FanNation - The Republic of Sport

I'm passionate about a few things and one of them is what's NOT happening in the NBA that I believe SHOULD be happening.  I'm sure there are other fans like myself watching from the sidelines thinking they know everything when truthfully if they ever did get an insde view of the sports they love they'd quickly come to find that there's a reason for why what their ideas are never even attempted and that the reason is actually a good reason.  However, something as trivial as reallity is not about to stop us armchair general managers from putting in our two cents.  And seeing as how that's about all my opinion is probably worth, I'll stop rambling now and get right to it because I think I've already used up one of my two cents.

The Cleveland Cavaliers need to do two things next season to cash in on their championship hopes.  Number One - Sign Antawn Jamison.  More on this later.  Number Two, and probably most importantly - Play LeBron James at point guard.  Everyone wants to dub the latest "young star" the 'Air' Apparent ('Air' of course referring to 'Air' Jordan) and compare that player's skills and accomplishments with those of Michael Jordan.  But let's be realistic; not all players can or should play like Michael Jordan and not all players are going to be in a system that allows them to excel in the same way as Jordan did with the Bulls during Phil Jackson's tenure as head coach.  LeBron James isn't playing in Tex Winter's triangle offense.  He's playing in a free-flowing offense under Mike Brown in which he's at his best when he's handling the ball and creating either for himself or teammates.  He's particularly good in the open court in which he basically cannot be stopped from either scoring or getting to the line.  Do these two facts about LeBron remind you of anyone?  With a lineup of Boobie Gibson at SG, Antawn Jamison at SF, Drew Gooden at PF and Zydrunas Ilgauskas at C, the Cavs begin to take on a striking similarity to Magic's Showtime (championship) Lakers of Byron Scott, James Worthy, A.C. Green and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  For the cynic who says, "'Bron can't be expected to guard the opposing team's point!"  If Magic could do it, why can't LeBron, who is a far superior athlete?  If anything, he improves the Cavs defense against point guards who like to post-up and if there's still doubts, put Gibson on the point defensively and have 'Bron guard the two.

 I know, I know, it simply isn't done in today's game.  But who ever heard of it EVER being done until Magic did it?  Most of the time, those who make history do so by first taking a chance and trying something new.  Could it really hurt them that much if they tried it?  Course if they don't, we'll never know but it's fun to speculate.  That's what we armchair GMs do best after all.