Yes, New Millennium Fratello Ball jam packed with LeBron James flavor. You remember Mike Fratello don't you?

He was the coach that was fired for essentially winning ugly with less talent the current 7-19 incarnation of the Cavaliers. His style of play of play turned off the overrated Cleveland fan base that called his teams boring despite playing the game with many of the virtues that were taken for granted after watching the Cavaliers teams that followed. Shooting, ball movement, unselfishness, hard work, and teamwork were all traits of his teams. Mike Fratello coaxed every bit out of his teams to the point where you knew they had nothing left.

This little trip down memory lanes leads me to this new incarnation of Fratello Ball under the helm of Paul Silas.

Paul Silas pushed for a trade that swapped talent for experience in an effort to get the Cavaliers to start winning now which Silas could not do with the group of players that he wanted to coach and subsequently stopped GM Jim Paxson from pursuing a number of trade possibilities over the summer. The trade in and of itself isn't the issue but rather what it means in terms of the long-term future of the Cavaliers in the LeBron James Era and the organization's philosophy and vision under Paul Silas.

Not too many people are shedding tears over the departure of shooting guard Ricky Davis or the pieces parts bundled with him in Chris Mihm and Michael Stewart but timing of the trade brings into question the vision and plan of the franchise. Before Paul Silas was hired the Cavaliers had Ricky Davis for two full seasons and were privy to all his problems and resulting controversies publicized and unpublicized so they knew what they had in Ricky Davis. They knew what kind of player he was and what kind of person he was. The Cavaliers also knew in hiring the Paul Silas the rocky history between he and Ricky Davis. Ricky Davis has a very strong personality but was not a guy who didn't get along with other young players so in essence the question of Davis' future was never James vs. Davis but rather Silas vs. Davis. The Cavaliers decision makers, Paxson and Silas, had a meeting of the minds and decided to sit pat and keep Davis for the time being. The decision blew up as the relationship between Davis and Silas deteriorated quickly and festered to the point where Davis' trade value took a nosedive to whereas the Cavaliers felt the best deal for them was to get Eric Williams, Tony Battie and Kedrick Brown. A far cry from what you would think an athletic 24 year old player just coming off a career 20 points, 5 assist and 5 rebound season would be worth. The whole league knew the history of Silas and Davis and over time it became a Buyer's market and Davis was had on the cheap.

I have long believed in the notion that decision one makes act like a ripple in a pond whose ripples effect other decisions for time to come. Eric Williams, Tony Battie and Kendrick Brown are not bad players...well Williams and Battie are not bad players but why these were the types of players the Cavaliers targeted ties in to the aforementioned ripple affects. The centerpiece of the trade, Eric Williams, is a tough no nonsense professional role player with leadership qualities and that is all the well and good. But, many of the same qualities that Silas talks about in glowing affection for Williams are the same qualities that Ira Newble supposedly possessed to the point where Cleveland got into a bidding war and gave Newble a 5 year 14.9 million contract. To top it off Newble was signed to compliment Darius Miles whom the organization especially Paul Silas pumped up to no end over the summer. So the ending result is that Ricky Davis was held on to and allowed his trade value to dive in order to get the kind of player that the team's summer free agent acquisition seemingly failed to be and take center stage over a player in Darius Miles who went from foundation player to DNP-CD in just 25 games. And I am supposed to be excited about the trade?

If you are probably wondering where does Fratello Ball enter into all this I am about to tie that in as well. Paul Silas seems to want a small, athletic, defensive minded, tough team that apparently doesn't place a premium on shooting, skill or inside scoring and built around LeBron James. The Cavaliers are slowly turning into a grind it out, half court team sprinkled with large doses of LeBron James brilliance which is a far cry from the James-Davis-Miles high flying, spectacular play, running team that was sold to the fans over the summer. The 89-85, 88-81 games seen post-Ricky Davis aren't likely to change regardless of the much anticipated return of DaJuan Wagner unless he brings Mike Bibby's jump shot with him. Those kinds of games whether the Cavaliers won or not got Mike Fratello the ax.

Another aspect of New Millennium Fratello Ball is that this version has been done before which leads me back to Eric Williams and Tony Battie. Other teams in the Eastern Conference have gone the path Paul Silas is taking with the Cavaliers. The Philadelphia 76ers traded away young talent such as Jerry Stackhouse, Tim Thomas and Larry Hughes and built a veteran, tough defensive minded team around Allen Iverson and while it got Iverson the MVP and a trip to the Finals it hasn't yielded any championships as the Lakers with Shaquille O'Neal crushed them. The Toronto Raptors tried a similar approach by trading away a young player in Marcus Camby for Charles Oakley and the 5th pick in the 1999 draft for Antonio Davis to build around Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady. McGrady left for home in free agency and despite a second round playoff appearance the Raptors got old quickly around Vince Carter and their decline was exacerbated by injuries to Vince Carter and bad contract decisions. This relates to Eric Williams and Tony Battie because they were the role players around Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker that peaked in the Eastern Conference Finals but soon after reached a plateau and stagnated as a group. Part of the reason why Williams and Battie are Cavaliers is because Celtics head honcho Danny Ainge felt the Celtics with Williams and Battie had gone as far as they could go. It begs the question what makes anyone think the Cavaliers will ultimately do better with them than Boston?

A ripple whose consequences are still unknown is what affect this trade and the previous ripples will have on the future of the franchise. Trading assets the likes of Ricky Davis and Chris Mihm for the likes of role players you failed to get with your free agent acquisitions leaves the Cavaliers with very few tradable assets left save one with that being Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Ilgauskas has seamlessly slid into the role of coach, fan and media whipping boy vacated by Ricky Davis. "Z" for his faults caused mainly by years of foot problems he is a player that a ton of teams would die to have. Since he has shown the ability to stay healthy the phone has rung consistently with teams inquiring about him. The Cavaliers have left themselves no choice but to trade Ilgauskas before his contract runs out after next season since financially he cannot be kept unless Gund raises the current budget. In any hypothetical Ilgauskas trade Jim Paxson must do more than the cap dumping which has been his trademark. The Cavaliers have to replenish their core of young talent unless they feel LeBron James, Carlos Boozer and DaJuan Wagner is enough to someday topple one of the Western Conference powers that currently rampage through the NBA like the armies of Sauron. The brain trust really need to ask themselves if the declared "Foundation of the Week" is really better than the foundations in Chicago, Milwaukee, Washington or Indiana.

The margin for error for the Cavaliers, if one could believe it, has actually gotten smaller after the clock started counting down to LeBron James' free agency. They can no longer draft players in the top ten and a couple of years rationalize them as quality backups. They can no longer afford to trade top 20 picks for one-year stopgap role players. The Cavaliers may have two picks in the top 20 this year with their own and Toronto's via the Lamond Murray trade provided the Raptors make the playoffs. If they pick in the top ten that player has to be a star, a stud. If they have that second pick they have pluck their own Gilbert Arenas, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Michael Redd-type hidden gems. The Cavaliers don't just have to be right they have to be more right than they have about everything else save the slam-dunk no-brainer that was LeBron James.

The Cleveland Cavaliers record is currently 7-19 with 56 games left. A .500 record through those 56 games would leave the Cavaliers with a final record of 35-47 which would be more than double the improvement in wins, make for a nice story and remarkably a possible playoff berth. But, reality chimes in and asks the question, "What then?"

The franchise is approaching yet another crossroads as the Summer of Hope has turned into the Season of Question Marks.

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