FanHouse AndersonVarejao

The Cavaliers are going all out to try to win a championship next season, before LeBron James can even think about becoming an unrestricted free agent in the magical, mystical summer of 2010. They've already traded for Shaquille O'Neal, and are rumored to have interest in the services of the recently freed Charlie Villanueva.

The team's heavy activity this summer would lead you to believe that minutes on the court will be in short supply for Anderson Varejao in the coming season. And that might be a big reason why he opted out of a contract which would have paid him $6.2M, when it's pretty unlikely that any team would offer him much more than that once he hit the open market.

The cynical would joke that a Denver Nuggets season wouldn't be complete without a catastrophic injury to Nene, the Brazilian big man who this year -- a superb campaign, really -- played in at least 65 games for the first time since 2004. But there you go: in the Nuggets' final game of the 2008-09 season, Nene suffered a fractured arm in the fourth quarter, according to the Denver Post. He left the gym wearing a cast.

There's no word on how long rehab will take. One would assume the injury may affect Nene's reported plans to play for Brazil in this summer's Copa America. Brazil needs to finish top five in the Copa (assuming already World-qualified Team USA also finished top five) to automatically qualify for the 2010 World Championships in Istanbul. Brazil's coach said Anderson Varejao has tentatively committed, but the Cavalier will likely enter free agency in July. Missing its two top big men could be trouble for the Brazilians.

That right there was how Dwight Howard picked up his sixth technical foul of the post-season, on a play where he was tackled around the neck by Anderson Varejao, but somehow managed to score anyway. This was cause for concern, because one more would get him a one-game suspension, which his Magic could ill-afford to have happen at this late stage of the playoffs.

Amid a midseason war of words, Shaquille O'Neal faulted his old coach Stan Van Gundy for his frenetic, loud sideline direction, infamously calling SVG a "master of panic." Magic players including Dwight Howard and Marcin Gortat have alluded to the accusation late this year -- a seemingly worrisome development.

But if Van Gundy's style does create unnecessary anxiety for Orlando, it sure didn't show up in Game 1 Wednesday.

FanHouse previews every round of the NBA Playoffs.

For all of the Cavaliers' success this year -- both posting the league's best record and winning their first eight games of the playoffs -- the Magic have actually held their own in head-to-head matchups, winning two of three games in the regular season and seven of 10 the last three years.

Much like your 401k, though, past results do not guarantee future performance, but at least the Magic won't come into this series questioning whether they have what it takes to win a single game against the vaunted Cavs, which was exactly the situation the dysfunctional Pistons and the injury-depleted Hawks faced in the first and second rounds, respectively.

With LeBron James sitting out Cleveland's season finale on Thursday, somebody had to get the crowd amped by throwing chalk, right? Fortunately, Anderson Varejao was there to pick up the slack, much to the amusement of the rest of his teammates.

We showed you Ray Allen's cheap shot to the Cavaliers' Anderson Varejao on Sunday, and it seemed clear that something like that would be punishable by the league office. The NBA has weighed in, and as expected, Allen has been suspended for one game without pay for the incident.

Now, some Celtics fans believe that Varejao threw Allen to the ground intentionally, which may have slightly justified Allen's response. To me it looks like they simply got tangled up, but no matter what Varejao's involvement, an elbow to the groin is about 50 times worse than being inadvertently tossed to the ground, isn't it?

The nationally televised game between the Cavaliers and the Celtics was mostly uneventful, as Cleveland turned the game into a blowout from the very start -- except for this one particular play involving Ray Allen and Anderson Varejao.

The two got tangled up after a free throw, before Allen ended up on the floor and, on his way up, delivered a nice, dirty elbow directly to Varejao's groin. The funny thing is (as you'll see in the following clip), Varejao didn't really seem all that bothered by it.

In a game that was supposed to feature the top two teams in the Eastern Conference on Sunday, only one of the clubs bothered to show up.

Both the Celtics and the Cavaliers had already clinched their respective playoff seeds, and since Boston won two of the first three games between the teams this season, they really didn't have anything to play for -- which is something that was evident from the opening tip.

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It's funny how the timing works out. Ben Wallace hasn't played for the Cavs since Feb. 26 due to a broken right leg, and Anderson Varejao missed Cleveland's last game with a banged up wrist. The Cavs finally had the entire team back on the practice court on Tuesday ... but learned today that rookie J.J. Hickson will miss the next two to three weeks with a sore back.

Truth be told, losing Hickson is hardly a huge blow for the Cavs -- he's barely played of late, and with both Wallace and Varejao available, he wasn't going to play much going forward -- but it's still horrible timing on the eve of the playoffs.