This offseason for the Cleveland Cavaliers has been worse than I could have ever imagined in my deepest, darkest nightmares, and that is not about to change during the remainder of it. With that being said, the best way for the wine and gold to begin moving forward into the post-LBJ era is to make future-minded moves, acquiring draft picks, maintaining and increasing cap space, and bringing in young, athletic players with upside that will fit Coach Byron Scott's system. In the last week, they've begun to do exactly that.

It began with the signing of last year's first round draft pick, forward Christian Eyenga and adding undrafted rookie Samardo Samuels of Louisville and the Bulls' summer league roster.

Eyenga, at 6'5" and 210 lbs. out of the Congo, played in Spain last year for DKV Joventut's second tier team, Prat, and struggled to put up numbers and stay on the court. After opening eyes with some stunning plays in last summer's games, Eyenga showed more consistency. With 11.4 points and 4.2 rebounds per game, Eyenga put up good figures while still showing the raw athleticism on given plays that drew the Cavaliers to him. The Cavs signed him to a 2-year deal for about $2 million with options in years three and four. This way, the Cavaliers can control Eyenga's development in the States, and I would venture to say that Raw-yenga will be spending a significant amount of time in the NBDL this year.

Photo: Marvin Fong/The Plain Dealer

Mark Shapiro and his staff have had a hectic week to be certain. Not only have they been sending people on and off the DL and back and forth from the minors at record pace, but they have now completed four separate trades involving four key players in less than 72 hours. Gone are third baseman Jhonny Peralta, outfielder Austin Kearns, starter Jake Westbrook, and closer Kerry Wood, and in comes a couple of shots in the dark along with financial relief, but that's the business of baseball... at least for the Cleveland Indians and about 20 other teams in Major League Baseball.

It's truly mind boggling to think that just nine guys are left from the 2007 season. They are Fausto Carmona, Aaron Laffey, Rafael Perez, Jensen Lewis, Travis Hafner, Grady Sizemore, Asdrubal Cabrera, Andy Marte, and Shin-Soo Choo. Furthermore, Choo and Marte were not on the postseason roster, so just 7 of the team's 25 best at season's end are still wearing Tribe uniforms. Of those other 18 players, 12 of them have gone via trade (Blake, Sabathia, Byrd, Betancourt, Gutierrez, Michaels, Shoppach, Garko, Martinez, Peralta, Westbrook, and Francisco). The others (Borowski, Mastny, Gomez, Nixon, Barfield, and Fultz) were released or departed through free agency.

Photo: John Kuntz/Cleveland.com

At a time where the Cavaliers didn't really need any additional bad news, it was announced on Tuesday afternoon that Zydrunas Ilgauskas had agreed to a two-year contract to follow LeBron James down to South Beach, joining the Miami Heat. After 771 games (plus 71 playoff games) in a Cavalier uniform, Big Z will do what it was feared he would have to last season after his trade to the Wizards: put on another team's jersey.

It doesn't seem like long ago that the Cavaliers took the string bean Ilgauskas in the first round of the 1996 NBA Draft. Right away, you could tell that he was special. His jumpshot was something you didn't see from a 7'3" big and he was surprisingly agile. Of course, that changed with his injuries, and who knows how truly great the 2-time All-Star could have been if he hadn't lost significant jumping ability and athleticism from the repeated foot injuries. Overall, despite some critics of the re-signing of Ilgauskas in 2005 by Danny Ferry, Z proved to be worth the money, helping the team win the Eastern Confernce in 2007, resulting in the euphoric celebration captured above.

The first thing that I want to make completely clear is that I have no hard feelings toward Z leaving to try and win a championship. It wasn't happening in Cleveland (at least, not in the two years at most that Z has left to play) and although the Cavaliers did offer him the same contract as Miami, it was clear that he would be far from the ideal center in the new Byron Scott up-tempo system. With Antawn Jamison, J.J. Hickson, Anderson Varejao, and Leon Powe already on the roster, minutes would have been limited anyway. In Miami, Z has a legitimate chance not just to win a title, but to play a significant part in it. Ilgauskas may in fact be the team's starting center, competing with non-centers Juwan Howard and Udonis Haslem for the honor as it currently stands. While my heart was screaming, "Anywhere, ANYWHERE but Miami!", it turns out that it's the perfect fit for Big Z.

Well, unless you're Amish, you've probably heard by now that LeBron James is a Cavalier no longer. Yes, as LBJ put it, he is "taking his talents to South Beach" to join the Miami Heat, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Pat Riley, and a whole lot of nightlife. Given the sequence of events over the last few days, the last few weeks, heck ever since Game 5 of the Celtics' series, it doesn't surprise me a great deal. The destination? That surprises the heck out of me. The leaving part? It was going to happen eventually; LeBron is no Reggie Miller or Derek Jeter. The television spectacle? That's the part that makes me a LeBron fan no more. In trying to be as civil as possible less than 24 hours removed, here are my thoughts about what will go down as one of the top two darkest days in Cleveland sports history (in contention with the Browns moving to Baltimore).

Photo: AP

No time to ease into things, Byron Scott. Your second day as coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers may prove to be your most important.

At tomorrow's meeting with LeBron James, owner Dan Gilbert, general manager Chris Grant, and Scott will look to convince LeBron James that their team should be the winner in the LeBron sweepstakes. They'll do this by preaching the familiar, home-based, defensive winning culture that they have established together with James over the past seven years, combined with the new strategy and experience with Byron Scott and the ability to make the roster better in this offseason as well as beyond. The Cavaliers' hope is that they will be rewarded for attempting to win at all costs for the past several years rather than others who have embraced losing for the chance to entertain LBJ this week.

The Cavalier front office believes that Scott is the man for the job because of his championship pedigree as a player, his proven track record of his overachieving and going deep into the playoffs, and his defensive philosophy and stronger offensive presence. Scott played for the old school Pat Riley in Los Angeles, and he believes in a consistent, tenacious defense that will get the Cavaliers through games where the offense isn't working as well. In short, "defense wins championships". Does that sound familiar? It should, because that's been the bedrock of this franchise and a lot of what Mike Brown hammered into his players in five largely successful years as Cavs' head man.

He can make more money with a longer contract here, it's his home, he's won a lot of games here, he doesn't want to leave his comfort zone, and he doesn't want to be shunned from his hometown. These are the most popular responses that Cavaliers' fans return fire with as they stand on pins and needles amidst the national media and every major American city launching an all-out attack on the city of Cleveland and the Cavalier franchise. At midnight, LeBron will cross that barrier and become an unrestricted NBA free agent for the first time, and there's little the Cavaliers can do until the process plays out and the franchise's fate for the next five to ten years is determined. On this historic night in Cleveland sports history, I have some thoughts that might as well come out now if they're ever going to.

For me, the overriding factor here is legacy. Regardless of what others may say, if LeBron James is able to win a title for the city of Cleveland and break its curse, it would go down as one of the most profound things to happen in NBA history, Cleveland sports history, and professional sports history. Going to Chicago or New York or Miami or Los Angeles, places where people have already paved the way is nothing but a copout. He's already done most of the heavy lifting. The team's establishing a winning, defensively powerful culture that is one of the best in the league. It's a team that has made it into at least the second round of the playoffs the last five seasons. That's while constantly retooling in a neverending effort to improve the roster and please LeBron.

 Photo: Los Angeles Times

 Photo: Seattle Times

It appears the Cavaliers' coaching search is nearing its close, with two former Laker players with heavy ties to that organization in the mix. Both Brian Shaw and Byron Scott have now been in for interviews, but there is still uncertainty regarding Laker coach Phil Jackson's future, and it could prevent the Cavaliers from their goal: hiring a head man before LeBron is officially on the open market at midnight Wednesday night. Both candidates are well qualified, and both bring significant positives to the table, so I cannot stress it enough, above all, that the Cavaliers MUST decide on a head coach tomorrow and get him in here ASAP!

Shaw was in town for the past two days, and rumors abounded that the Cavs' search was over, that Shaw had been offered the job, that they were working on a contract, and that Shaw was working on assembling a staff of assistants. It appears that those statements are not true... yet. Brian Windhorst seems to feel (like many others) that Shaw has pulled ahead of Scott in the Cavaliers' race, and the team is definitely leading down the road to a Shaw regime.

After being hotly pursued by Cavaliers' owner Dan Gilbert, Tom Izzo in the end chose to stay home and continue to build on his legacy as one of the top college coaches in the game. The Cavaliers, who threw everything they had into the Izzo pursuit, are now staring down being coachless when LeBron James ultimately makes his decision on where to play next season. The chicken and the egg dilemma has been well-documented (the Cavs want a coach to impress LeBron, but no one will commit until they know LeBron is on board), but only now does it emanate a palpable sense of uncertainty and anxiety about where the Cavs are now and where they'll be in a few weeks.

In his East Lansing press conference, Izzo exuded the strong leadership qualities and motivational speak that made me only want him more for the Cavaliers' coaching vacancy. He spoke from the heart about how he is so tied with the Spartan community and how the current and former players reaching out to him ultimately helped him make his decision. That's all well and good, but there's little doubt that a different tune may have been sung with LeBron James under contract. Izzo acted as if this was his last flirtation with the NBA, and I'm inclined to believe him. If he wasn't willing to take this money and this potential situation to win a championship with a MSU alum for an owner, I don't think anything will uproot him from Michigan State now. He said he was remotivated by all of this soul searching over the last nine days, and how could he not be with the opportunity to go back to MSU and win another national title?

In life, so much of what takes place is about timing, in particular the sequence of events that have to happen in order to bring people and places together. That's part of my reason behind why I feel that a courtship between Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo and the Cleveland Cavaliers is going to happen eventually, if not immediately. According to our friends over at Waiting for Next Year, their sources are telling them the players met with Izzo and came away with the feeling that Izzo was leaving them for the NBA and Cleveland. I couldn't be much happier, and here's why.

In an article last week, I went through the head coaching candidates that Brian Windhorst outlined and ranked them while adding a couple of my own selections. I had Phil Jackson first, followed by Coach K, Lenny Wilkens, and Tom Izzo. I still maintain that if they could get Phil or Coach K, they should drop everything and do it, but those are both really pipe dreams, especially since the Lakers are on the footsteps of an eleventh ring for Phil and we just fired our best link to Krzyzewski in Danny Ferry. Lenny Wilkens would be a sentimental favorite, but he's probably too old to coach again. That takes me down the list to Izzo, the man who's made Michigan State a Top 10 program nationally, winning a national championship in 2000 and taking the Spartans to six Final Fours.

With reports that everyone from Notre Dame to Texas could be joining a 12, 14, or 16-team Big Ten conference, the first event to take place is reportedly the addition of the Nebraska Cornhuskers to the Big Ten. After many internal meetings, it appears the Huskers are willing to leave the white dwarf that is the Big 12 and head to the true Midwest, amid rumors that as many as six of their conference counterparts could bolt to a jumbo version of the Pac 10. Official word could come as soon as tomorrow, but the main source is the Chicago Tribune, so I'm inclined to believe them.

Immediately, there are many issues that will have to be addressed upon Nebraska's welcoming party. How do you break down the presumed six-team divisions and do you start playing a championship game immediately? Are more teams on the way, and do you wait until there are more teams to start the championship game?

My proposal is to begin playing a championship game immediately with the two six-team divisions being broken down in a North/South fashion. This may be counterintuitive, but my reasoning is sound. First, you cannot have Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State in the same division, and that's exactly what you would have with an East/West split. That leaves Wisconsin or Iowa with a "free pass" each year to the championship game in my opinion.

A counterargument to that would be if you break up Ohio State and Michigan into opposite divisions, they wouldn't be able to play each other every year. Not true, if the Big Ten continues to designate that rivalry games are maintained across division lines (the other that sticks out with my breakdown is in-state rivals Illinois and Northwestern).

So, without further ado, here is how I would breakdown the Big Ten of the future.