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Day 4: 2015 Training Camp Notebook

A veteran team like the Cavaliers knows exactly what time it is. The practices have gotten more intense by the day and aside from a brief moment in which Coach lost his cool with the second team – (“Start bad, finish bad! That’s what happens!!”) – the Wine and Gold look to be right on schedule for next week’s preseason play.

Anderson Varejao and Timofey Mozgov are tangling pretty good in the middle, giving everyone a nice preview of how tough that 1-2 combo will be. Sasha Kaun looks more comfortable by the minute. You can feel LeBron thumping his way up and down the court and his dunks are getting more nasty. (He’s also constantly in teaching mode.) Mo Williams looks like he never left. J.R. Smith is hitting shots.

But maybe the most interesting part of the afternoon came after practice wrapped up, when LeBron met the media and the topic turned to the gun violence that’s currently dominating the news, both locally and nationally.

On Thursday, news of the Roseburg, Oregon mass shootings came on the heels of another child killed in Cleveland – this time a five-month-old girl. Last night, James reacted to the violence and talked about it further on Friday.

“It’s not the first time that it’s happened, but it’s been happening a little bit too much recently,” said James. “Having kids of my own, I see the news going across my phone and I’m sitting in front of my three kids, and it automatically just hit me. (I’m) just getting my voice out there. And it’s not just in Cleveland. If you saw my message it was #theNation, as well. It’s our whole nation that goes through this. We all hurt.”

LeBron was asked if his foundation would eventually get involved to help fix the issue. James countered that it already does.

Timofey Mozgov

View 20-man roster.

”Part of the education program that the LeBron James Family Foundation is doing is keeping those kids off the street and those situations that might be bad, (we) try to turn them into good,” he continued. “So I think what we’re doing is controlling some of the violence. Some of these kids might be in violent situations, violent areas or violent homes and we’re trying to keep them away from that by having that program that we have set up through my foundation, through the University of Akron, through the Akron Public School System and so on.

“I feel like if we can do our part, my foundation and what we do, that might bring the percentages down from 20 percent to 15 to 10 and continue to do that.”

The four-time MVP has been wading deeper into social issues over the past few years. And with the nation and the area feeling the familiar sting of gun violence and looking for leadership, a strong, somber voice like LeBron’s is not just welcomed – it’s needed.

James and his teammates left a lot of it on the floor in Friday’s intense practice. Some random thoughts from the morning workout …

  • Iman Shumpert, who had successful wrist surgery on Wednesday at Cleveland Clinic watched Friday’s practice at Cleveland Clinic Courts, his right arm in a cast and sling. Shump is projected to be out between 12 and 14 weeks.
  • Know the sports cliché that great players practice how they play? Matthew Dellavedova might not yet be a “great” NBA player, but he’s got the second part down. On Friday, Richard Jefferson got an up-close introduction to that fact when Delly forced him into a backcourt violation in 5-on-5. Jefferson bellowed his complaint to Coach – who just smiled and blew his whistle. Everyone laughed.
  • James Jones, barking encouragement to his fellow “white-jersey” teamer on the defensive end: “Come on, Delly! Be you!”
  • Cavaliers legend and current radio color analyst Jim Chones on Friday’s sharp morning workout: “Great practice. They didn’t have one that good until the middle of last season.”
  • Roster spots on the current Cavaliers squad are hard to come by for youngsters. That’s not to say that some of Cleveland’s Camp invitees aren’t impressive in their own right. Nick Minnerath has showed a nice shooting stroke, Quinn Cook is a natural playmaker and D.J. Stephens, a 6-5 guard from Memphis, is one of the most athletic players in the gym – invitee or not. But veteran Austin Daye, who was the 15th overall pick in the 2009 Draft and has already logged nearly 300 career games, is easily the most impressive. And although Richard Jefferson has normally checked LeBron, Daye took a shot at the King for while on Friday – holding his own on both ends.
  • After the first team got a great run early in the workout, the Cavaliers second and third teams got a lot of the work during the latter half of practice. The Cavaliers will get Saturday off before returning to the hardwood on Sunday morning in Independence.