my trunk that way. I pounded on a lock behind my backseat and it dropped down, allowing me to enter.
I got a very late start to the game, but Thomas, Joe Gabriele of Cavs.com and others sent me quotes and audio from the pregame. Whew!
The last person I talked to when I left the press room that night was Brian Dulik, who was working on a story for Pro Basketball News.
Just when I thought I had a bad night, I heard what happened to Dulik. He hit a patch of ice on Interstate 75 south and banged into the guard rail. Then, while standing outside his car assessing the damage, a truck came by and slammed into his car. He said he dove over the guard rail to avoid being killed.
He was quite shaken up while sitting in the Toledo Police Station. That didn’t prevent him from sending out a message on Facebook that his car is totaled. His dad drove up to Toledo to get him.
The only thing that salvaged the entire trip? I stopped at Tony Packo’s restaurant in Toledo on the way home and got two of the best hot dogs in the world. Love that place.
Shopping sprees
James said he does most of his Christmas shopping for his family.
He doesn’t worry so much about sales going on (wonder why?). Some stars close down the stores they are in and do their shopping. James said that’s not the case with him.
Jokingly, I also wondered if someone like Randy Mims does his shopping for James. Just as I asked that, Mims walked by in the locker room.
His face appeared over my left shoulder and he said, “What did you say?”
Everyone got a few laughs out of it.
Sock puppets
When Fox Sports Ohio announcer Fred McLeod was a young broadcaster, he worked for a Steubenville TV station.
He also had a children’s show in which he did the day’s big news talking to a sock puppet named Dusty.
I wondered if he kept Dusty in a drawer somewhere at his home, but he said it was lost years ago.
Wrong question
There were rumors the Cavs had waived guard Coby Karl before the Washington game on Jan. 6.
“Will you be playing with your full roster?” I asked Brown before the game.
“Ahhh … yes,” he replied.
A second later, the Cavs handed out a release that Karl was waived.
What gives?
I should have just asked if Karl was waived instead of tip-toeing around the issue. Next time, I’ll be more blunt, like former Wooster Daily Record sportswriter Joe Vardon (now at the Toledo Blade), who bombarded Cavs interim coach Brendan Malone with the question, “So, are you done here?” on his last day on the job in 2005.
Vardon could have used a little more tact, but even Malone got a laugh out of it. Hours later, he was relieved of his duties.
New York state of mind
Center Zydrunas Ilgauskas spends much of the offseason in New York. He loves the food and culture and just about everything about it. He likes to walk his 150-pound Newfoundland, Beckham, around town.
During one of his family’s visits in the offseason, his oldest son said, “Dad, when are we going back to America?”
Z got to spend some bonus time in New York this year when he was traded at the deadline in February. He packed up his family and spent several weeks at his condo in SoHo.
It wasn’t until several members of the team visited him while the Cavs were playing in New Jersey that he finally agreed to return to the team.
Many observers wondered if it was a good idea, however, when Ilgauskas fell out of Brown’s rotation in the playoffs.
He’s not expected back next season.
Dimes from heaven
While walking along the causeway with the Plain Dealer’s Brian Windhorst to Bubba Gump’s shrimp joint in Miami, I saw a dime bouncing in front of us.
I made the comment that I don’t pick up pennies, but I pick up dimes. So I did.
Ten feet further, there was another one.
I looked up to the second level of the mall, but the bright sun prevented me from seeing anything but shadows.
I picked that one up, too, and went to the restaurant. There, we ate shrimp and watched the NFC championship game between New Orleans and Minnesota.
The next day at shootaround at AmericanAirlines Arena, Cavs forward Darnell Jackson asked if we always pick up dimes. He admitted he dropped the dimes from the second level of the mall.
We all yuck it up.
Jackson, though, is sent packing a few weeks later when the Cavs re-signed Z. He was picked up on waivers by the Milwaukee Bucks.
Jackson’s life was turned upside down when his 41-year-old mother died of a reported overdose of pain medication. Terrible story.
WWE
Prior to the Indiana game on Jan. 29, Cavs physical therapist George Sibel was stretching Shaq on the floor of the Conseco Fieldhouse locker room.
Suddenly, Shaq grabbed the 180-pound Sibel, and the two started wrestling on the floor.
Sibel held his own with the brute for about 25 seconds. Surely, he must have a wrestling background, even though he said later that he doesn’t.
By the way, do they have a 325-pound weight class?
Shaq eventually broke Sibel down and pummeled him.
Most fun experience
Shaq insisted that he had a ball playing for the Cavs this year.
“This one will be most memorable because I’m on my way out,” he said. “This is the (most fun) team I’ve been on.”
Then, he began to flirt with Fox Sports Ohio’s Dionne Miller.
“We have fabulous fans and good-looking media personnel,” he said, looking at Miller.
To which I replied, “Thank you.”
The “Big Fella” laughed heartily.
OK, he’s odd
Shaq started doing a hand gesture in which he pushed his fist into an open palm. He would come up to Coach Brown and do it and then walk away.
“I don’t know what this is yet,” Brown said. “But I give it back to him. I think it’s saying ‘Thank you’ and ‘You’re welcome’ in his language.”
Wrong exit
While trying to exit the Cavs’ locker room after the New Orleans game, Associated Press stringer Joe Magill, formerly with The News-Herald, walked directly into Coach Brown’s office. He opened the door and Brown, GM Danny Ferry and others all looked at him quizzically.
Whoops.
Gooseneck
While driving home from Detroit on March 17, I was speaking to The News-Herald’s Jeff Schudel on my cell phone. I was talking about a story I did on the Cavs’ 3-point shooters and the “gooseneck” sign they were making.
I said it would have made for a good video, but I told Schudel I couldn’t get my Flip camera out of my pocket fast enough when Cavs forward Jamario Moon was talking about it.
I was demonstrating the gooseneck as I was talking. I looked over to the next car on Interstate 75, and some guy thought I was waving at him.
Earth-moving experience?
While walking into the locker room in New Orleans, a wire from a Fox Sports Ohio camera wrapped around Thomas’ ankle, and he went down. Hard. As in dent-the-cement-floor hard.
Good thing the players didn’t see it. They would have had a field day.
I had to poke fun at Thomas since he had so much fun at my expense about me taking a hard fall while getting off a shuttle bus in Chicago the year before.
After most of the media had left the locker room, Hornets guard Chris Paul brought in his 2-year-old son. James picked up the little fella and gave him a hug. CP4, anyone?
Filet of Fish
Ilgauskas’ first game back at The Q on March 28 against Sacramento was quite a spectacle. The fans’ ovations were over the top.
The Cavs showed many video highlights of Z over the years, back when he had hair.
In one skit, they borrowed from the McDonald’s commercial sung to the tune of “Give Me Back My Filet of Fish, Give Me My Fish.”
They stuck Ferry’s head on the fish and he sang, “Give Me Back My Zydrunas, Give Me My Z.” It was a hoot.
Tough luck
While boarding a Continental flight from Houston to New Orleans in March, the announcement came over the PA system for “Pam Anderson.”
Every guy in the line’s head perked up — yes, me included — and we all looked around for the curvy, blond actress. The Continental clerk replied, “Not that Pam Anderson!”
I looked over and a woman who — to be kind — looked nothing like Anderson walked up to the counter.
No love lost
After the Cavs’ loss to Boston on April 4, former Boston Globe writer Peter May asked Brown about the hatred between the teams.
“Do you sense a little enmity between the two teams?” he asked.
Brown has a blank look on his face. He looked at me for help.
“That’s a good word,” he said. “Can you define that for me?”
May came to the rescue.
“Are they (ticked) off?” he explained.
“Now, you’re speaking my language,” Brown said. “I’m a meat-and-potatoes guy. I’m not that bright.”
Errant shot
Cavs forward Anderson Varejao didn’t have just one attempt at a game-winning shot in Chicago on April 8, but two.
The second one was a heave as time expired.
“I thought it had a chance to go in,” I said after the Bulls’ 109-108 win.
Z was laughing from the next locker stall.
He wondered about my vantage point.
“Where were you sitting … New Jersey?” Z quipped.
‘Mark Price for Threeeeee!’
I can still hear former public-address announcer Howie Chizek’s call at the old Richfield Coliseum after a 3-pointer.
Windhorst and I ran into Price before the regular-season finale on April 14 in the bowels of Philips Arena in Atlanta.
“You’ve heard of 10-day contracts,” Price quipped. “I want to sign a 10-hour contract.”
He might be 46 years old, but the man can still shoot the rock.
WWE in Chicago
Bulls GM John Paxson and Coach Vinny Del Negro reportedly got into a little skirmish this season regarding the playing time of center Joakim Noah.
Inquiring minds wanted to know if Ferry and Brown got into it, who would win? (They’re best of friends, of course.)
Some think it would be Ferry, who was once called “sewer dirty” by O’Neal when the former still played.
Even though the 6-10 Ferry has the decided reach advantage, I’d go with Brown. He might go inside and break Ferry up with some body punches.
Long run
I left the house on April 14 for Atlanta for the final regular-season game. My wife, Sue, certainly knows the score after all these years of being married to a sportswriter.
“See you in June,” she said.
Of course, neither of us accounted for the Cavs’ collapse in the Eastern Conference semifinals against Boston.
It’s amazing the Cavs had a 2-1 lead in the series. Nine days later, the season was over. The Celtics won the last three games by a combined 51 points and embarrassed the Cavs.
Is that Levin’s?
Shaq was discussing James’ strained elbow, which limited him in the playoffs.
“After I got my (thumb) surgery, I couldn’t even wipe my, er, furniture,” O’Neal said after Game 5 against Chicago on April 27.
I’m thinking he must have a plastic cover over his couch, something that was popular years ago to prevent wear and tear and to keep it from getting dirty. Yeah, that’s it.
Finally, about an hour later, I realize what he’s talking about and start laughing. By myself. In the press room. The other guys probably thought I was a whackjob.
Flatulence machine?
After Brown spoke after Game 1 of the Boston series on May 1, there were flatulence noises on the PA system. Loud noises. Remember, this is on national TV. Brown blamed it on Cavs vice president of communication, Tad Carper.
“Tad!” he jokes.
Carper, though, started looking under the podium for a fart machine. He was sure there was one, but nothing was found.
Thomas told us the next day he went dressed up as Shrek for one Halloween. He said he wore green makeup and had a fart machine attached to his leg to simulate Shrek’s constant flatulence.
I’d give anything to see the pictures of that one.
Smart aleck
Erie (Pa.) Times reporter Duane Rankin asked James if he was going to wear the same sleeve on his elbow in Game 3 that he wore in practice.
“I don’t know,” James said, “Are you going to wear the same hat tomorrow?”
Don’t do that
Shaq was interrupted by Medina Gazette reporter Rick Noland on May 6 while the former was still talking.
“Don’t ever interrupt me again, tough guy,” Shaq said.
No one knew if he was kidding. Could you image Shaq actually getting mad at someone?
Then everyone broke out in laughter, including Big Fella.
Hot Nosh
You don’t know how many times we’ve walked past the “Hot Nosh” vending machine at TD Garden and commented on it. There’s nothing like good nosh.
After Game 3 in Boston, the Plain Dealer’s Jodie Valade ordered some cheese sticks, which caused quite a bit of laughter among the writers while waiting for the media elevator. She sent out a camera-phone picture of the event, as I tasted the “fine cuisine.”
Donut with that?
I would have given anything to witness this one, but during the Dan Gilbert news conference after the Boston playoff series, there was a little accident.
Cane Man, a guy who uses a cane and who says he’s in the Cleveland media, accidentally poured hot coffee down the back of Plain Dealer columnist Bill Livingston.
Livy let out a loud shrill, but somehow refrained from busting the guy in the chops.
RFinnan@News-Herald.com
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