What we know about the Cavaliers nine games into the regular season is that we still have a lot to learn about them.

While Cleveland (6-3) returned from Florida with a much sunnier outlook thanks to impressive back-to-back wins over Orlando and Miami, it’s way too early to proclaim everything perfect with Mike Brown and the boys.

Better, yes. Perfect, no.

We’ll start with LeBron James, because all things Cavaliers start - and end, if they ever really do end - with James.

The 24-year-old once again has been absolutely sensational on the court, doing anything and everything in order to try to get his team a win.

James has also made plenty of noise off the court.

After willingly talking about his contract status and/or impending free agency for more than a year, James executed one of the best spin moves of his career the other night when he did a

180-degree turn and suddenly decided he didn’t want to talk about the subject any more.

Never mind that James was actually talking about that exact subject when he decided he didn’t want to talk about it again until after the season. Never mind that James has often fanned the flames with his own comments. Never mind that James seemed to enjoy all the attention but is now tired of it.

Never mind, never mind, never mind, because aren’t we all tired of it? Don’t we all, like James, want a little break from it?

After all, no matter what James says - or doesn’t say, if he follows through and maintains his silence - this matter isn’t going to be fully resolved until after July 1.

Then there was James’ announcement Thursday that he plans to stop wearing

No. 23 after this season as a way of honoring his childhood hero, Michael Jordan. Not only that, James said he plans to petition every player in the league who wears 23 to change numbers as a way of recognizing Jordan’s greatness.

(James will go to No. 6 in honor of Julius Erving, but, remember, we’re not going to speculate about what city he might be wearing it in.)

(If we may utilize the extremely rare double parenthetical comment, does anyone else find it odd that James plans to honor Erving by wearing No. 6 while at the same time honor Jordan by not wearing 23?)

While this will no doubt lead some to once again wax poetic about James’ remarkable understanding of and respect for the history of basketball - of course, it will also lead to a lot of No. 6 jersey sales - we greet this news with a great big, “So what!”

Just when we thought we were going to get a little break from off-court LeBron issues with his announcement about not wanting to talk about free agency, this comes along.

Now there will be Jordan reaction stories, players jumping on board stories and, most likely, a huge player who won’t change from 23 story. Then, of course, there will be James reaction stories.

Bet you can’t wait, huh?

But we digress, so back to the Cavaliers.

A lot was made, and justifiably so, of the acquisition of 37-year-old Shaquille O’Neal, the result being that point guard - and we use that term loosely - Mo Williams was put on the back burner.

While it’s virtually impossible to be a true point guard with James around - this is not a bad thing, because James is so good he has to have the ball in his hands - the fact remains that Williams, and not O’Neal, is the Cavaliers’ second-best player.

When Williams is good, like he was in an impressive victory over Orlando on Wednesday, the Cavaliers are a great team. When he’s not so good, like he was in the 2009 Eastern Conference finals, the Cavaliers aren’t so great.

The key for Williams all season will be maintaining his aggressiveness offensively while also recognizing James will get a ton of touches and that O’Neal needs his share. That’s not an easy balance to find, but if Williams can do it - and continue to do it throughout the playoffs - the Cavaliers just might be championship material.

As for O’Neal, he’s performed about the way close, knowledgeable followers of the NBA expected he would.

Those who thought Shaq’s arrival in Cleveland guaranteed a championship had not been watching him play very closely. While the 7-foot-1, 325-pounder can still dominate in small stretches, he simply can’t play hard enough, long enough to carry a team.

There will be nights when Shaq looks great. There will be nights when he doesn’t do a whole lot. Often, there will be small doses of the former and large doses of the latter in the same game.

Just remember this: O’Neal was brought here for what he can potentially bring in the postseason - a low-post presence who can defend a dominant center (read: Dwight Howard) and score if played one-on-one. No matter what “The Diesel” does over the course of the regular season, his true value to the Cavaliers won’t be determined until that time.

That we know, or at least we should know.

What we don’t know is what is going to happen with the loose cannon known as Delonte West, whether J.J. Hickson can become a consistent starter - incidentally, he got that promotion one night after a horrible three-minute performance against Chicago - and whether Anthony Parker’s 34-year-old legs have enough left in them.

We also don’t know whether Leon Powe can make it back from knee surgery in time to be a legitimate playoff contributor, whether Brown can piece this all together or whether general manager Danny Ferry will pull off a big trade - Zydrunas Ilgauskas’ expiring contract is going to look very attractive to a lot of teams - near the February deadline.

We do know, however, that it’s still very early. We’ll learn a lot more over the coming months.

Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4061 or rickn@ohio.net.

TONIGHT

• WHO: Cleveland vs. Utah
• TIME: 7:30
• WHERE: The Q
• TV/RADIO: FS Ohio; WEOL 930-AM, WTAM 1100-AM

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