James gang gets tougher

CLEVELAND - Of the many moves made by jockeying NBA teams before last week's trade deadline, Timberwolves coach Randy Wittman admires the Los Angeles Lakers' trade for Pau Gasol because they added a gifted offensive player without losing anyone they have relied upon.

"Continuity," he said. "That's really important ... and underrated."

And then there are the Cleveland Cavaliers, who telephoned the NBA office one minute before the deadline and dealt two starters and four others in a three-team, 11-player trade. It is intended to trump last spring's one-man run to the NBA Finals by delivering a title without breaking LeBron James' young, strong back.

The Cavaliers enter tonight's game against the Timberwolves with a two-game losing skid reached while they assimilate newcomers Ben Wallace, Delonte West, Joe Smith and Wally Szczerbiak into a reconfigured lineup designed to win now and convince James to remain home in Cleveland when he becomes an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2010.

Unable to land either Jason Kidd or Mike Bibby, Cavs General Manager Danny Ferry lumped two trades into one, assumed Wallace's huge contract and produced a single deal he alternately calls "risk," "some risk," and "good risk" for a team that is 32-26 and fifth in the wimpy Eastern Conference.

He wanted to improve his team's defense and shooting, so he traded Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden, Ira Newble, Cedric Simmons, Shannon Brown and Donyell Marshall and in return received a four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year (Wallace), a new starting point guard (West) and two former Timberwolves (Szczerbiak and Smith).

He also needed to appease James, who delivered a monster dunk over Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki in the All-Star Game and later playfully (presumably) said he did so because he was mad at Nowitzki and the Mavs for stealing "my point guard" with their trade for Kidd.

"We want to win, and not just 45, 50 games," Ferry said last week. "We want to win a championship. That's what our Cavaliers legacy should be."Cavs coach Mike Brown calls his franchise player the "MVP of the league," a discussion that also might only include the Lakers' Kobe Bryant. On Wednesday in Boston, James became, with an exclamatory lefthanded dunk, the youngest player, at 23 years, 59 days, in NBA history to reach 10,000 career points.

"I know he came straight into the league from high school, but it seems like he has been in the league for seven years," Wolves forward Ryan Gomes.

The last time Gomes and the Wolves faced James, the Wolves accomplished their objective, forcing James to beat them with the least accomplished of all his skills, his outside shooting. James simply made six three-pointers and scored 45 points in an 11-point victory at Target Center.

"I don't know how you defend him," Gomes said. "We wanted to make him beat us from the outside, and he did."