has improved his footwork and shooting.

His hang time, at least where the rim is involved, still needs some work.

Gee supplied one of the few solid performances in the Cavaliers’ 104-96 loss to the Toronto Raptors at The Q on Monday. But his 15-point outing off the bench was almost overshadowed by a spectacular second-quarter spill in which his hands slipped from the rim following a dunk and he landed on his neck and shoulders.

Remarkably, Gee popped up and remained in the game. Gee said he experienced no pain or headache from a hardwood crash that made ESPN’s “SportsCenter.”

The second-year pro hasn’t seen the highlight and doesn’t care to watch it. He answered numerous phone calls checking on his well being.

“I made sure I talked to everyone and let them know I was fine,” said Gee, who was whistled for traveling on the play.

The Cavaliers can only hope they bounce back as quickly as the 6-foot-6 small forward. He assured coach Byron Scott that he felt fine and he was fit for practice. The coach has put a lot of work into boosting the confidence and fine-tuning the game of Gee, who played for San Antonio and Washington before joining the Cavaliers last season from the NBA Development League.

After the season and before the lockout, Gee occasionally came into town to get coached up by Scott. They worked specifically on his footwork and shooting.

“Obviously, we couldn’t get our hands on him this summer, but before he left, before the lockout, we worked with him a few times,” Scott said. “I thought he was getting it then. It was just a matter of him getting comfortable and doing it.”

Gee played in Poland for several months during the lockout before returning in ample time for training camp. Scott said Gee was the most pleasant surprise of camp, but that he still needs reassurance from the coaching staff.

“The biggest leap with Zo is he has some confidence,” Scott said. “Even in the two preseason games [in which Gee was 1-of-9 from the field] I pulled him aside and told him, ‘You’re thinking too much – just play. You did all this work in the summer now put it to use. Just go out and play basketball like you are capable of playing.’ I thought [Monday] night he was free. He played like he was free.

“He wasn’t worried about making mistakes. I thought he did a heckuva job defensively, which I know he can do night in and night out, but on the offensive end he gave us a good boost.”

Scott said the swingman is versatile enough that he would consider using him at shooting guard. The coach was asked if Gee was this season’s pet project the way Daniel Gibson had been a year ago.

“He’s somebody I take a lot of pride in,” Scott said. “I’ve seen where this young man has come from and how hard he worked.”

Gee needs to work on his dismounts following dunks. He actually had a similar spill in high school.

“I’ve done it before a while ago,” he said. “So I knew nothing was wrong with me.”

Playing time: Gee played 28 minutes in the opener, taking some time away from starter Omri Casspi. The small forward played 20-plus minutes, but just 6:47 in the second half.

“It was a tough night for me and my team,” said Casspi, who had two points and missed all four field goal attempts. “. . . I wasn’t as focused as I wanted to be. It is what it is . . . You get slapped in the face and you have to bounce back tomorrow.”

Status quo?: Scott said he didn’t expect to make any changes to his 10-man rotation.

“It’s just one game,” he said. “We’ve got 65 more. Defensively, we have to make sure we’re on the same page. If we’re on the same page and teams beat us, than more power to them. But when we have mishaps we had last night, then it’s on us.”

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — For Anderson Varejao, it’s good to be back — in Cleveland, at the team’s practice facility, with a basketball in hand.

“I am so excited to be back and be playing again,” Varejao said Friday after working out with Cavaliers teammates Ramon Sessions, Luke Harangody, Samardo Samuels and Manny Harris.

Varejao, the Cavs’ popular power forward, declared himself 100 percent recovered from surgery on Feb. 12 to repair a torn tendon in his right foot. He suffered the injury during a running drill at practice Jan. 6, so he didn’t play basketball for 11 months.

Never before had he gone 11 months without playing.

“That was the first time,” he said.

After missing the final 47 games of last season, Varejao spent most of his time rehabilitating at home in Brazil over the summer. He was able to run and shoot, but he didn’t have any contact until returning to Cleveland about a month ago.

So nobody was happier to see the inside of the Cavs’ practice facility on Thursday than Varejao.

“It was good to be back there,” he said. “I feel like I’m at home when I’m there.

“I’m very excited. I’m really excited to see my friends and the fans. Everybody’s excited. I can’t wait for the season to start.”

Although NBA players were able to return to their team’s facilities this week, it will be another week until training camp officially starts — pending final agreement between players and management on the new collective bargaining agreement.

Varejao thinks most of his teammates will be back by Monday. He’s looking forward to that — and to getting to know rookies Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson. He met them before the lockout, but he hasn’t been in touch since.

He closely followed the news of the lockout and always had faith there would be a season, which was why he tried to stay in shape in spite of the uncertainty. Now he’s eager to see what kind of condition he’s in.

He said his foot gets a little sore after a tough workout, but he wants to test it in practice.

“I need to go through a practice to see how I feel,” he said. “I won’t really know until I start running and doing drills.”

He envisions a much healthier and improved team from the one that went 19-63 last season.

“Without injuries, I believe we can do much better,” he said. “We’re going to try to get to the playoffs.”

Preseason schedule: The Cavs will host the Detroit Pistons on Dec. 20 in their only preseason game at The Q.

The Cavs also will host a free intrasquad scrimmage at The Q at 1 p.m. on Dec. 18. The Cavs will open the preseason with a game at Detroit on Dec. 16 at 7:30 p.m.

The preseason schedule, normally eight games, was shortened after the lockout caused the start of training camp to be pushed back to Dec. 9, and the start of the season to be pushed back to Dec. 25.

Ticket information for the preseason game and scrimmage will be announced next week. The full regular-season schedule will be announced Tuesday. It appears (unofficially) that the Cavs will open Dec. 26 against Toronto.

Christmas schedule: In what many Cavs fans will see as a gift, the Dallas Mavericks will hoist their 2011 NBA championship banner before their nationally televised game against the Miami Heat on Christmas Day. That game will be televised at 2:30 p.m. on WEWS Channel 5, followed by the Chicago Bulls at the Los Angeles Lakers. TNT will open the day with a game between Boston and New York at noon. ESPN will show Orlando at Oklahoma City at 8 p.m., followed by the Los Angeles Clippers at Golden State.

Charge signings: The Canton Charge, the Cavs’ new D-League team, signed former Louisiana Tech guard Kyle Gibson and former Massachusetts forward Dante Milligan.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: mschmitt@plaind.com, 216-999-4668

On Twitter: @pdcavsinsider

The news surrounding the NBA has been more positive over the last few days, and that could mean the beginning of the 2011-12 season will happen before long. Social media still has speculation of several trades and the latest from Bleacher Report has the Cleveland Cavaliers acquiring a much-needed big man to fill the middle of the lane.

Al Jefferson averaged nearly 19 points and 10 rebounds per game for the Utah Jazz last year, but the team drafted another center this summer and that could spell the end for Jefferson in Utah. Cleveland has some terrific young players on its roster, but lacks a true center and adding Jefferson would give the team some leadership and a center that can help on both ends of the court.

The Cavaliers are still in rebuilding mode after the departure of LeBron James, but making a deal like this would make Cleveland a playoff contender in the Eastern Conference. Both teams need to make some roster moves to improve upon last season’s failures and if Utah can add some help to their back-court from a deal, this trade will make sense for both teams, and that is good news for Jazz and Cavalier fans.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cavaliers guard Baron Davis returned to Cleveland on Wednesday for a day of community service. He visited a couple of schools, made a stop at the Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center to salute service men and women ahead of Veterans Day on Friday and talked about sports and music at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“I didn’t want the fans to think that any of us forgot about them,” Davis said. “That’s why I’m here.”

When he invited questions from a rapt audience of about 40 invited guests at the Rock Hall last night, he got at least a dozen questions — but not one about the lockout that has kept him and his teammates off the court at The Q a few blocks away.

The closest query was about how basketball had changed for him from when he started playing at the age of 4.

“A lot of the innocence is lost,” he said. “It’s a business first, and the stakes are a whole lot higher.”

As Davis made his way around his new hometown, NBA owners and union representatives were meeting in New York to try to bring an end to the lockout, which reached Day 132 on Wednesday.

“Today, for me, is not really about the lockout,” Davis said after the event. “It’s about why am I here in Cleveland. It’s about the veterans at the VA. Veterans Day is coming up, so let’s go in there and talk to these guys and hang out and make them feel their worth for their sacrifice and everything they’ve done to keep us safe.

“Today was a day of impact, a day of inspiration. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what we’re all capable of as a union, as a league. We’re capable of affecting people’s lives. I think a lot of times that gets forgotten.”

Looking fit and energized, Davis said he was starting to get jittery waiting for basketball to start. But he has been keeping busy, he said. Although he was enrolled at UCLA over the summer, he didn’t enroll for the fall semester because he thought he would be going back to work.

He said that was also the reason there never were workouts organized for his locked-out teammates.

“Every time we’d get ready to organize, we [thought] we were on our way back,” he said.

He is trying to organize a charity game in Los Angeles later this month that would feature some Cavs players, and he said he would like to do the same here, although he did not provide specifics.

“We’ll get together, probably even do some type of charity game here in Cleveland for the fans, like a giveback game in Cleveland for the fans,” he said.

Wednesday’s schedule was a step in that direction. Asked what he got out of spending the day with Cleveland-area students and veterans, Davis said: “I don’t want to get anything. I want to give. I’m not here in Cleveland to do anything but give. I want to give to the people. I want to give to these kids and I want to inspire whomever is out there willing to listen.

“I think if I were to say what I get out of that: I get an opportunity to learn something new about myself, learn something new about Cleveland as a whole and as a community. For me, it’s all about giving at this point in my career, at this point in my life.”

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: mschmitt@plaind.com, 216-999-4668

On Twitter: @pdcavsinsider

CLEVELAND, Ohio — After months of dealing with doctors and physical therapists, it sounds as though the only ones keeping Anderson Varejao off an NBA court are league owners and union officials.

An agent for the Cavaliers center said Varejao’s torn ankle tendon has healed, allowing him to participate in drills and pick-up games. He appeared in just 31 Cavaliers’ games last season before requiring ankle surgery in February.

“Anderson feels great, he’s pain free,” agent Aylton Tesch said.

Varejao, 28, has spent the past week training in Tampa with Cavaliers free agent Anthony Parker. This weekend, he plans to return to Brazil and prepare for an NBA season jeopardized by a lockout.

Tesch said overseas teams have made inquiries about Varejao, due to make $7.7 million this season with the Cavaliers. But the club’s most tenured player wants to be healthy for the upcoming NBA season, assuming there is one, the agent said.

Varejao spent the summer rehabbing the ankle at the Brazilian Olympic facility in Rio de Janeiro and his hometown of Vitoria.