From childhood, I, Ralph-onse James de Rothschild, have always had a healthy respect for business sense. Regaled on my grand-uncle’s knee with epics of Cleveland oil baron John D. Rockefeller, the glory of business acumen was impressed upon me from when I was but a tender babe. ‘He rose from obscurity to business greatness,’ grand-uncle misted. ‘Get back to the mines,’ my grand-uncle continued – Wisdom that guides me to this day.
Yet while these tales molded me in youth, I have outgrown these fables and have acquired my own eye for big business – namely, I have a friend who owns a used video game store, I watched ‘The Wolf of Wall Street,’ and have played Roller Coaster Tycoon. So I feel uniquely qualified to commend the Cavaliers’ business savvy in trading for Luol Deng, since it gives the Cavs a better chance to make the playoffs, and if they make the Playoffs, LeBron will love us again and come back.
The Cavs, as the less boardroom-inclined among you might not be aware, are engaging a venerable and honored business tradition of White Knighting – which, in the basketball sense, is presumably surrounding a star player with Larry Hughes and Damon Jones, frustrating said star player by failing to win an NBA Championship because you surrounded him with Larry Hughes and Damon Jones, writing a bitter public Phillipic in Wingdings Font after the superstar’s aforementioned departure for aforementioned causes, being terrible for three years, and then making a mad playoff scramble to encourage said star player to return. White Knighting. Business. Leonardo DiCaprio.
The Luol Deng trade, you see, is a brilliantly executed plan to convince LeBron to return. My grand-uncle once said to me, ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’ He also said, ‘The Shot Clock is man’s punishment for sin.’ My time spent as a meat inspector in rural Arkansas has both caused these utterances to resonate with me and also caused me to whole-heartedly agree with the Cavaliers’ choices. If there are goals you cannot achieve with prudent roster management, bet everything on red. A+, Cavs.
Regards,
Ralph
Cleveland Sports Insiders 