Fan Blog: Player Profile - Antawn Jamison

The player profile this time focuses on NBA veteran power forward, Antawn Jamison. Antawn Jamison has been in the NBA for 13 seasons. After playing at North Carolina for three years in college, Jamison was drafted with the 4th pick overall in the 1998 NBA Draft by the Toronto Raptors. On the day of the draft his rights were traded from the Raptors to the Golden State Warriors for ex-college teammate Vince Carter. He played for the Warriors for five seasons before being traded to the Dallas Mavericks for one season. After his short stint with Dallas he was then traded to the Washington Wizards where he actually became a major rival to the Cavaliers and played for six seasons.


Cleveland Cavaliers
Antawn Jamison   #4
Position: Power Forward
College: North Carolina
Height: 6'9''
Weight: 235 lb
Age: 35
Birthplace: Shreveport, LA





Midway through his sixth season with the Wizards he was part of a midseason trade with the Cavaliers. Cleveland brought him in to serve the part as a power forward who could stretch the defenses with the range of his shot. He was thought to be the final piece to the puzzle for winning an NBA championship. Obviously things didn't work out that way but Jamison remains a focal point of the Cavalier offense today. He is averaging 17.4 points and 6.3 rebounds per game this season. He is no longer the All-Star player he once was in his career but he is a great person and still a worthy player that I love having on the team.

Class Blog: Reflections

I am definitely glad that I decided to take the Sports Writing for Marketing and Promotions class. As a Marketing major that would like to do something in the world of sports, I think this was the perfect class to give me an idea as to what will differentiate me from my competition. It gave me a great understanding of all the different ways to go about marketing your team or event as well as how to gain sponsorship. It was also a very good touch-up course from my marketing classes to refresh me on all the different forms of media that sports can promote themselves through.

I think the biggest thing that I learned about sports marketing is that you have to start out small. If I want to get a career in this field I have to build my network. I need to get my name out there and just meet people who are doing jobs that I would potentially want to do. This class has taught me that the more people you know, the easier it can be to get into a job. There are tons of people who have an abundance of knowledge about sports but knowing people on the inside of an organization is something that will set you apart from other potential candidates. To go along with this, I learned that it is vital to present yourself professionally wherever you go because you never know who you could meet. Even a casual night out on the town could turn out to be the night you run into someone who could be used as a lead or referral for a job. Getting your foot in the door of a professional organization can be the hardest part of the job at times and this is why networking is so key to getting in.

Fan Blog: Byron Scott

The majority of this fan blog has been dedicated to the Cavaliers players and team, but none of their success would have come without coach Byron Scott. This is Byron Scott's second season coaching the Cavaliers in which he has not had the greatest success thus far. He came to the Cavaliers with the Lebron James decision up in the air and I think he made the decision thinking that it would sway Lebron's decision in Cleveland's favor. Regardless of not having James, Byron Scott has done as good as expected with the players he has had.

Byron Scott played in the NBA for 15 years from 1983 to 1998. During his time playing in the league he played along all-time greats such as Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal,  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Reggie Miller. He won three NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1985, 1987, and 1988. After his playing career he got his first head coaching job for the New Jersey Nets in 2000. He took them to back-to-back NBA Finals and later went on to coach the New Orleans Hornets in 2004 where he won NBA Coach of the Year in 2008. Scott's style of coaching is a controlled, up-tempo paced style of offense with his primary focus on the defensive end. He has not yet won a NBA Championship as a coach but hopefully he will deliver on that with Cleveland in the near future.

Fan Blog: The End Is Near

The end of the 2012 NBA regular season is just a few days a way and that is a huge relief for Cavs fans. This season has not been a very easy one to watch but has given our young players a great learning experience under their belts. I'll be honest, the past few weeks haven't even been fun to watch. Kyrie Irving, Daniel Gibson, and Anderson Varejao have all been hurt the majority of the last two months and Ramon Sessions was traded. These are some of our best players that have missed a ton of time over the last couple months. This has resulted in poor television ratings and below average attendance.



There are only two games left in the season, one against Washington and the other against Chicago. I know many fans are just hoping for two losses to increase our playoff position and I can say that I am no different from these fans. This season has been a struggle to watch but it was leaps and bounds better than last season. There are a lot of question marks going into the offseason but I think there are even more answers which is great! The past few years have been rough for Cavs fans but I think this is a team definitely on the upswing. I think next year they will make the playoffs as a 7 or 8 seed and hopefully within 3 years the Cavs will have homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Despite the bad record this season, I would still declare this season a success.

Fan Blog: Player Profile - Daniel Gibson

This fan blog is dedicated to the five year Cavalier veteran Daniel 'Boobie' Gibson. Daniel Gibson was drafted by Cleveland with the 12th pick of the 2nd round in the 2006 NBA Draft. He struggled in his rookie season in the NBA until playoffs roled around. He was the key player in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Pistons. He scored a career high 31 points, 19 of those in the fourth quarter, to seal the series win and send the Cavs to the NBA Finals. By his second season he had earned a consistent starting spot and many people considered him to possibly be the running mate Lebron James would need to win a championship. In his second year he averaged 10.4 points per game.


Cleveland Cavaliers
Daniel Gibson   #1
Position: Point Guard
College: Texas
Height: 6'2''
Weight: 200 lb
Age: 26
Birthplace: Houston, TX




The Cavaliers acquired Mo Williams in 2009 which brought Daniel Gibson back to the bench. He has played from the bench pretty consistently every season since then. Last season he averaged a career high 11.6 points per game but his last 3 seasons have all been slowed down by injury. This season is no different. He is out for the season and just had surgery on his ankle. After becoming a fan favorite over his past 5 years wearing a Cavaliers uniform, there is much debate on whether this was his last. With potential star, Kyrie Irving taking over the minutes and a constantly beat-up Gibson, he is definitely a question mark going into the 2012-13 season.

Class Blog: The Future of Sports Marketing

I think the sector of arena advertisements are practically recession proof. The recent economic downturn has hurt almost every aspect of business but no matter what I think people are still going to attend sporting events. Sporting events allow people to get away from their normal life and step into an atmosphere that can allow them to forget some of their financial problems temporarily. Because of this 'escape', people will continue to attend sporting events so companies are going to continue to advertise at sporting events. Companies will continue to put ads on signs, scoreboards, walls, and even uniforms.

European soccer leagues already put companies logos on their uniforms and the NBA announced last week that they are considering doing the same thing to increase revenue. This could open up a whole new avenue for corporations to market themselves. Can you imagine some of the all time greatest highlights getting replayed for years into the future and a big logo of Microsoft on the players jersey? I mean what if Julius Erving's famous reverse lay-in was replayed all of these years with the McDonald's golden arches on his uniform? This is advertising that could last a lifetime! I think this really is the future of advertising. I don't think it will look very cool but they will find a way to make it work. I think the biggest problem with it is going to be working out agreements with jersey sponsors and player sponsors. For example, if a team is sponsored by Dell but an individual player on that team endorses Apple. This could cause some corporate conflicts that I am not sure how these rival companies would resolve it.

Fan Blog: Harrison Barnes

Harrison Barnes has become the leading candidate for the Cavaliers to draft. If the NBA Draft Lottery follows suit with the teams records, the Cavs will be drafting either 4th or 5th in this summers draft. With much need at the Small Forward/Shooting Guard position, all eyes have turned toward Harrison Barnes out of North Carolina. Barnes just finished his sophomore season at North Carolina after averaging 15.7 points and 5.8 rebounds per game this season. His numbers dipped a bit from his freshman year but much of that was due to other scorers coming in on the team. Many experts thought he would leave school after his freshman year because he would've been a top 3 pick, but because of the looming lockout, he decided to come back to college for another year.

If the mock drafts are correct and Harrison Barnes does indeed come to Cleveland, they will be getting a perfect sized NBA body that can shoot and score from pretty much anywhere on the floor. He stands at about 6 feet 8 inches tall and weighs about 215 pounds. He will have to add a bit of weight once he gets into the NBA but that is pretty standard for a kid his age. I think he will be able to add another young scoring threat to the Cavs offense as well as another player that will hopefully fill out the lineup for the extended future. Barnes could solidify his place as a starter immediately because there isn't a whole lot of competition at that position. Barnes would mix great with other youngsters, Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson as well as some other key players like Anderson Varejao and Atawn Jamison. Hopefully Barnes will be the key to the puzzle to put Cleveland back in the playoffs in 2013