CAVALIERS 101

With the season one night away, there were a few things left for the Cleveland Cavaliers to attend to before they tip off the new campaign. First, they needed to get the roster down to 15 players. There have been players cut throughout preseason, but the roster was still over the limit going into the weekend.

Yesterday General Manager Chris Grant announced the team waived forward/center Michael Eric, forward Kevin Jones, and guard D'Aundray Brown.

Neither Eric nor Jones impressed much during their brief time with the Cavaliers. Eric, a 6'11" rookie from Temple University, played in five Summer League games and two preseason games, but only averaged 0.5 rebounds in 3.5 minutes per game in the preseason. The 6'8" Jones, from West Virginia, also played in just two preseason games, where he averaged 2.5 rebounds per game.

Brown had just signed with Cleveland on October 25, and was yet to play in any game situations. He is an undrafted rookie from Cleveland State, where he averaged 7.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.8 steals in 115 career games.

None of these players' statistics are anything to write home about, and that is likely why the Cavaliers were willing to part with them for now. Coach Byron Scott did leave the door open for them, saying, "those guys are still are still a year or so away from being able to help. Hopefully they'll go to our D-League  team, which would be great. We can watch them grow. They need more experience and to be playing."

What this means for those remaining on the Cleveland roster is that this is the team going forward. The team will start the season with three point guards, as both Donald Sloan and Jeremy Pargo made the roster. Scott stated that Sloan will be the backup to Kyrie Irving, and that he has improved improved from last season.

Now that the final 15-man roster is set, Coach Scott gave his team their roles for this season. And just to make sure everyone was clear, there was one thing in common between everyone's assignments: defend and rebound.

Scott knows that this is a facet of basketball where everyone must contribute. If you are going to be a good team, you have got to do both of these things a high rate, and if he put in on the paper of roles, no one could be confused.

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In other news, and this is good news, Irving returned to practice yesterday and believes that he will be ready to play in tomorrow's season opener against the Washington Wizards at Quicken Loans Arena.

Irving had all four of his wisdom teeth removed last Wednesday, and has been in bed since. He lost five pounds in that time, the same amount he put on over the summer.

"All that work I put in… that's all out the window." Irving said. "Those five pounds I dropped I'll probably gain back in the next week or so, but wisdom teeth is no joke."

Scott seemed to think his young point guard was fine, saying he had not lost much of anything except the weight, and he did not think that would be a problem to start the season.

Tags: Basketball, Byron Scott, Chris Grant, Cleveland, Cleveland Cavaliers, D'Aundray Brown, Kevin Jones, Kyrie Irving, Michael Eric, NBA, Washington Wizards

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