To the shock and surprise of absolutely nobody, Kyrie Irving led the NBA's All-Rookie first team. After dominating the Rookie of the Year vote, Kyrie was the only unanimous 1st team selection,the NBA announced today. Tristan Thompson received two first place votes, but ended up landing on the All-Rookie second team.

2011-12 NBA ALL-ROOKIE FIRST TEAM

Player Team First (2 pt) Second (1 Pt) Total Kyrie Irving Cleveland 29 - 58 Ricky Rubio Minnesota 21 7 49 Kenneth Faried Denver 19 8 46 Klay Thompson Golden State 16 11 43 Iman Shumpert New York 15 10 40 Kawhi Leonard San Antonio 14 12 40 Brandon Knight Detroit 13 14 40

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2011-12 NBA ALL-ROOKIE SECOND TEAM

Player Team First (2 pt) Second (1 Pt) Total Chandler Parsons Houston 10 13 33 Isaiah Thomas Sacramento 5 17 27 MarShon Brooks New Jersey 3 12 18 Derrick Williams Minnesota 2 12 16 Tristan Thompson Cleveland 2 12 16

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In a strange occurrence, Jonas Valanciunas received zero votes for either team. Weird.

Until the NBA Draft on June 28th, I'll be giving you guys a daily blog post. I plan on giving you guys the number of days left before the incredibly exciting day and then just some scattered thoughts about the draft, Cavs, and NBA playoffs in general. Hopefully this helps kill some time before the draft and gives us all something to talk about/look forward to.

Days until NBA Draft: 38 Days

Days until NBA Draft Lottery: 9 days

Highlight of the Day:

Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder ousted the Lakers last night in part because of this absurd and-1. The Thunder were really just an overall better than the Lakers. Kobe Bryant scored his points, but Mike Brown and company just failed to utilize their two huge advantages in Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum. Furthermore, former Cavalier Ramon Sessions really failed to live up to expectations for the Lakers. It was a smart trade for the Lakers to make, but did he really help them get any further than they would have otherwise? Lots of the time it was Steve Blake playing during crunch time. The Lakers are a mess and the Cavaliers have the right to swap Miami's first round pick with the Lakers' first round pick in 2013. Considering how good Miami likely will be, that could be a difference of about 7 or 8 draft spots.

PS: I am DYING to have Quicken Loans absolutely ROCKING like this arena was last night. Goosebumps.

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Sorry to miss this feature Sunday night. Sometimes, Pracs does get in the way of life. I'll get it back to Sunday night again next weekend.

1. Get on the Spurs bandwagon. Man, I love that team. They're going all the way.

2. How is Boston winning games with Ray Allen doing nothing and Paul Pierce contributing about the same?

3. The big day is rapidly approaching. As some of you may know, Conrad is going to be at the Draft Lottery on May 30th. I'm pretty pumped to watch the Cavs celebrate winning that thing.

4. Isn't the American media pretty nuts? Wasn't it so obvious that as soon as they overreacted and absolutely buried Miami after being down 2-1 (which is hardly scary) the Heat are probably going to win the thing 4-2 and then have home court in the next round and maybe have Chris Bosh back. For a minute there I thought they media had just given them the boot from the playoffs. Ridiculous.

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As Cavaliers fans anxiously await May 30 to figure out just where the team will be slotted in the 2012 draft lottery, there are already rumblings about different teams' plans for improving. After the jump, see what people are talking about.

1. From Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, It sounds as if the Oklahoma City Thunder, and perhaps the Boston Celtics, are interested in the Power Forward from St. Bonaventure, Andrew Nicholson. From Wojnarowski's Twitter account:

St. Bonaventure's Andrew Nicholson works out for Boston and OKC this week. OKC's long been on him but C's looking hard with 21st-22nd picks.

If the Celtics took Nicholson before the Cavs' 24th pick, it could be seen in two ways: either as a good thing because we didn't want him and it leaves someone else that we did want on the board, or as a bad thing because he is someone we were looking at taking ourselves. Here is what DBrimstone wrote about Nicholson in a fanpost, ultimately comparing him to a Carl Landry type player:

In his 4 year college career his basketball IQ has improved tremendously as have his post moves. He started off only being able to dunk and now he's got what draftexpress.com calls a "very refined post game." He's even added a perimeter game too. He didn't shoot a 3 his first 2 years, then he shot 26% as a junior, and then 43% as a senior. His offense will be his biggest draw as he's very proficient on that end of the floor.

2. And while we are on the subject of Nicholson, ESPN's draft insider Chad Ford recently wrote about players who could see their stock rise as the result of workouts for teams. If you have insider, you can read it here. Without delving into the analysis, he has SG Terrence Ross of Washington, SF/PF Perry Jones III of Baylor, PF Terrence Jones of Kentucky, and SF Quincy Miller of Baylor alongside Nicholson as being guys who can really impress GM's and scouts in the next month or so.

Of course, you would love to be able to predict a player's future success based on the tape of actual games. Unfortunately, the NBA and college games aren't perfectly congruent, and different skill sets are rewarded. While it is important not to get too hyped on guys following strong workouts (Yi Jianlian, Darko Milicic), you cannot deny the effect they have on where and whether guys get drafted. Tristan Thompson, for example, benefited last year from solid workouts.

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The Los Angeles Lakers fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night by a final score of 106-90. The Thunder won the series 4-1 and will now advance to their second straight Western Conference Finals.

There has been tons of talk about how the Cavaliers need to follow the same model as OKC to rebuild their team. It's easier said than done, but Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are showing that if you can execute the model -- it works. The Cavaliers may have their superstar already in Kyrie Irving, but nailing the draft and getting some other solid pieces to create a complete team is crucial.

I know it's really hard to do, but for a small market team like Cleveland or OKC, there is no other option. The NBA Lottery is May 30th and the actual draft is in late June. The Cavaliers will take another big step towards rebuilding a contender and following in the footsteps of the Thunder.

Chris Grant and company have their work cut out for them, but to reach the heights of the Thunder, it's the best way. It's the only way.

Today, Kyrie Irving and twelve other young players were named to the USA Select Team. The Select Team is the group of players that trains against the actual USA Men's basketball team prior to the Olympics. The 2011-12 NBA Rookie of the Year highlights this team, along with John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, and other future superstars.

Being chosen for the USA Select Team is generally a pretty good way to get noticed and eventually find yourself competing for a gold medal in the Olympics. In the past, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Derrick Rose, Kevin Love, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Andre Iguodala have played for the Select Team and are now big contributors to the USA team.

The Select Team has a training day on July 5th and then a camp from July 6-12. All practices and such take place at UNLV in Las Vegas. Here's the full release from Cavs.com and the complete roster for the USA Select Team.

2012 USA Basketball Select Team

NAME	POS	HGT	WGT	YEAR	NBA TEAM / COLLEGE
Ryan Anderson	F	6-10	240	5/6/1988	Orlando Magic / California
DeJuan Blair	C	6-7	270	4/22/1989	San Antonio Spurs / Pittsburgh
DeMarcus Cousins	C	6-11	270	8/13/1990	Sacramento Kings / Kentucky
DeMar DeRozan	G	6-7	216	8/7/1989	Toronto Raptors / USC
Derrick Favors	F/C	6-10	248	7/15/1991	Utah Jazz / Georgia Tech
Paul George	G/F	6-8	215	5/2/1990	Indiana Pacers / Fresno State
Taj Gibson	F	6-9	225	6/24/1985	Chicago Bulls / USC
Gordon Hayward	F	6-8	210	3/23/1990	Utah Jazz / Butler
Kyrie Irving	G	6-3	191	3/23/1992	Cleveland Cavaliers / Duke
Kawhi Leonard	F/G	6-7	225	6/29/1991	San Antonio Spurs / San Diego State
Jeremy Lin	G	6-3	200	8/23/1988	New York Knicks / Harvard
Klay Thompson	G	6-7	205	2/8/1990	Golden State Warriors / Washington State
John Wall	G	6-4	195	9/6/1990	Washington Wizards / Kentucky

Coach: Mike Hopkins, Syracuse University
Coach: Jay Triano

On Friday, I laid out some key questions around the upcoming restricted free agency of Cavaliers forward Alonzo Gee. Is he worth keeping around? What happens if there's a bidding war for his services? What's his role on this team going forward? Fear the Sword readers spoke out and here are the answers:

By the looks of Friday's poll, Alonzo Gee's played his way into Cavalier fans hearts, with 68% of Fear the Sword readers opting to re-sign the forward for a second contract. Of course, the question here was never really about simply resigning Alonzo, it was more about at what point do the Cavaliers bow out of the bidding war that is sure to erupt.

The discussion brought up a lot of good points. Benevolent Fear the Sword Dicatator, err, I mean Editor, Conrad chimed in to comment how the results of the draft will change this answer significantly. And he brings up a very good point. If the Cavaliers wind up bringing Michael Kidd-Gilchrist on board, the need for a guy like Alonzo drops significantly, as would the Cavaliers willingness to pay him.

Besides that point though, fans were split. There were some who thought Alonzo's upside is limitless and therefore the Cavaliers should match the rumored $4M offer that will be coming from Phoenix to keep him on board. Others questioned whether $4M was really enough to break the Cavaliers bank and rightfully pointed out that the Cavaliers will still have plenty of cap space if they pay Alonzo that much. And then of course there were those who were cautious, who feared regression and warned that the Cavaliers should be wary of paying Alonzo based upon a few month long streak of great play.

Where do I fall on this matter? I'll explain after the jump.

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The initial position on the Cleveland Cavaliers Worst of the Century team will belong to one man from a trio of point guards who played too many minutes for the Cavaliers earlier in the decade.

As I mentioned before I didn't include players who played insignificant minutes because the Cavs realized they were bad and got rid of them. It was pretty wild to look back and see some of the guys who actually did get some minutes for the Cavs 8-10 years ago. There definitely were plenty of people I had never heard of.

After the jump I'll introduce you to the three candidates and then it's up to you to vote away and decide who the worst one was.

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Do you guys want to see Kyrie Irving dressed up like an old guy and completely school some people at basketball? Of course you do. It's pretty awesome. Check out the video below.

The Cavaliers have a lot of decisions to make this off-season. Who do they draft? What key free agents do they target? And finally, the point of this series, who from this current squad to they bring back? Today we tackle a player who went from perennial D-League call-up to starting SF. Of course, we're talking about Alonzo Gee.

In a short three years in the league, Alonzo Gee has certainly made the rounds. He's gone through two non-consecutive stints with the Wizards, had a brief layover with the Spurs, spent his time in basketball purgatory in the D-League and then, finally, landed with the Cavaliers which has been his team since. With the disappointing play of Omri Casspi and the unexpectedly awful regression of Christian Eyenga, Alonzo Gee was the sole bright spot in the Cavaliers SF rotation, starting off as a sixth man off the bench and ending the season as the preferred starter of choice.

Unfortunately the for Cavs, Alonzo's contract is up this summer. Fortunately, he's a restricted free agent, meaning the Cavs can match any deal to keep him on board. Unfortunately, rumor has it that Alonzo's being scouted pretty heavily by other teams in the league, namely Phoenix. And with Phoenix reportedly being willing to offer up to $4M a year for his services, Alonzo might quickly become an expensive player to keep around.

Personally, I find this to the be hardest decision the Cavaliers have to make this offseason that doesn't involve draft picks or trades. As such, I think it's important to ask ourselves some questions first to make sure we're all on the same page about Alonzo.

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