LeBron's decision: Slam door on dunk contest

It was a thought too luscious to consider. It was something you had longed for -- dreamed about, really -- hoping it was more than words floating in the air like the aroma of fresh peach cobbler.

You wanted to believe more than disbelieve, and LeBron James had left much for basketball fans to discuss: In or out, who could say for sure?

He had dropped hints that he might be "in." Yes, LeBron had weighed putting his name into the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, an All-Star Game sideshow that used to be cooler than the game itself.

But its cool factor has taken a beating in recent seasons. The contest is akin now to pay phones in an IPhone era. For gone are the days when Dominique Wilkins, Larry Nance, Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter and Air Jordan himself - the highest of the high flyers -- signed up for the slam-fest.

The contest needed a big name to revive interest in it, and no name in the NBA is bigger these days than LeBron's. Of course, having Kobe back would have heightened interest in the contest as well, but Kobe had done his turn. He won the contest in '97 when it was played in Cleveland, LeBron's town.

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Going global: Cavs love Chinese partnership

It was a gigantic step.

Of course, the Cavaliers had made bold moves like this before. Two years ago, they had stepped into the global world when they played three exhibition games in China.

LeBron James and the Gang exposed China and its people to the NBA's brand of basketball. The team was a smash hit -- as big as anything seen on Broadway.

But bigger things were there for the franchise, and team officials couldn't let this initial economic opportunity slip away, could they?

Absolutely not.

Since then, Cavaliers officials have been negotiating with a Chinese company to sell it a "substantial" stake in the franchise. Those talks are winding toward a conclusion, helping to push the Cleveland Cavalier brand deeper into the Chinese psyche. Yet even this was just a starting point for an economic foothold there.

On Monday, the franchise deepened its penetration into this two-billion-person market when team officials signed a marketing deal with Tsingtao Brewery Co., the largest beer brewer in China and the seventh largest in the world.

"This is certainly symbolic," said Len Komoroski, team president. "We are very excited that Tsingtao shares the same values that we do. We look forward to working with them to create a positive impact in Northeast Ohio."

Tsingtao (pronounced CHING dow) will partner with the Cavaliers on a number of local initiatives, and its beer brand will have a prominent place inside Quicken Loans Arena with permanent signage, Komoroski said. The beermaker will team with the Cavaliers on cultural and educational programs in the region.

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Shaq puts his muscle behind Cavaliers win

This is the Shaquille O'Neal that coach Mike Brown and the Cavaliers were hoping they would get. This Shaq, all 325 pounds of him, proved an indomitable force inside; this Shaq scored points; this Shaq guarded the paint like a Secret Service agent. He made a dynamic complement for LeBron James.

Now, perhaps I overvalued this one performance. Sure, Shaq finished with a double-double (14 points, 11 rebounds), but he did so against the Trailblazers, a team with a few fine pieces like Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge but with no one capable of pushing Shaq around inside.

"Anytime we can attack the rim, anytime that we get 'The Big Fella' playing with the will and the force that he played with, we can score a lot of points in the paint," said Brown, who bordered on giddy about a 104-99 win his Cavs came away with Friday night. "It showed in this game."

Brown got all he could ask of "The Big Fella" in a game the Cavaliers needed. They had limped back to The Q with two losses from a short road trip, and in those games, Shaq didn't dominate as Brown had hoped.

Shaq was all but invisible Wednesday night against the Rockets, a smallish, quick team that gave the Cavs fits inside. The loss to the Rockets is behind the Cavs. He doesn't have to figure out how the Cavs can better matchup against a team like Houston.

For the Rockets aren't a concern of Brown's now, not that he was happy they had beaten his team. But they aren't in the Eastern Conference, and the only way his Cavaliers will meet Houston is in the NBA Finals in June. That should give Brown ample time to devise a strategy that might be more effective.

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Best word for King James: Classless

On the floor in the middle of the locker room, a Cavs trainer pulled and bent and rubbed to loosen King James' muscles. While the trainer worked on his body, the King, a set of gold-colored headphones atop his head, sang.

Ignoring the crush of journalists in the room, the King -- aka LeBron James -- engrossed himself in the music. He was in no hurry to hold court.

So as the media waited, the King rapped aloud. He proved no candidate for "American Idol," but he never claimed his greatness extended beyond business and basketball. He's crafted an image like Mike's: of class and of sophisticated cool.

But isn't class a constant? Shouldn't class be something a star athlete guards jealously?

I wish I could use the word class to describe any part of the King's five-minute rendition Wednesday night of a profane rap song. I don't know whose work the King sang; I do know he picked the wrong venue to perform it.

Yes, the King was in his domain, and the locker room has always been the province of the players and not the media. You hang out in locker rooms long enough and you'll hear sexist, homophobic and rude comments flow like the waters in the Amazon. Vulgarity has no place there. It should not be the language of a sophisticated man.

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Rembrandt? No, LeBron just being LeBron

His was an unremarkable performance for three quarters. For nothing LeBron James had done last night during those 31 minutes he spent on the floor against the Utah Jazz looked like much.

The Cavs, though, didn't need remarkable from LeBron -- not at that point.

But without Shaquille O'Neal (he was sidelined with a bad shoulder, or so the Cavs told the media), all eyes inside The Q focused on King James, because three quarters don't decide a basketball game. And to think the Jazz, a team crippled with injuries, wouldn't make a late run would be to confuse the Jazz with the Knicks and not understand its brilliant mastermind, Jerry Sloan.

Few teams in the NBA are as well coached as Sloan's Jazz. Even without Kyle Korver, Ronnie Price and Deron Williams, perhaps the best point guard in the universe, the Jazz remained a team the Cavs would have to reckon with. The reckoning began with 1:56 left on Carlos Boozer's two free throws.

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Cavs look like a team that's 'clicking'

The Cavaliers return Saturday night to The Q. They're returning to town to face the Utah Jazz with a cockiness and the tough guy's swagger that seemed to be missing in the first five or six games of their season.

Winning has a way of putting the strut back into pro athlete's step, and to perform in victory the way the LeBron James, Shaquille O'Neal, Mo Williams and the rest of their gang have done lately is reason enough to predict their early-season troubles were behind them.

In a display that looked like midseason form, they showed offensive versatility during their two-game road trip.

Coach Mike Brown figured out how to use Shaq, and Brown's decision to start J.J. Hickson over Anderson Varejao was coaching brilliance. It was risky business to bring Varejao off the bench as a sixth man, but Hickson's athleticism complemented Shaq's powerful inside game better than Varejao's does.

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Revenge for Cavs? Nah, just a good win

To think about revenge in November makes as much sense as checking your Christmas list in early May. For anybody whose name is on the list will have plenty of days left to show Santa if he's been naughty or nice.

So LeBron James and the Cavaliers could dismiss the talk of revenge, giving it not a minute's thought last night in Orlando. Payback -- or revenge -- needed to wait until the games meant something more than a first-weeks-of-the-season win did. To exact revenge, the Cavaliers must beat the Magic in May or June, not in November.

At this point, they were more than willing to settle for this 102-93 win -- a win in Orlando, too.

In that win, the Cavs showed what they weren't able to show when Orlando eliminated them in the Eastern Conference Finals last season. They proved they could handle Magic star Dwight Howard in the paint.

And that's one thing the Cavs have to do: now and in their future. They went into the off-season with that as their goal, because LeBron could never hope to bring a championship to Cleveland if he and his teammates couldn't figure out a way to match up better against Howard.

At its essence, basketball between elite teams is a game of match-ups, and the addition of Shaquille O'Neal has given the Cavaliers an effective counterpunch to Howard, although no one knew with certainty beforehand how Shaq's presence might work against the Magic.

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Shaq's play brings smile to Coach Brown

Coach Mike Brown didn’t want to show too much emotion on the bench. Coaches in the NBA know not to do that when their teams are running roughshod over an opponent. No, they must sit there and bask in the moment. They can’t be sure how long moments like these will last.

With the Cavaliers, Brown is expecting to see plenty more moments like this one, a 102-90 win Tuesday night over the Wizards. His Cavs played the way Brown had been wanting them to play this season: They hustled on defense; they moved the ball crisply on offense; and they got Shaquille O’Neal involved in all of it.

Brown’s smile afterward? Ear to ear.

“It’s great,” he said. “It’s like Christmas.”

Don’t go unwrapping those presents just yet, coach. Christmas won’t come for your Cavaliers until June -- if they can last that long. For if they make it deep into June, they’ll be in the NBA Finals, which is the reason they brought Shaquille O'Neal to Cleveland in the first place.

But bringing a talent like Shaq to Cleveland and using him aren’t the same thing. Brown had to figure out a way to get the most out of Shaq. No youngster at 37, he couldn’t be expected to put in the minutes he did a decade ago, and people have questioned aloud whether could run the floor and occupy two defenders inside.

No need to raise those questions anew, because if the victory over the Wizards, a team with postseason aspirations that are legit, attested to anything, it was this: Shaq O’Neal has plenty of skills left in his aging body.

For long stretches against the Wizards, Shaq looked as if he had drank from the fountain of youth. He pushed center Brendan Haywood around like stick figure, muscling inside the lane for high-percentage shots.

“I gotta lot ’em know I’m still here and am a force to be reckoned with,” he said as he sat in front of his locker stall.

They know, Shaq; they know. They can’t but know after seeing you score 21 points and play 28 1/2 minutes. The eight rebounds showed plenty as well, because they were statistics that complemented the inside play of LeBron James and Anderson Varejao.

Bigger than all of this was the fact, finally, Shaq fit in.

“Probably my first game where I was very, very aggressive,” he said. “The other games I was trying to fit, and I hadn’t been really taking a lot of shots; I was just trying to make sure everybody else gets involved.

“I think the guys know whenever they need a basket, they can throw it down there.”

“Down there” is in the paint -- Shaq’s domain. The weak need not venture there, and even the strong might be wise to avoid it. When Shaq can play like he did Tuesday, he can do marvelous things for a team who needs him to.

Brown would love to see Shaq play like this every night. So would LeBron and the Cavs fans who pack The Q. That might be more than Shaq can give them. Then again, who knows for certain what Shaq has left in his fuel tank. He surely ain’t running on empty, which is the reason Brown could smile.

"That was fun to watch," he said.

New LeBron rumor: L.A. is his next stop

I would give credence to speculation like this from only a handful of NBA writers. Marc Spears of Yahoo! comes to mine, so does Chris Broussard of ESPN. I can mention a few other names as well, but the list is short: shorter than the reins Kobe Bryant has on the mercurial Ron Artest to fit in with the Lakers.

But it is hard for me to ignore the speculation when Sam Smith trots out a scenario on where LeBron James will end up next season.

Probably no player in NBA history has had his future examined through a crystal ball (or tea leaves, perhaps?) the way LeBron has had his. The constant forecasting of where LeBron will sign when he becomes a free agent after this season has, at times, been tedious to read. The talk has taken away an appreciation of one of the greatest players to ever play the game.

Most of that talk has LeBron packed and wrapped with a first-class stamp, and the package addressed to the Knicks or the Nets. The contention is that LeBron wants the bright lights of Broadway, turning his star into a supernova.

Smith, though, dismissed the New York angle. He posited an alternative that would bring LeBron the glitz and glamour he can’t get in Cleveland. Read what Smith said:

“Well, at least I’m fairly sure now where LeBron James is going to be playing next season.

“Los Angeles, most likely the Lakers.”

In his article on LeBron’s tomorrows, Smith backtracked a bit when he said the consensus is that LeBron will remain in Cleveland. No reason for him to leave, Smith said, for fame elsewhere, because in this global economy, LeBron can market his basketball brand in Tucson or Timbuktu, if that’s where he decided to play.

All of this speculation is unsettling in Cleveland. I think fans here have tired of it as well. They wish LeBron would end it and let everybody know what he wants to do.

But that would be LeBron. He’s asking a lot from the Cavaliers, a team that has tried to build a winner around him. In the NBA and in life, nothing comes with a guarantee, and if LeBron is leaving because he doesn’t think he can win here, then, well, good riddance. Go West, young man, should L.A. be where you decide to go.

I’m not about to argue that LeBron shouldn’t go where his heart takes him. He and Kobe Bryant make a dynamic one-two punch in the West. LeBron has left hints here and there that he does want to remain in Cleveland.

I just want the rumors about the man's future to end -- for everybody’s sake.

Smith, who covered the Jordan era for The Chicago Tribune, might be right; LeBron James might have an L.A state of mind. For now, however, he’s a Cavalier, and he looks good in the Wine and Gold.

Clevelanders should enjoy that sight for however long it lasts.

West silences Cavs' concerns ... for now

We waited Saturday night for Delonte West after the Cavaliers had beaten the Bobcats, 90-79, at The Q. The game was West's first of the season, and his thoughts on his performance were of interest to anybody who follows the Cavs -- fans and writers.

For more than a month, no player in Wine and Gold has been as intriguing to both of these parties as West. On a team with LeBron James and Shaquille O'Neal, it's not a situation West, a talented but emotionally-fragile guard, and the other Cavaliers will find themselves in too often.

But West was of interest because he had been absent with personal problems. His mental instability worried people. Nobody knew what to make of his circumstances -- whether to be critical of this gifted athlete or sympathetic of him.

What everybody did know, however, was that the Cavaliers did miss him.

As much as LeBron and Shaq matter -- and they matter most -- West might be the most important complement to this team's two megastars. He's the team's best shooting guard and its most dependable backup point guard. West is also its best defender not named LeBron James.

West can score, and he has the kind of boundless energy not found in most NBA players.

Yet, in some people's minds, he's a lit powder keg, which was the reason his return to the Cavs lineup drew so much attention. The team hadn't functioned well in West's absence.

"Missing piece," point guard Mo Williams said of West. "It felt good to have the whole team back."

LeBron and Shaq echoed those sentiments. They offered only compliments for their returning teammate, and their kind words were deserved. For the first time this season, the Cavs looked like a team with championship intentions.

Now, they were only playing the Bobcats, a sorry lot of an NBA team. Still, an elite team like the Cavs has to beat the bad teams, too. A win is a win, no matter the opponent.

Having West a part of this win was significant, and knowing he might be back for the long haul was even more important to the Cavaliers. They will need him -- back physically as well as emotionally.

For they won't always be playing a team like Charlotte. They have tougher teams ahead, starting Tuesday night when the Cavs play the Wizard.

It might be then when West's presence will be most needed. It might be then when we can hear what he has to say about being back in uniform and playing the sport that has made him rich.

We want to hear from West himself that's he all right.

Cavs coach welcomes all-purpose West back

Coach Mike Brown still had to wonder how his Cavs might look when all the pieces were in place. Brown, as with almost everybody else, knew he had been blessed with a good collection of splendid talent, but how to blend that talent had been his struggle.

It didn't help Brown, a defense-minded coach, that he was forced to play without Delonte West, his hustling, all-purpose guard who had to sit out the first three games of the season with psychological problems.

His mind right now, West returned to a standing ovation Saturday night, no small matter to Brown. He was as pleased to have West in the lineup as the fans were, because West can open Brown's offense in ways not possible without him.

No other Cavaliers player, including LeBron James, is as versatile as West.

"Delonte can play," Brown said. "He really affects the game in a lot of different ways. He's a guy who can score but also run the team and distribute the ball at the right time."

Doubt his words if you'd like. Surely, Brown wouldn't be the first coach to inflate the contribution of a player. In this case, he was speaking the unvarnished truth.

The evidence was in West's performance, and in the comparison to how the Cavs played in their first three games as opposed how they played in their last game, West proved the difference in this 90-79 dismantling of the Bobcats. He played a bigger part in the win than any of the 20-562 fans in The Q could have expected.

"It wasn't a surprise," LeBron said.

West scored 13 points and handed out a couple of assists, statistical totals that didn't match the nightly outputs of Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade or Brandon Roy. Brown doesn't need those kinds of statistics from West, not when he can count on LeBron for them.

What Brown does need from West is what he got: a productive performance from the floor, strong defense and selfless play. His first game back wasn't markedly different from games he had in the past. If West had any first-game-back rust, he didn't show it. He looked good.

So did the Cavaliers.

"Missing piece," Mo Williams said of West. "It felt good to have the whole team back."

Williams called West's performance "terrific," perhaps an overstatement. Such hyperbole isn't uncommon when one teammate talks about another teammate. In this case, Williams meant it, because West's return gave him someone to share the point guard's.

Brown counted on that, too. He was, however, more circumspect in his analysis of West's return. He didn't necessarily expect West to be in midseason form. What player is four games into the season?

The fact that West is back will allow Brown to reconfigure his substitution patterns and build an offense and a defense that are cohesive. Compared to the first two games of the season, he did a better job of rotating players in and out in the victory Friday night in Minneapolis, and his rotation had few exposed seams against the Bobcats, no NBA powerhouse.

West was the glue that Brown's Cavs had been missing. With him back, they should get better and better the more they work together.

"I think we're taking steps in the right direction," Brown said. "We still have a long way to go. I think guys understand that, and in time, we will be a very good basketball team. We're pretty good right now, but we have the chance to be great."

(Photo of Cavs coach MIke Brown from NBA.com)