This edition of News and Rumors focuses on the sinking ship that is the Cleveland Cavaliers. June Jubilation hasn’t included them in terms of playing ball, but here is their mention:

Danny Ferry Leaves Cavs

The Cavaliers are changing on a weekly basis. Is any of it for the better?

On Friday, Cavs general manager Danny Ferry decided to continue the change that started with releasing head coach Mike Brown after their loss to the Celtics in the second round. Ferry, whose contract was up at the end of the month, decided to jump ship a month early from a team in disarray.

Is Ferry to blame for the disappointing postseason play of the Cavs? HECK NO. He brought in Mo Williams when they needed someone to play alongside LeBron. Then he brought in Shaq to help in the post when necessary. Finally, he made a splash by picking up Antawn Jamison before this season’s trade deadline. You can’t say he didn’t try.

What really pushed him over the edge to leave town (no, not chickening out on LeBron’s free agency) was when the team decided to go against his opinion and fire Brown. He saw that his role was not as important from a decision standpoint as it should be, and he left. Good for him… I hope he gets another good job with people who actually value his opinion.

Here’s a rumor for you: The Cavs will offer LeBron James both the open head coaching job and open general manager job in order to keep him in Cleveland.

Tidbits:

• Shaq challenged last year’s Spelling Bee winner to a spell-off. I’m not even going to guess who won. Shaq just loves the attention – jealous of Kobe?
• Ricky Rubio is doing the best he can to be a nuisance to the NBA, but more importantly the Minnesota Timberwolves. He says he won’t leave Europe to be in the NBA anytime before the 2011-12 season. That means not only will he not play for Minnesota, but they can’t even trade him.
• LeBron was on Larry King Live on Friday as part of Larry King’s 25^th anniversary of his show. Yeah, I didn’t watch it. I’m sure he had a lot of great things to say……

He looks so upset about not playing in June

• I don’t want to complete this post without mentioning the passing of John Wooden at the age of 99. He will go down as a legend of legends, even beyond basketball. He loved the game of basketball and he loved teaching others more than that. He was known as Coach and has left behind an example for coaches to follow forever. I wish I had a chance to follow him and his UCLA teams, but I’ll settle for the stories.

-Shooter