Clips ship Davis to Cavs
CLEVELAND (AP) -- A person familiar with specifics of the trade says the Cleveland Cavaliers have acquired point guard Baron Davis and a 2011 first-round draft pick from the Los Angeles Clippers for guard Mo Williams and forward Jamario Moon.
The deal is "on the verge'' of being finalized said the person who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the teams had a few more details to work out before Thursday's 3 p.m. deadline.
The trade was first reported by Yahoo! Sports.
In acquiring Davis and the unprotected pick, the Cavs are getting a proven player and another high selection to rebuild a team that has fallen apart since losing superstar LeBron James last summer. At 10-47, the Cavs have the NBA's worst record.
Davis, who is owed $29 million over the next two seasons, will be reunited in Cleveland with coach Byron Scott. They were previously together in New Orleans.
Tiger GONE After First Round Match
MARANA, Ariz. -- One minute he looked like the Tiger Woods of old, burying a clutch birdie putt when he was down to his last shot.
One swing later, Woods looked lost in the desert.
With the pressure at a peak, Woods hit a 3-wood into a desert bush on the first extra hole Wednesday and was eliminated in the first round of the Match Play Championship by Thomas Bjorn.
"I blew it," Woods said.
Tiger Woods' woes continued as he exited the Match Play Championship after just one day Wednesday.
When his 18-foot bogey putt rolled past the cup, Woods removed his cap and conceded the match to Bjorn, a longtime friend who qualified for this World Golf Championship by winning last month in Qatar. Bjorn held their handshake and spoke to Woods, who listened intently and appeared shaken.
"That's between me and Tiger," Bjorn said when asked about their conversation. "But what I will say is that the game of golf needs him back at his best. And I've always been a great friend of his, and we've always had a good relationship. And I want to see him back at his best because I think it's much more fun to go up against him when he's absolutely at his peak. And so it was things down that line."
Woods clearly isn't at his best at the moment.
In three tournaments this year, he has failed to crack the top 20. This was only the second time that Woods, the No. 3 seed, was beaten in the first round of the Accenture Match Play Championship.
This might have been the most frustrating exit of all.
Twice he had simple chips on the back and failed to convert them into birdies, one of them at the par-5 13th that cost him the lead, the other at the par-4 15th that gave Bjorn the lead. With a chance to square the match, Woods missed a 10-foot birdie on the 17th hole that he said he should make "every time."
And then came No. 1, the first overtime hole.
"It's easy to put the ball in the fairway and I couldn't even do that," Woods said, so visibly upset that he was stumbling over his words.
The other top seeds didn't have that much trouble.
Top-ranked Lee Westwood never trailed in his 3-and-2 victory over Henrik Stenson, while PGA champion Martin Kaymer had the shortest match of the opening round, a 7-and-6 win over 19-year-old Seung-yul Noh of South Korea.
Phil Mickelson, the No. 4 seed who only decided to play this World Golf Championship two weeks ago, won 6-and-5 over Brendan Jones.
Still, Woods had some company in going home early.
The Americans had four of the top 10 seeds at Dove Mountain, and Mickelson is the only one left. Matteo Manassero, the 17-year-old Italian, became the youngest winner in this tournament with a 2-and-1 victory over eighth-seeded Steve Stricker, while Jim Furyk (No. 10) continued his struggles in losing to Ryan Palmer, who was making his Match Play debut.
The wild first day finally ended with a record eight matches going into extra holes, and four others going the distance. Of the 32 players remaining, 13 are Americans, 13 are Europeans and two each are from Australia, South Africa and Asia.
Coming off the worst season of his career, most of that from the crisis in his personal life, Woods does not appear to be making quick progress. Through three tournaments this year, he has failed to crack the top 20.
Woods keeps talking about needing more repetition as he works on a new swing, although he is not playing more tournaments. Asked if he might add the Honda Classic, Woods replied, "Probably now is not the time to ask me right now."
He next is likely to play the Cadillac Championship at Doral in two weeks, with Bay Hill two weeks after that. Another possibility is the Transitions Championship outside Tampa, Fla., which is the week between Doral and Bay Hill.
It was the second time Bjorn has beaten Woods head-to-head -- although not in this format -- and both times Woods ended with a double bogey. Ten years ago, they played 72 holes together in the Dubai Desert Classic, and Woods hit into the water on the 18th hole.
Bjorn was gracious in victory, saying that Woods is not playing "his absolute best right now." although he still saw some good swings.
Others piled on.
When asked about the youth movement in golf, especially after Manassero won his match, Rory McIlroy said all the young players feel they are good enough to compete with the likes of Woods, Mickelson, Stricker and Furyk.
"I mean, I don't think Tiger and Phil have got any ... well, yeah, I mean I don't think Phil has gotten any worse," McIlroy said after his 4-and-2 win over Jonathan Byrd. "Tiger isn't as dominant as he used to be, and Phil won the Masters last year."
Then came a tweet from Hank Haney, the swing coach from whom Woods split a year ago in May.
"For all the talk of Tiger's poor driving the last 6 years I have never seen him drive it out of play with a match or tournament on the line," Haney said on Twitter.
Woods leaves behind a Match Play Championship that remains compelling because of the format alone. The first three matches showed that.
Ian Poulter became the first defending champion in nine years to be eliminated in the first round, despite having difficulty remembering any bad shots he hit. All he could recall was Stewart Cink making one big putt after another -- seven of them from the 6-foot range or longer -- to win in 19 holes.
Cink never led in the match until a 6-iron into 4 feet on No. 1, the first extra hole.
"This is a big win for my confidence because I don't know if there's a tougher player in the field in match play than Ian Poulter," Cink said. "It's a big win for me."
Poulter didn't make a single putt over 5 feet.
"He didn't miss a putt," Poulter said. "That's what you have to do. I did that last year. I didn't this year and got punished for it."
In the second match, former PGA champion Y.E. Yang went 20 holes to beat big-hitting Spaniard Alvaro Quiros. And right behind them came the most entertaining match of all when Ernie Els outlasted Jeff Overton in 19 holes.
Overton won the first three holes and they halved the fourth with a bogey. Els then ran off five straight holes and appeared to be sailing to a rare, opening-round victory when he let Overton back in the match. Before long, they wound up back on the first tee.
Els put his approach into the bunker, while Overton hit his under a bush in the desert and made double bogey.
"At least I won," Els said. "I have a 90 percent failure rate in extra holes. It was really ugly out there."
All that matters is that Els gets to return on Thursday, something 32 other guys wish they could say -- Woods included.
Bruce Pearl is Very Dirty, but Thanks for Aaron Craft! Go Bucks!!!!
Good article from Rob Dauster www.msnbc.com
As you most certainly know by now, Tennessee received — and released — their Notice of Allegations from the NCAA regarding the infractions committed by the football and basketball teams. You can read it in its entirety here.
As you also should know by know, the only new information to come out of the NoA was that Bruce Pearl and Tony Jones made an illegal visit to a recruit just days after Pearl’s tearful press conference where he admitted that he had made mistakes on the recruiting trail.
That’s right.
On September 14th, just four days after Pearl sat in front of national television cameras and cried, telling the world how he was remorseful over the mistakes he made, Pearl went to Oak Hill Academy and “bumped” Jordan Adams, a 2012 recruit. Essentially, the “bump rule” allows a coach to greet a recruit at his high school should the two happen to cross paths, but anything more is considered a contact violation. Pearl talked with Adams for 2-3 minutes. This “bump” occurred during the two-week period between Pearl’s press conference and the beginning of the school-sanctioned ban on off-campus recruiting.
Ballsy, ain’t he?
For those expecting this document to bring with it any kind of news regarding Pearl’s standing with the university, well, you got your hopes up for nothing. The school has until May to respond to the NoA, and a hearing has been scheduled for June 10th and 11th of this year. And if Tennessee has told us anything, its that they are going to ride with Pearl until forced to do otherwise.
If they weren’t, Pearl probably would have been let go a long time ago.
The Tennessee coach not only committed violations, he lied about them when confronted by the NCAA. He then tried to convince a recruit’s father — Jon Craft, the father of Ohio State point guard and then-Tennessee commit Aaron — to lie to the NCAA to cover for him.
That’s brazen. And just cause for termination.
So if Tennessee was going to do away with their popular head coach, he would be gone already.
But they don’t. This is an athletic department that clearly values victories over ethics.
Pearl has brought Tennessee basketball to unprecedented heights. He wins basketball games. He’s bringing all-americans to Knoxville. He’s making Elite 8′s. His teams fill Thompson-Boling Arena. And, most importantly, he has the undying support of the Tennessee faithful. The scene last night at Vanderbilt was telling. With news that the NoA was due to arrive, Pearl walked out of an opponent’s arena waving and blowing kisses to throngs of Tennessee fans after an important, come from behind win.
The Vols may just be put into a situation where they are forced to make a change.
You see, the NCAA hit Pearl with an “unethical conduct” charge. As Dana O’Neil dug up this afternoon, cases in which an unethical conduct charge is brought almost always result in a show-cause penalty, which is more or less means getting blacklisted by the NCAA.
What will be interesting to see is whether the NCAA accepts the punishments given out by Tennessee and the SEC as enough. Pearl’s already lost $1.5 million and sat out eight games of this SEC season.
Will that be enough to satiate a Committee on Infractions that just slammed a UConn Director of Basketball Operations with a two-year show cause penalty to lying?
Methinks it won’t.
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