May 2010
35 posts
NBA Myth - The "Inadvertent Elbow"
I’m going to step aside from free agency and coach searches for a moment, since Mikey and Tim have nailed that topic on every post. I want to talk about the games still being played and the players scuffling for the title. I mean that literally.
Specifically, I want to discuss the concept of the “inadvertent elbow”, the biggest legalization of assault in professional...
Wade Recruits James to Miami →
Via a sideways step, where he rips Chicago for not being a loyal organization - and we all know how LeBron feels about loyalty.
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Here's the Question...
If Philly is indeed dumb enough to shop the #2 pick in the draft, but the only way to get it is to absorb Elton Brand’s contract…what do you do, hotshot?
Dad, Mike, and I exchanged several emails about this topic earlier today. In our defense, it’s not entirely a hypothetical, as evidenced by this post on ESPN’s Rumor Central:
Pistons president of basketball ...
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A Retrospective - The Cavaliers' Offense and...
As many people discuss the perception that the Cavaliers ultimately regressed under the tutelage of Mike Brown, given how deep (or shallow) they went into the playoffs this season, I thought it would be helpful to take a look at how the team ranked offensively and defensively over the years.
I’ve read a lot of articles mentioning field goal percentage, opponent’s field goal...
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Goodbye Mike Brown, You Were Never Even Allowed To...
Well, it ended like we all thought it would.
As everyone knows by now, the Coldstone Mike Brown era ended last night just before midnight ET. Coldstone was fired in advance of the calendar flip that would’ve guaranteed his entire $4.5MM salary for the 2010-11 season, instead of just the half he’ll be paid for doing absolutely nothing for the next year, AKA “The American...
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The Summer of Money - The Sign and Trade Part II
This is the second in a series of posts about the Cavaliers’ potential options were they to partake in a sign and trade with LeBron James. You can read the first part here.
Assuming the projected $56.1M cap sticks and using salary numbers from HoopData, we can talk about which players might come back to Cleveland in a hypothetical sign and trade arrangement. Remember, since the Cavs are...
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ESPN & The Circle of LeBron
I just have to get something off my chest briefly.
Tonight as I was finishing dinner, a preview of the evening edition of Sports Center came on. The final story they were going to run was this:
“Is LeBron James’s free agency being overhyped?”
This, to me, is just a hilarious paradox.
Let’s recap briefly. For the first two full days after the Cavs’ season...
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Wayne Winston on Cavs vs. Celtics Lineups →
Winston, former Dallas Mavericks stat guy, professor, and purveyor of Adjusted +/-, looks at the various lineups used in the Cavs-Celtics series.
This data is not kind to Coldstone’s rotations.
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The Summer of Money - The Sign and Trade
The big buzz - amongst everyone who’s already determined LeBron James will leave Cleveland when he becomes a free agent on midnight of July 1st - is about the possibility of a sign and trade. While I think there is a significant chance James stays with the Cavaliers, I can’t fault people for wanting to talk about a sign and trade. It is at least progressive and forward thinking in...
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
No, that’s not a reference to Zydrunas Ilgauskas, it’s a reference to the fact that we are currently very overworked and very tired - and therefore, I am postponing the post I was going to write today about sign and trades until tomorrow. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, if you’re not following us on Twitter, I must say you’re missing out. Tim, in my opinion, leveled some...
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Contracts, Capology, & LeBron
As we begin to sift through the many possibilities for the future of LeBron and the Cavs, I thought it might be useful to try to get into some of the fine print about contracts and sign-and-trades under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. In my experience as a fan, sports writers tend to just start describing rumored scenarios without explaining why they work, or why a player would want...
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The Defense Rests
When a basketball team is built to win a championship, and it does not win one, every decision that team made along the way is ripe for questioning. This isn’t a completely fair phenomenon, but it is life. Like most businesses, basketball is a results based business. The truth is that Cavaliers’ majority owner Dan Gilbert spent a lot of money in an attempt to insure that his team...
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Multiple Stars and the Need for a Superstar →
Something to consider as the Cavaliers move forward with or without LeBron James.
Parade Countdown - To be continued at a later date
WOW — that’s about all I can say right now. WOW! In all my speculation and analysis of this playoff season, I never suspected it would end this way. I never suspected that we would be talking about a lack of effort from LeBron. I never suspected we would be talking about lack of leadership from him.
I just never suspected ……
So, life goes on. No parade this year,...
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Game 6 Bazooka Point
Well, I’m glad I had liquor in the apartment.
There is a lot that can and will be said about the Cavs’ collapse in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Mike and my dad and I have already been discussing some preliminary theories as to its root causes. It’ll involve a lot of speculation, a lot of second-guessing, and a lot of questions and hypothetical answers.
For tonight,...
Parade Countdown - Six Down, 10 To Go (Con’t)...
Damn-it, I’m not ready to give up on that parade just yet. I’m also not ready to believe that LBJ tanked the last game on purpose — for whatever reason. I’m not even ready to believe that Boston’s old guys have found the fountain of youth one last time.
However, I am ready to believe that the Cavs can come back and win tonight. Yeah, I know, Mikey’s post and...
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Lineup Changes?
Pretty dangerous to do this in Game 6, and against Mike’s character, but if this does indeed happen, it will make tonight all the more intriguing.
So what lineups should Coldstone use?
Here’s a look at the Cavs’ top 5 best performing lineups this season, based on Adjusted +/-:
1) Mo Williams-Delonte West-Anthony Parker-LeBron James-Andy Varejao +55.42
2) Boobie...
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An Interlude
After Tuesday night, I was relatively prepared to write a post about how Game 6 was going to be LeBron James’s defining moment, how this series is shaping up to be a demarcation point in his career: if the Cavaliers go out in Game 6, or even Game 7 he’ll be on his way to the fenced-in land of guys who just couldn’t get it done. If, on the other hand, he returns to MVP form,...
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Game 5 Bazooka Point: Judgment Day
Not for a moment between the end of game 4 and the beginning of game 5 did I think this was the post I was going to be writing tonight.
Not only are the Cavs now officially on the brink of watching another season crumble to ash, they’re here because they were outperformed in every conceivable category en route to the worst home playoff loss in franchise history, a 32-point skull-fucking...
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Pre-Game 5 Analysis
I’ve been writing effectively, and therefore rapidly, so I have some extra time to type up pre-game thoughts. I haven’t done this before, but here goes…
The Rondo-Bron matchup sounds like it will happen in spurts, according to Brian Windhorst. This is logical and is more or less in line with what I wrote last night. To reassert, Bron can guard Rondo all he wants, but if the team...
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Bron On Rondo
All of the recent chatter about the Cavs and the Celtics has revolved around whether or not LeBron James should - and will - guard Rajon Rondo tonight.
So what’s my take?
I don’t know, man.
The thing about LeBron is that he is not a great on the ball defender. He might have made first team all defense, but he made that because of highlight plays. When I watch Bron defend, I...
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Hollinger's Law of 2nd-Round Strife
As further support for JMID’s collective recommendation for continued optimism, here’s an excerpt from a column John Hollinger wrote about the Cavs’ struggles against the Celtics after game 2. Seems just as appropriate now as it did Friday:
Worth The Worry?
Time [for the Cavs] to panic? Hardly.
Relax, Cleveland. You’re in great company.
I mentioned this a year ago...
Parade Countdown - Six Down, 10 To Go (Con't)
As they say at NASA; “the countdown is on hold” - at least until tomorrow night. That’s right, all you paranoid Cavs fans — the series is now tied at 2, our parade no closer than it was yesterday.
However, it also isn’t any further away, either. So, despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth since yesterday, the fact that the Cavs regained the home court...
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Game 3 Bazooka Point
Disclaimer: I’m going to be critical of the Cavs on one point, and then I’m going to defend them. Here are a few stats that are going to feed into the criticism:
Game 4: 4-21 3P (19%) , -6 OREB, -14 TRB, -10 pts in paint
Game 3: 5-12 3P (44%), -3 OREB, +15 TRB, +18 pts in paint
Game 2: 4-21 3P (19%), -1 OREB, -10 TRB, +2 pts in paint
Game 1: 4-12 3P (33%), -1...
Parade Countdown - Six Down, 10 To Go
This post is late, for which I must apologize. I was so wrapped up in the excitement of the game last Friday — and killing zombies in Resident Evil — that praising the Cavs play on this site got lost in all that zombie blood.
However, we went to the Watch Party at the Q for the game, which made the sixth victory in the Cavs quest for that NBA title a unique and very satisfying...
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Cavs / Celtics Game 3 Bazooka Point
I don’t know that there’s a lot to say about the Cavaliers’ victory tonight. It was essentially an act of total domination. At the end of the third quarter, the Cavs had scored on 45 of the 55 possessions they had in which they did not turn the ball over. Going into the half, the Cavs had missed 15 shots. Of those 15 missed shots, the Celtics had 5 defensive rebounds; the Cavs...
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6 Reasons for Optimism Before Game 3
Since I know 99% of the Cavs’ fans in the country have somehow confused the numbers 1 and 4 and believe this series is already over, I wanted to spend a few minutes on the eve of Game 3 outlining things to keep them sane. Hopefully this prevents someone from jumping off a bridge or prematurely beginning work on their altar to Colt McCoy.
1) Game 2 Rasheed Wallace = Basketball...
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NBA Time of Possession →
The above link is to a post from Hardwood Paroxysm that examines time of possession - as opposed to number of possessions - which is a better indicator of how fast a team is playing. Since a team’s number of possessions is dictated in part by how fast their opponent plays, it doesn’t always necessarily tell the story of how quickly a team wanted to play.
Time of possession, in other...
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Schuhmann on Rondo →
A big time breakdown of the impact Rajon Rondo has had on the first two games of the series. Of note, particularly, is the points per possession distribution with Mo guarding him, AP guarding him, and Delonte guarding him, as well.
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Food For Thought For Coldstone
Thanks to the long layoff in between games two and three of the Cavs-Celtics Eastern Conference Semi-Finals matchup, there will be no Bazooka Point today. I thought it would be prudent then to suggest a possible lineup adjustment. We all know that when it comes to in-game maneuvering, Mike Brown is not exactly a master of ceremonies.
Coldstone has stated in the past that he doesn’t like...
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Bron, 'Bows, Bruises, and Bargaining
Like many other Cavs fans, my mind has been wandering back to one issue or another with the team since Monday’s Game 2 drubbing. Above all else, LeBron’s elbow is the most stressful of the problems facing the team. Clearly, it was not right during Monday’s game. Fanning the flames, ESPN reported that Bron missed Tuesday’s practice and underwent a third MRI.
Let’s...
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Cavs / Celtics Game 2 Bazooka Point
A couple key things emerged from tonight’s game. The first, and most important, has to do with injuries. Bron was certainly not himself tonight, forcing his way into a very crowded paint, not driving and kicking, and making poor interior passes (he had 5 turnovers). The second major factor was Anderson Varejao going out after the half with back spasms.
If Andy is bothered long term by a...
I Just Wanna Say...
Here, briefly, are my predictions for the second round. Sorry they are late. I done been busy with some other things.
Suns over Spurs in 7. And if the Suns are going to be able to run off makes, it might not last that long. Tom Haberstroh of ESPN Insider wrote a column earlier today - that I now cannot find on ESPN’s site - showing how the Spurs have been bad against offensively efficient...
Parade Countdown - Five Down, 11 To Go
This will be short and sweet — I’m counting down to the NBA Championship Parade in downtown Cleveland. God knows - I’ve waited a long time for this - way too long.
Will it happen this year? Who knows for sure — but, I do know that this is one of the best chances I’ve had to experience a championship in one of the major sports since 1964.
I remember listening to...
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Cavs / Celtics: Game 1 Bazooka Point
For over 24 minutes of regulation, this game was my basketball nightmare: the top-seeded Cavs getting worked by the Celtics to the tune of double digits, narrated by Reggie Miller. Oh. My. Jesus.
Everything changed in the second half. Sparked by the defensive adjustment that most of the city of Cleveland was dying for them to make earlier (Parker on Rondo), the Cavs went on a 21-9 run that...