Ola, Cavalier fans! It’s A.C., checking in from hot and sunny Brazil. What’s happening?
This is actually my second trip to Rio de Janeiro. When I was in, I think, my sixth year in the league, the Player’s Association had our annual players meeting down here. We played exhibition games here during the week right here in Rio.
I didn’t get to see a lot of it back then. I forgot exactly where we stayed, but we only left the resort but twice. We went on a couple sightseeing tours, but that was it, but it’s about the same as I remembered it from before.
Back then, it was guys like Walt Frazier, Jo Jo White, Bob Lanier. We played a game here for everybody that was part of the Player’s Association. We had a good time. We were probably 200 strong.
We would scrimmage against teams from Brazil, like their national team. One thing I’ll always remember was Archie Clark, standing at the free throw line and somebody threw a milk carton at him. That was crazy.
I love Brazil. The scenery is great and I love the ocean. I’m a Pisces, so I love the water. The people are great, fans are great. Soccer’s the big sport, but these fans definitely know their basketball. And the weather is perfect.
I’d say that the food is just OK. They don’t season their food very well here. It’s kind of bland, but overall it’s not bad.
A couple days ago, we took the tour up to Sugar Loaf Mountain high across the bay on those cable cars. Heights are not my thing. I don’t like heights. And that was way too high for me. So I didn’t see much of the trip because I had my eyes focused on the floor and that was it. They say the key is: don’t look down. But I didn’t even want to look over the sides, I just looked at the floor all the way up and down. It was beautiful once we got up on solid ground.
I remember seeing the James Bond movie – Moonraker, I think – where he had a fight on these cable cars. So that was something that I really wanted to see – once I got up there.
A trip like this is perfect for a team with a bunch of new moving parts. It’s great because they get to hang out together. They get to spend time off the basketball court together and that’s how you build chemistry.
At home, you go your separate ways. But here, you’re together almost 24 hours a day, and that helps you bond. You get to know a guy. You get to know what he likes, what he doesn’t like. You get to know about his family. So this is a tremendous bonding tool for a new team.
It’s been great to watch a new-look LeBron here in Rio. He’s a much more polished person now. He understands what it takes to win the whole thing. He knows how to be a leader, and he focuses on that now. And he makes sure that he lets everybody know what’s going on. He doesn’t let one day or one practice go by without making the team understand where we’re trying to go and what we’re trying to accomplish.
He grabbed everyone in the huddle after practice on Thursday and told the guys “we’re wasting time doing what we’re doing and we can’t have it that way.” And that, to me, shows his maturity and how he’s changed.
It’s also been fun to watch David Blatt run a Cavaliers practice. I like the way he does it. The whole practice is about teaching, because he’ll stop practice and correct a guy – while it’s fresh on your mind. And he never raises his voice on a guy. Instead, you know by the tone of his voice how serious he is.
And his system looks like it’s starting to click for the guys. There’s a lot of good spacing. There’s a lot of misdirection, where the ball swings to one side of the floor, but the play is actually designed for the other side. There’s a lot of passing and not a lot of dribbling. That’s what the game’s about.
It’s like a European system, something the Spurs have brought to the league. You use all five men – instead of three guys working and two guys watching. Or one guy isolated. That’s going to make a huge difference this year. And I just think it’s going to help us get off to a good start. All five guys are live in Blatt’s offense, and we have the talent to see that system through. It’s a beautiful thing.
Kevin Love is already a superstar in this league, but I think he’s going to benefit big from Coach Blatt’s system. He’s going to keep his man in space -- and most 4’s don’t want to be in space. And that’s going to really open up opportunities for him and others. It’s interesting watching him in practice. He doesn’t jump high but he knows how to position himself for rebounds. He’s very good at that, among other things.
In my early days as a Cavalier, we were very much like Cleveland’s current youngsters – Kyrie, Dion, Tristan, Delly. We had talent, but until we brought in veterans who had been there before – guys like Lenny Wilkens and Nate Thurmond – we didn’t have a true direction.
I remember Lenny changed me completely. Because when I first got in the league, I was solely focused on scoring. But he made me see elements of the game that I needed to see – especially after I got injured.
With the addition of veterans this summer – especially LeBron – you can see the difference in our young guys. You can see that they’re just more focused on what they’re doing. And not accepting mediocrity is the key. If you get something wrong, you work to get it right. You don’t continue to do it wrong just to get it done. It’s a whole different mindset.
LeBron’s basketball IQ is off the chart. He’s on a whole different level, and I think Kyrie and Dion are seeing that he can take them to a whole new level.
A lot of media and fans want to make a big deal of Saturday’s game, but I don’t think they’ll be any extra-sauce on it. In the regular season maybe. But this is still Training Camp. Maybe at first you’ll see a little adrenaline rush, but I don’t think it’s going to be anything crazy because the veterans are still working their way into it and the rookies are still picking things up.
So it’s not going to be like a regular season game. But I guarantee it’ll be fun.