Joe Vardon

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Joe Vardon

BERLIN - The Albert Gutzmann School is on the northwest side of Berlin, a series of weathered buildings next to a city park and across the street from a furniture store in Germany's capital city. Reporting on the European basketball academies pumping out NBA talent led me this winter to the school. Written in German on one of the outside walls of the gym is a quote attributed to Michael Jordan: "If you quit once it becomes a habit.

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Joe Vardon

CLEVELAND - What transpired Sunday night was a shame for the Cavaliers, and that's it. The silver lining of it all is how much worse things could have been. Cleveland blew its first chance to clinch the No. 1 seed for the Eastern Conference playoffs by losing at home to the Sacramento Kings 120-113 in a game of puzzling defensive mishaps, poor 3-point shooting and one astonishingly poor plus-minus for a key rotation player. But the proceedings, as disappointing as they were, didn't kill the Cavs.

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Joe Vardon

PARIS - There is untapped marketing potential for the NBA in Europe, a possible pipeline of cash, if you will, which is the reason NBA commissioner Adam Silver often cites when he discusses his interest in starting a new league in the old countries. But another motivation is perhaps more important and certainly hits closer to home for Silver, the 30 team owners he works for in the U.S. and Canada and the future of the world's biggest, best and most lucrative basketball league he already oversees.

3 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Joe Vardon

CLEVELAND - The Cavaliers have insisted throughout this rather impressive season that they wanted to be playing their best headed into the playoffs, and, collectively, it appears they'll fall short of that one. If you've been watching them lately, you know they've been maybe a step behind where they were at the height of their powers, and though there are still 1 1/2 weeks before it's time to put the pencils down, they're probably going to be slipping into full rest mode very soon.

3 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Joe Vardon

CLEVELAND - There should be no complaining about 60-win teams until May at the earliest, for two reasons. One, any team good enough to win (at least) 60 out of 82 should make it to May, or the second round of the NBA playoffs. Two, any team to win that many games earned the right to finish up the regular season however it sees fit. The Cleveland Cavaliers are a team that good, and for most of the last two weeks have been in a general malaise.