Where Wayne Winston predicts the Heat win 66 games this season … aka the Cavaliers win total from 2 years ago.
WE'RE NOT HERE TO COOPERATE
July 23, 2010
Ha!
Watching Bad Teams Can Still Be Fun
Something we’ve probably all been wondering about - openly or not - is whether the Cavaliers will still be fun to watch in 2010-11, even if they end up not being competitive.
I think I have an answer to this question because I’ve been watching the Indians when I have free time …
The answer is yes.
Unless every single game is a total blowout, watching young players fight to win and make a name for themselves - so long as they do so in the best interest of the team - can actually be really fun. Part of it may be hallucinatory - us getting our hopes u thinking, Yeah, maybe Christian Eyenga really will become the next LeBron - but even that can be fun.
In fact, there is a certain part of me that actually enjoys watching teams that are going nowhere more than teams that are vying for the championship. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit relieved to be able to sit down and watch the NBA Finals without having a horse in the race. Without anxiety - which I have enough of already - looming over me.
This isn’t to say that I don’t deeply love watching sports when there’s a lot on the line not only for the players but for the fans I’ve aligned myself with. However, I have tried to detach myself from winning and losing as time has gone on. I remember feeling absolutely horrible for days after the Indians lost to the Red Sox in game 7 of the ALCS in 2007. After that, I decided that I never wanted to feel that way again - not when it came to things I couldn’t control.
So even when our favorite teams may not be in contention for a title, they can still be a pleasure to follow and watch, just as long as they’re not getting blown out. Plus, it’s always fun to root against other teams. And thankfully the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Heat, and now maybe the Magic or the Knicks (shout to CP3) aren’t going to be contracted any time soon.
If all else fails, there’s Carlos Santana, who has a great “I love to win” personality (watch his actions after he catches a third strike) and who also seems to be an equally great talent (it’s early, but he has a .978 OPS).
Enjoy the weekend, homies. Just say no to the Chris Paul and LeBron James version of doing what’s best for you and your family.
July 22, 2010
Has LeBron Killed the NBA?
Linkage will take you to an article by CBS Sports’s Ken Berger, all about how Chris Paul has been so inspired by the Wade / James / Bosh trio that he wants to replicate it somewhere else.
Reports of this idea first surfaced at Carmelo Anthony’s wedding the weekend after James announced his decision to head to Miami. Allegedly, Paul proposed during the reception that he, Amar’e, and ‘Melo form their own three-headed monster in New York. I didn’t pay much attention to this idea at first, because it sounded like the type of thing that…well, a friend would say to his other buddies after they’d all gotten hammered at a wedding reception.
However, Berger’s reporting makes it sound like Paul’s alleged proclamation had a lot more substance to it than that. According to Berger, CP3 is now determined to force a trade to the Magic, Lakers, or Knicks before the start of the 2010-11 season.
Obviously, the first two of those scenarios would have the rest of the pieces already in place. The Knicks, though, wouldn’t be “complete” until, in theory, Carmelo rebuffed Denver and decided to sign in New York after his contract expires in 2011.
Of course, that last scenario is far from a done deal. The giant Bermuda Triangle that is the new CBA could render everything moot—though I become more convinced every day that it ultimately won’t look all that different from the current one. Nevertheless, Melo will have to decide whether to accept a 3 year, $65MM extension from the Nuggets between now and then, knowing full well that it could be his last true opportunity to pull down the type of scrill that the free agents of 2010 are now making.
Beyond the specifics of what happens with Paul, the larger implication is the troubling one, especially for small market teams such as the Cavs.
For now, Miami’s triple-star alliance has become the new paradigm for young players in the NBA to covet. We may have entered into an era where every new talent in the league will start to believe that the only path to a title is alongside two other established great players.
If so, it’s a dangerous time for the NBA. The obvious reality is that there can’t be 3 great players on all 30 teams. It would be hard for me to imagine that there can be 3 truly great players on 10 teams.
So what happens?
Hypothetically, power would concentrate in just a handful of teams—probably 5 or 6 at most. By itself, this doesn’t sound so crazy. There are only 5 or 6 legitimate title contenders at most in any given NBA season. But unlike the contenders of the past, the disparity between the talent levels of these new powers and the rest of the league would be astronomical. So astronomical, in fact, that I find it hard to believe that competition could exist at a reasonable enough level to justify the continuation of a 30-team league. What would be the point of even putting 16 teams into the playoffs if everyone knows that, for the next half-decade, only the Knicks or Heat can legitimately rise out of the East to the Finals in order to battle either LA or Oklahoma City?
On some level, I’m hesitant to push this idea too hard. For one thing, we all know that just putting the supposed pieces in place doesn’t automatically mean you get to lift the trophy. Injuries, feuds, bad luck, bad match-ups, and a thousand other factors can all ignite the wick of the bomb that blows up a paper champion.
For another thing, we have to remember that it’s been proven in years past that defense can, in fact, win titles. As Tom Haberstroh has pointed out, the best blueprint for beating super-teams like the Heat may be the type of suffocating defense that propelled the Pistons past a “more talented” Lakers team in 2004. (Note: that link is only going to be good if you have ESPN Insider. Sorry.) To create a monster of that order, you’d need talent—but not the type of high-dollar, high-octane offensive power that we’re seeing in Miami and Paul’s dream of NY.As the 2007 Cavs showed, you may only need one superstar to get there, provided that the rest of the cast is willing to chase after and rough up the opponent like prison guards.
To return to a theme we’ve covered here before, I am severely disappointed by the idea that stars will now start defaulting to making alliances as a means to winning. It’s unfair to place the blame for this squarely on Wade, LeBron, and Bosh; after all, I have to point the finger at the Garnett / Pierce / Allen combo for reintroducing the term “Big Three” into our basketball vernacular. (And Jesus Christ, do I hate Danny Ainge for that.) But at least in that case, the team was created through trades rather than three players engineering everything on their own because of a lack of confidence in their own individual abilities.
We’ll have to see where this Chris Paul story goes. But I for one am not keen on the idea of watching two or three teams run the league for the next decade, all because Pat Riley created an unprecedented opportunity in South Beach. The problem isn’t the 2010 Heat; it’s the idea that they’ve now created a precedent that could make the NBA as a whole unsustainable.
-T
July 21, 2010
Can the 2011 Cavaliers Be the 1994 Bulls?
The above is a link to the blog at Basketball Reference, where Neil Paine put a post up on Tuesday looking at how the 1994 Chicago Bulls won 55 games without Michael Jordan, only 2 less than they did in 1993 when they still had Jordan.
Paine notes that an earlier statistical analysis he did suggested that the Cavs, without LeBron James, would win 20-25 less games - if James were replaced with an average player. By the end of the article, he backtracks a little, openly wondering if James’s legacy will be further tainted if the Cavs win a bunch of games this year, which would imply that his supporting cast wasn’t as bad as the pervasive opinion seems to believe it was.
In the post, Paine shows that the ‘94 Bulls were able to survive intact because of some luck but also, predominately, because of their defense, which actually improved the year that Jordan left. A lot of this had to do with Scottie Pippen absolutely locking down on the perimeter, with a 96.9 DRtg. By contrast, the Cavs’ best perimeter defender last year was LeBron (102 DRtg).
What does this all mean then for the Cavs moving forward in the 2010-11 season? Well, it highlights a couple of things. One is it explains Byron Scott’s emphasis on defense. If the Cavs end up being a top 5 defensive team like he has said he wants them to be, they will have leaped at least 2 spots in the defensive standings. It also suggests why the Cavs have pursued Matt Barnes, who last year had a DRtg of 103. With or without James, the Cavs needed better perimeter defenders, and Barnes might be a decent start.
On the flip side of things, the Cavs will also need to sustain an at least average offense if they hope to stay above 50 wins. As we’ve pointed out repeatedly in the past, this Cavaliers team was entirely built around LeBron, with complimentary pieces that would enable James to utilize his superhuman talents. The merits of this approach can be debated - they certainly have been - but I understand why the Cavs did what they did. Do you really help your team by taking the ball out of James’s hands?
The Bulls found a suitable number one, high usage option in Pippen to keep their offense hovering around the average mark. At the moment, without any additional roster moves, it looks like the Cavs are going to have to hope that Mo Williams can fill that role. Mo’s career usage rate is at 22.6%. Pippen’s rose from 23.9 to 27.1 in 1994. As multiple studies have shown, efficiency decreases as usage increases, so if Mo takes more shots and finishes more plays his efficiency will likely go down slightly.
Promisingly, Pippen’s ORtg before 1994 peaked at 114. It was 108 in his first year without Jordan. Mo’s ORtg has been as high as 115 playing with LeBron but was a respectable 111 in his final year with Milwaukee.
The other player most analysts and apparently the team itself will look to in order to fill the usage gap left by the leaving of LeBron is JJ Hickson. Glitch’s usage rate last year was only 18.9. Most of those plays, anyone who watched about 10 games can tell you, came as a result of feeds from LeBron. Whether Mo - or a new point guard - will be able to create some of those same shots for JJ is something we’ll find out over the course of the year. Hopefully, Glitch will also improve his ability to create his own shot off the dribble, while also taking and hitting more catch and shoot jumpers.
Ultimately, Paine’s post and my cursory analysis would seem to suggest that the Cavs have a real shot of winning 50+ games next year. This will be bad for my hopes of being able to buy courtside season tickets for the 2011-12 campaign, as well as for the franchise’s hopes of getting a new star player via the draft, but it’ll also make LeBron look kind of worse and be good for the economy of the city of Cleveland.
July 19, 2010
The Spotlight Turns
This is my least favorite part of the year from a sporting standpoint.
Not only are the NBA playoffs long gone, but the exciting aspect of free agency is in the rear view miror, too. Regular season baseball holds no draw whatsoever for me (at least, as an Indians’ fan). Football season is still two months off.
In fact, I was in a sports bar on Saturday night and the only coverage running on TV was of the British Open and Summer League basketball. Yikes.
I bring this up because, in a way, it highlights the state of the average Cleveland fan. With LeBron gone, many seem to think, what the hell do we do now?
Now, as I’ve written recently, practically everyone is underestimating the quality of the Cavs’ roster James left behind. They’ve already been written off as, if not a lottery team, certainly a team that won’t so much as sniff the 8th seed in the East. I disagree with this, but perception is reality.
Despite a recent surge, the Indians are still an ocean away from competing in the Central division. Carlos Santana has added some small bit of intrigue, but facts are facts. The Tribe is 12.5 games behind the White Sox, with both the Twins and Tigers only 1.5 games out of first themselves. It’s not impossible the team could get back into the race, but at this point it seems unlikely.
This leaves the Browns.
Energized by Mike Holmgren’s presence, some notable (if dubious) off-season moves, and a hold-over effect from the 4-game winning streak on which they rode out the 2009 season, the Browns have become the city’s undisputed sports focal point.
That said, no one (fans or pundits) seems to believe the 2010 Browns will be better than .500, and even that may be a near-miracle.
For now, though, they are once again the great hope.
This raises a semi-interesting question about expectation.
In my opinion, the Browns have enjoyed somewhat of an irrational golden age in the court of public opinion for the past several years. You can tell me that attendance was dramatically down this past season. That’s true. You could tell me that Browns fans have had no lack of venom to spew about the team, the coaching staff, the organization as a whole. That’s true too.
But I would argue that it’s also true that while in or near season, they’ve still dominated the sports discussion in the city.
More importantly, they’ve done this despite the fact that, by any measure, they have sucked all but two years since the franchise reboot.
Since that time, the burden of being THE team in Cleveland expected to win has seldom been on them. The Indians won at least 90 games per season from 1999-2001. The Cavs lucked into LeBron James in the summer of 2003. Appropriately enough, the Browns went 9-7 and made the playoffs in 2002.
Obviously, the Cavs weren’t expected to immediately shoot into title contention after the 2003 draft. But the mere hope and excitement around having the home-town phenom on OUR team, for once, may have been enough to keep people satisfied for a time—especially when the Cavs won 18 more games in 2003-4, barely missed the playoffs the season after, and then grew into a perennial playoff team and seeming powerhouse until, oh, about two weeks ago.
During that time, Clevelanders could look to the Browns as a favored son, partially because the hope for winning could be largely satisfied by someone else. In the years immediately after the Browns’ return, it was the Indians. Since 2003, it’s largely been the Cavs.
Now, though, the spotlight has squarely turned back to Berea.
Some historical perspective comes into play here, too. Since the Cavs completed the pro triumvirate in Cleveland with their inaugural 1970 season, there have only been 5 years out of a possible 40 where multiple of the city’s franchises have been competitive at once.
The only time that all three have been simultaneously good was 1994. The ‘93-94 Cavs got into the playoffs on a 47-35 record, but lost in the opening round; the ‘94 Browns went 11-5 and were hammered by the Steelers in the Divisional round of the post-season; and the ‘94 Indians were 66-47 when the lock-out crashed the rest of the season.
Aside from that magical year, the Cavs and Browns were both playoff teams in 1989 & 1990. The Cavs and Tribe were both playoff teams in 1985 & 1998.
That’s it.
The point? Almost invariably, there has only ever been one of the three teams “worth” following, i.e. if you define value in terms of the expectation that the team can truly compete week after week.
With James gone and the Cavs likely to embark on a longer-term rebuilding process, the weight falls once again on the shoulders of Randy Lerner’s team. I suspect this has already magnified the intensity of the pressure the organization feels.
They can no longer be the puppy that everyone loves, despite that it keeps whizzing on the carpet. For the first time in a long time, they are going to be expected to produce for the city.
Starting in about two months, we’ll all find out whether they’ve righted the ship just in time to shoulder the load. If not, it could be a long year for any Cleveland fan who isn’t willing to take the long view.
-T
