Cavaliers Reshape the World

February 13, 2018

Home » Commentary » Cavaliers Reshape the World

Quietly I enter Dan Gilbert’s office and ease into a corner to watch him stare at a massive wall map of the United States. Every few seconds he tightens arms locked across his chest and juts his jaw at various targets – NBA cities across the land. LeBron James and general manager Koby Altman stand several paces behind the billionaire who gets richer but not taller every day.

James leans to Altman’s ear and whispers, “Reminds me of Mussolini.”

“I heard that,” says Gilbert, spinning around.

“Hope you’ve got some great ideas, Chief,” says the GM.

“Despite my team hanging on the precipice, I’m going to build another champion.”

“We wouldn’t be losing all these games and playing old-man defense if you hadn’t traded Kyrie Irving,” James says.

“He demanded I trade him.”

“I told you then and remind you now that he still had two years on his contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers,” says James. “That’s why I insisted you keep him.”

“You can’t insist anything with me. I’m your owner.”

“My what?”

“Your employer.”

“I said tell him to either show up for training camp or sit out and forfeit twenty million bucks a year,” James says.

“Koby and I had a plan last summer.”

“A plan to trade one of the best and most dynamic players in the league for Isaiah Thomas and Jae Crowder, about ten cents on the dollar.”

“Hold it, LeBron,” says Altman. “We also get Brooklyn’s first round pick.”

James steps away from Altman, pointing an index finger at him and another at Gilbert, and says, “You two listen good. Either do something great or I’m definitely out of Cleveland after this season. Way we’re going, we may not even make the playoffs.”

“LeBron,” says Gilbert, “you know I have unqualified respect for your skills despite the fact you have the worst plus-minus rating in the league since Santa Claus rode away.”

“You won’t get anything if I leave.”

“We’d clear a lot of cap space and enhance our options in free agency,” Gilbert says.

“A player like me appears once a generation. No free agent will ever replace me in Cleveland.”

“Sometimes I’d like to smack your arrogant face,” says Gilbert.

“Go for it, peewee.”

Gilbert raises his dukes and wades in, bobbing and weaving, and left hooks James’ liver, ducks a counter right, and roundhouse rights the cager’s jaw, staggering him and leaving him prone to a mighty left hook, hurled like a lightweight Joe Frazier, that sends James fanny first to the floor. Then Gilbert misses a snap kick aimed at the jaw, and James staggers up, charges and buries his head in the owner’s chest, driving him to the floor and landing on him. Altman shouts, “That’ll be enough, boys,” and drags the combatants apart before helping them stand. He stays between them, swiveling head and eyes from one to the other and back.

Moving forward fast, I’m snapping photos with my cell phone when Gilbert shouts, “Hey,” and rushes me, doubtless planning another bombardment, but from my pants pocket I retrieve a small but devastating can of Sleeperizer Spray and unload a blast into the owner’s nose and spin to spray LeBron’s nostrils and those of Koby Altman. In seconds all three are comatose, and from another pocket I retrieve a black board marker and step to the huge wall map of the United States and write: “Trade disenchanted and disappointing Isaiah Thomas and Channing Frye, and your first round pick, to the Lakers for young athletic studs Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance, set up a three-way trade with Sacramento and Utah to get rid of unhappy, old, and/or injured Jae Crowder, Derrick Rose, and Iman Shumpert while receiving big wing Rodney Hood and healthy veteran George Hill, and ship sagging star Dwyane Wade back to his exotic mansion in Miami.”

LeBron James is the first to awaken, and I eagerly point to the board. As the haze clears he studies my directive and finally says, “Man, I’d love that but no way those teams would do it, would they?”

“Basketball and Football” on Amazon.com

“Basketball and Football” on Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and Everywhere Books are sold

George Thomas Clark

George Thomas Clark is the author of Hitler Here, a biographical novel published in India and the Czech Republic as well as the United States. His commentaries for GeorgeThomasClark.com are read in more than 50 countries a month.

Recent Commentary

Books

HITLER HERE is a well researched and lyrically written biographical novel offering first-person stories by the Fuehrer and a variety of other characters. This intimate approach invites the reader to peer into Hitler’s mind, talk to Eva Braun, joust with Goering, Goebbels, and Himmler, debate with the generals, fight on land and at sea and…
See More
Art history and fiction merge to reveal the lives and emotions of great painters Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, William H. Johnson, Lee Krasner, and many others.
See More
This fast-moving collection blends fiction and movie history to illuminate the stimulating lives and careers of noted actors, actresses, and directors. Stars of this book include Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Clint Eastwood, Cate Blanchett, and Spike Lee.
See More
In this collection of thirty-eight chiseled short stories, George Thomas Clark introduces readers to actors, alcoholics, addicts, writers famous and unknown, a general, a lovelorn farmer, a family besieged by cancer, extraterrestrials threatening the world, a couple time traveling back to a critical battle, a deranged husband chasing his wife, and many more memorable people…
See More
Anne Frank On Tour and Other Stories
This lively collection offers literary short stories founded on History, Love, Need, Excess, and Final Acts.
See More
In lucid prose author George Thomas Clark recalls the challenges of growing up in a family beset by divorce, depression, and alcoholism, and battling similar problems as an adult.
See More
Let’s invite many of the greatest boxers and their contemporaries to tell their own stories, some true, others tales based on history. The result is a fascinating look into the lives and battles of those who thrilled millions but often ruined themselves while so doing.
See More
In a rousing trip through the worlds of basketball and football, George Thomas Clark explores the professional basketball league in Mexico, the Herculean talents of Wilt Chamberlain, the artistry of LeBron James, the brilliance of Bill Walsh, and lots more. Half the stories are nonfiction and others are satirical pieces guided by the unwavering hand of an inspired storyteller.
See More
Get on board this collection of satirical stories, based on news, about the entertaining but absurd and often quite dangerous events following the election of President Donald J. Trump in November 2016 until January 6, 2021, shortly after his loss to Joe Biden.
See More
Join Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and other notables on a raucous ride into a fictional world infused with facts from one of the roughest political races in modern U.S. history.
See More
History and literary fiction enliven the Barack Obama phenomenon from the African roots of his father and grandfather to the United States where young Obama struggles to control vices and establish his racial identity. Soon, the young politician is soaring but under fire from a variety of adversaries including Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh.
See More
These satirical columns allow startlingly candid Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush to explain their need to control the destinies of countries, regions, and, ultimately, the world. Osama bin Laden, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Karl Rove, and other notables, not all famous, also demand part of the stage.
See More
Where Will We Sleep
Determined to learn more about those who fate did not favor, the author toured tattered, handmade refuges of those without homes and interviewed them on the streets and in homeless shelters, and conversed with the poor in the United States, Mexico, Ecuador, and Spain, and on occasion wrote composite stories to illuminate their difficult lives.
See More
In search of stimulating stories, the author interviewed prostitutes in Madrid, Mexico City, Havana, and Managua and on many boulevards in the United States, and he talked to detectives and rode the rough roads of social workers who deal with human trafficking, which is contemporary slavery, and sometimes used several lives to create stories, and everywhere he ventured he witnessed struggles of those whose lives are bound In Other Hands.
See More
In compressed language Clark presents a compilation of short stories and creative columns about relationships between men and women.
See More