Links To The Present: Welcome Back To Regular Season Ball

Waiting for the Cavs to come back 🤷🏻‍♂️😴 pic.twitter.com/MDHYOeAcTl

— Jacob Linkous (@JacobLinkous) February 23, 2017

I don’t know about any of you guys, but I could certainly relate to this guy’s tweet about the All-Star break.

The Cleveland Cavaliers were welcomed back to their regular-season games after the All-Star break Thursday, Feb. 23, and they came back with a lot to talk about in their 119-104 win against the New York Knicks.

Some could call it Kyrie’s game, racking up the leading score of 23 points, they could call it Korver’s game hitting 20 points while supporting an important movement, LeBron’s game with his dunks and insane blocks against Courtney Lee or Derrick Rose, Tristan’s game due to his nasty blocks and even his 14 rebounds or lastly, some could even call it Derrick Williams’ official welcome to the Cavs roster? We can just call it all an actual team effort.

LeBron James hustled, led the team with 15 assists and reached his sixth triple-double of the season, but what really stood out was not only his block on Derrick Rose, but also his seemingly impossible block on Courtney Lee.

Sixth triple-double of the season. And a season-high tying three blocks – including this one. 👑

More HIGHLIGHTS: https://t.co/WqQgKZTm2r https://t.co/NQW268oCTH

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) February 24, 2017

Tristan Thompson led the team with 14 rebounds and notched his season-high fourth triple double, racking seven of those up in the first quarter alone. You cannot forget about his friggin’ sweet offense and defense that made this such an awesome game, either..

.@RealTristan13 doing it all for the @cavs! 😳 pic.twitter.com/hQJDqejmn9

— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) February 24, 2017

Can you say beast mode? If you look at this link from Cleveland.com’s Joe Naga and vote, you can see each block on Rose made by Thompson and James. Out of the two, which do you think had the better block?

Derrick Williams, before scoring 10 of the Cavs points, signed his second 10-day contract with the Cavaliers (by Fear the Sword’s Dave Zavac). Although Williams has bounced from team to team and was barely given any minutes in Miami, his time with the Cavaliers has really made him stand out and put him in a good position to have a longer stay with the team. Williams doesn’t have a reputation as much of a defender, but so far his energy and surprisingly good offense, after being tossed around so much, have offered strong contributions to an injured roster. Will that be enough to make him possibly stay?

Last, we watched Kyle “White Thunder” Korver (dubbed by R.J. and Frye on the ‘Road Trippin” podcast) build up his Korver Kounter and hit 20 of the Cavs’ points on the night, but did anyone notice the red ‘X’ he had on his hand during the game?

If you were thinking it was one of those X’s that signified if you were 18 or older to get into a club, obviously you’re extremely wrong, but what else could it have meant?

According to Cleveland.com‘s Chris Fedor, Korver was wearing the X on his hand, and later on his clothing after the game, due to a movement he’s been a part for three years now. The movement is called he “End It” Movement and was made to stop and keep awareness of modern-day slavery in the world.

“It looks a little differently than we thought before,” Korver said of slavery. “There’s human trafficking, unfair wages across the world so it looks a little differently, but 27 million people live like this and they don’t have a voice so this is a campaign.”

According to enditmovement.com, more than $4 million has been raised and the red X has been shared over 500 million times. In previous years, “Shine a Light on Slavery Day” has sparked a viral response on social media, with numerous people, including Korver and other notable celebrities, drawing red X’s on their hands and sharing the photos on social media.

“There’s a lot of people fighting this fight,” he said. “That’s what these red X’s are all about.”

In other links..

• Richard Jefferson hilariously shows his support for Kyrie Irving’s flat Earth idea and keeps the controversy going.
• Cleveland Cavaliers’ David Griffin on J.R. Smith: He’s ‘maybe slightly ahead of schedule.’ Do you think we can expect a quicker comeback? Its possible.

Last night @TheRealJRSmith got an assist from some friends! https://t.co/YY6hmsseeb

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) February 24, 2017

• I missed this last week, but ESPN the Magazine’s Pablo Torre penned a fantastic feature on LeBron James and his desire to be a superhero of the basketball, business, and entertainment worlds.

“PEOPLE USED TO ask me questions like, ‘Is LeBron smart?'” Paul Wachter says.

Wachter, a Los Angeles-based financial adviser whom James hired after leaving the Goodwin brothers, always believed their partnership was answer enough. “Think about this: LeBron and Maverick, when they first started out in Akron, went through the trouble of finding a financial guy in LA who turned out to be 25 years older than they are. They did the research! Are they intelligent? Of course they’re intelligent. They’re unusually intellectually curious — they both are. Many celebrities and athletes just go, ‘Wow, we’re making money! Let’s go buy a Bentley!'”

• Torre also appeared last week on the Tony Kornheiser Show podcast to talk about it (at the 16:30 mark)

https://art19.com/shows/the-tony-kornheiser-show/episodes/6dd21c61-5a73-4268-bac3-c6704a2d351b

• The AP’s tom Withers covered that Cleveland Cavaliers met with free agent forward Larry Sanders. He’s ready to come back to the NBA. Is it with the Cavaliers?
• Charles Oakley sits with Dan Gilbert during Cavs-Knicks game Thursday night, CBS Cleveland’s Daryl Ruiter reports. Oak’s definitely welcome in the home of the Cavs.