Another win for the Cavs—the sixth straight—despite a very shaky first half. Another spectacular night for LeBron: 40 points on 16-27 FG, 13 reb, 6 ast, 2 blk, 3 stl, 4 turnovers, in 42 minutes.
But unfortunately, another discouraging performance from the Cavs’ starting back court.
Mo vs DET: 9 points on 3-9 FG, 2 reb, 4 ast, 1 blk, 0 stl, 2 turnovers in 33 min
Parker vs DET: 2 points on 1-6 FG, 0 reb, 3 ast, 0 blk, 0 stl, 1 turnover in 30 min
The team’s starting guard play has been a red flag all season. As we all know, if Mo isn’t hitting from deep, he’s basically a liability. Meanwhile, Parker is having his career-worst season in per-36 minute scoring (9.2 points) despite shooting a career-best 45.6% 3FG.
Here are their lines in the previous two games:
Mo vs. NJ: 16 points on 5-12 FG, 1 reb, 6 ast, 1 blk, 0 stl, 3 turnovers in 28 min
Parker vs. NJ: 8 points on 2-5 FG, 4 reb, 3 ast, 0 blk, 1 stl, 1 turnover in 30 min
Mo vs. NY: 7 points on 2-8 FG, 3 reb, 10 ast, 1 blk, 0 stl, 1 turnover in 25 min
Parker vs. NY: 8 points on 3-4 FG, 5 reb, 1 ast, 1 blk, 1 stl, 1 turnover in 27 min
Add all of that up, and you get the following:
Mo (last 3 gm total): 32 points on 10-29 FG, 6 reb, 20 ast, 3 blk, 0 stl, 6 TO in 86 min
Mo 3-Game Avg: 10.7 pts on 34.5%FG, 2 reb, 6.7 ast, 1 blk, 0 stl, 2 TO per 29 min
Mo 3-Game per 36: 13.3 pts on 34.5%FG, 2.5 reb, 8.3 ast, 2.5 TO
Mo Season per 36 (Actual): 16.7 pts on 43.6%FG, 3.1 reb, 5.3 ast, 2.7 TO
Parker (last 3 gm total): 18 points on 6-15 FG, 9 reb, 7 ast, 1 blk, 2 stl, 3 TO in 87 min
Parker 3-Game Avg: 6 points on 40%FG, 3 reb, 2.3 ast, 0.3 blk, 0.7 stl, 1 TO per 29 min
Parker 3-game per 36: 7.5 points on 40%FG, 3.7 reb, 2.9 ast, 1.2 TO
Parker Season per 36 (Actual): 9.2 points on 44.2% FG, 3.5 reb, 2.1 ast, 1.1 TO
In summary, this tells us that what you’re seeing right now from the starting Parker / Williams tandem is about what you should expect to see for the rest of the season and, more importantly, the playoffs. In fact, if you look at his overall game, it’s arguable that Mo has actually been playing better all-around over the course of the last 3 games than over the course of the season. Yes, his FG% and scoring are down, but his assists and rebounds have been WAY up with only a minimal rise in his TOs. That said, I suspect this is largely a result of the increased pace the Cavs played against the Knicks and Nets, so the whole thing may be a moot point.
The reality is that Delonte is still the team’s best guard by a wide berth, and unless he gets to play starter minutes (with a healthy dose of Jamario Moon off the bench), the Cavs are going to have to rely on their front line to carry them the rest of the way, just like tonight.
Bucks Saturday. Shaping up to be a tough road game, especially if JJ has another all-game Glitch like he did tonight. Expect him to be mauled regularly by Andrew Bogut for the first 6 minutes of the game, until Coldstone inserts Varejao to take his place.
Henry Abbott of True Hoop has posted an interview with Dean Oliver, one of the founders of the stats movement in basketball. You’ll notice one very important statement in the interview:
“It’s an interesting time. Just a couple of weeks ago, I looked at teams that have stats people integrated into the decision process. (Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Oklahoma City, Portland and I may have included Orlando — I’m not certain what they do exactly.) It was seven or eight teams. They had won 60% of their games, and that’s counting Houston, which has only won half their games because they’re missing Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady wasn’t playing.
“The teams that don’t have quants won 40-some percent. And it was pretty linear … the more or less they had someone integrated into their decision making, the more or less they were at the extremes of winning and losing.”
Tonight is arguably one of my least favorite sports nights of the year. Why? Because 45 minutes before I started writing this post, NFL free agency began.
This is not in itself a bad thing. On one level, it’s an improvement. Instead of idle speculation, I get actual information from the NFL sources I follow about roster moves and trades. The Browns could, in theory, start to make some improvements. Most importantly to me, some 21 year-old’s 40 yard dash time at the combine will cease to qualify as news.
The problem for me is what it does to the Cavs.
The regular readers of this blog, I believe, fall into an extreme minority in the Cleveland sports community. Though there are a number of truths I could follow that sentence up with, the one I’m talking about tonight is this: I think we all care tremendously more about the Cavs than the Browns.
Unfortunately, this is not the norm. And it drives me insane.
I understand that for a long time, the Browns were very competitive, very exciting to watch, very much justified as THE team in Cleveland. They were a squad that people felt embodied the spirit of the city. They were full of charismatic stars and great players, like Jim Brown, Bernie Kosar, Clay Matthews, on and on. They were a team that people felt were almost perpetually on the verge of that elusive championship.
But let’s be honest, those days are long gone. Yet the city’s love affair with the Browns still trumps the others, regardless of who’s actually performing and who isn’t. I generally think that the Plain Dealer’s Bud Shaw is a hack, but he hit the nail on the head last spring when he wrote something to the effect of, “The Cavs are heading into the playoffs with the best record in the league, the Indians’ season opener is this coming week, so it’s only natural that most of the reader questions in my inbox are about Brady Quinn.”
The Cavs are on pace to again finish as the #1 seed in the entire league. The Browns haven’t made the playoffs since 2002.
The Cavs boast a guy who may go down as the greatest player in the history of pro basketball. He’s in the midst of having one of the most dominant statistical seasons ever. He may be a unanimous vote for MVP this season. Meanwhile, the Browns don’t even have a legitimate starting quarterback.
Since Dan Gilbert bought the team, the Cavs have built a world-class organization full of character guys committed to winning. They make lop-sidedly positive trades, and with the exception of Larry Hughes, when they decide to spare no expense they usually get a high return on investment. The Browns have been the sports world’s most absurd game of front office musical chairs since their return in 1999. They are likely paying as many people as much money to NOT work for them as they’re paying to the staff currently on the job. And again, they’ve been to the playoffs once in the past decade.
I could go on and on with this stuff. The point is, despite this huge gap in competitiveness and intrigue, the hibernation period is over again. The Browns will now automatically jump to the #1 story position on every Cleveland media outlet. There will be more discussion over the tender given to Matt Roth than to Andy Varejao’s qualifications as Sixth Man of the Year, more interest in pre-draft workouts for cornerbacks than in who the Cavs will be set to play in the second round of the playoffs, more attention paid to any progress in Josh Cribbs’s contract renegotiation than in the return of Z, a guy whose number will hang in the rafters of the Q. It’s as disgraceful as booing the Cavs for trouncing an opponent with efficient offense and stifling defense, but falling short of the Chalupa plateau. (Granted, this hasn’t been as much of a problem this season because of the Cavs’ increased offensive production, but the point stands.)
I don’t even expect this to change if the Cavs do in fact win the NBA title this season. In my most cynical moment, I imagine people emptying off the streets during the the victory parade to mourn upon hearing the news that the Browns cut Brady Quinn—or even worse, LeBron’s re-signing in Cleveland being overshadowed by the Browns’ late acquisition of Troy Smith.
The Cavs are in the midst of another very special season. In a nightmare scenario, this could be the last time we ever see LeBron in a Cleveland uniform. Even if it’s not, he’s now entering his prime with a solid (even excellent), likable supporting cast hungry to bring home the big prize. Let’s all enjoy this. And the next time someone you know brings up Mike Holmgren, for god’s sake, tell them to kill that noise until mid-summer. We’ve got winners in town.
The game tonight was pretty fun to watch at times, which is all you can hope for as a fan of the Cavaliers (or of the Nets, for that matter). LeBron appeared to be in a bad mood, but that didn’t stop him from shooting 10-18 from the field, grabbing 7 rebounds, dishing out 14 assists (compared to only 3 turnovers), while adding 3 steals and a block.
The only real point I wanted to make about the game was that the Cavs’ numbers are probably going to be inflated over the course of the rest of the season because they’re playing at a faster pace without Shaq. 98.7 possessions per game (including one overtime game and not counting tonight) versus 93 possessions per game with Shaq (NBA average this season is 95.0).
So when JJ finishes games with 13 rebounds like he did tonight just keep that in mind.
As a side note, scoring is up this season overall in the NBA, which comes as a result of the entire league playing at a faster pace.
Finally, I’ve been forgetting to mention that Matt Barnes of the Orlando Magic tweeted me last Friday after his team blew a lead against the New Orleans Hornets. Read from the bottom up:
With the Cavs set to square off against New Jersey Wednesday night, it seemed like an appropriate time to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of that franchise’s case for LeBron.
New Jersey’s biggest advantage—and I say this with complete seriousness—is part owner Jay-Z. Without a doubt, Jay is one of LeBron’s heroes (see: substitute father figures). For proof, all you have to do is go to the Twitter feed of Roots’ mastermind Questlove and read all about Bron’s presence at the show Jay did at MSG tonight. Bron’s relationship with Mr. Carter is well-documented, it’s strong, and it’s going to continue. And you can guarantee that the main reason Jay bought into the Nets was to fulfill the goal of one day getting LeBron on that team. This is a somewhat frightening prospect because historically, Jay-Z is a guy who gets what he wants (see: record sales, pop cultural significance, Beyonce).
Incoming Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov is supposed to assist in this pursuit. He’s a man with resources, to be sure. Prokhorov was #40 on Forbes’s 2009 Billionaires list with an estimated net worth of $9.5B. If you want to believe all the hype, he will be irresistible to Bron because money will be no object. This applies to both salaries for his supporting cast and any off-hours excess that we can imagine. He’s going to be a whirlwind that sweeps through the NBA and blows away every other penny-hoarding owner. The Nets, in short, will be a juggernaut that LeBron will be powerless to resist.
There are only a few small problems with this outlook.
The first of these problems is that the 2009-10 Nets are still in danger of going down in infamy as the worst team in NBA history. Today, they stand at an embarrassing 6-53. Another 4 wins are needed to put them over the 9-73 basement floor installed by the 1972-73 Sixers. Strictly based on their pace so far, it seems unlikely that this will happen.
Even more troubling for the Nets, though, is that no one in the league is able to figure out WHY they’re 6-53. After trading Vince Carter, I doubt there were many NBA speculators out there penciling the Nets into the post-season. I doubt anyone would have been terribly impressed with your fortune-telling abilities if you’d predicted that they would be in last place in the Atlantic. But to be on pace to be historically bad? That’s an entirely different story.
The Nets roster is arguably less of a wasteland than the Knicks’. (For a recap of their players and next year’s salary commitments, see Hoop Data’s feature here.) Unlike Donnie Walsh’s squad, the most promising elements of that roster are all signed for next year, with salary cap space remaining above and beyond them. Though he’s been hurt at various times throughout this year, Devin Harris was selected as an All-Star reserve last season. Brook Lopez is one of the most promising and skilled young Centers in the game right now. And I think that we all remember Courtney Lee from last year. Those three guys on their own should be able to get the Nets to at least 13 wins this season. Yet the squad isn’t even halfway there, with only 23 games left to play.
Perhaps part of this can be blamed on their coaching situation. Lawrence Frank was dismissed early in the season. Kiki Vandeweghe stepped onto the sidelines to replace him…by all accounts, against his will. Kiki (I refuse to type out “Vandeweghe” more than twice in a post, and that right there was #2) will clearly be out of the coach’s seat next season, and Prokhorov will undoubtedly bring in a big name to take over. Unless they’re indeed able to bag Coach K before free agency begins, LeBron would be given free reign to choose his own coach as a part of the Nets’ offer. So any instability attributable to Kiki will be long gone.
The question is, will it really matter? As he’s stated many times, LeBron is all about winning. I didn’t always use to believe that, but I do now. Barring a complete disaster in the playoffs, the Cavs will at least get to the Eastern Conference Finals. Assuming that level of success, they’ll have made it to the ECF or farther in 3 of the last 4 seasons. If they make it to the Finals, that will be the second time in 4 years. To go from that level of consistent success to the team that will undoubtedly finish as the worst in basketball—and possibly the worst in the NBA’s existence—would paint LeBron as the biggest hypocrite in sports history. Which is exactly why this season is such a disaster for New Jersey.
The Heat are flirting with the possibility of barely missing the playoffs in the year heading into Dwyane Wade’s free agency, but at least they’re on the doorstep and will probably end up making it in, even if it’s just for another first round exit. The Knicks are a sorry excuse for a pro basketball team, but they at least have the lure of being able to sign another max guy alongside LeBron. (Much like I’ve said about Sam Presti in the past, it’s always more advantageous to be able to sell potential for greatness than actual results.) The Nets, however, have neither of these things going for them. The best they can hope for is to sell Bron on the idea that Devin Harris when healthy is an All-Star, and Brook Lopez will be there soon.
The immediate counter-punch to this idea comes back to the record. As Mike said yesterday, it’s illogical to argue that just because Mo is widely regarded among casual fans as the second-best player on a very good team, he deserves to be an All-Star. Rod Thorn or Prokhorov would argue that it’s illogical to assume that just because the best player(s) on their roster on a very bad team, it doesn’t mean that they are NOT All-Stars. But that case could be made a lot more forcefully if the team wasn’t on its way to being the losing-est team ever. As we often say in sports, great players—and even very good ones—find ways to win in close games. If the Nets are carrying two guys on their roster that they want to pitch as once-and-future All-Stars, then those guys have to be able to will their team past that all-time worst mark. So far, that hasn’t happened. And that’s a reality that, despite all of the Russian oil money and Jay-Z love, I don’t think Bron can dismiss.
The other major disaster for the Nets is that for the foreseeable future, the location in front of their name will remain “New Jersey.” Though a ground-breaking ceremony for the forthcoming Atlantic Yards project will be held in Brooklyn this month, the Nets recently announced plans to play at least the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons at the Prudential Center in Newark. Ownership’s hope is to have the new arena at Atlantic Yards ready for the 2012-13 season. That may or may not happen, given the usual delays that happen in massive construction projects—even those without the type of aggressive protest movement this one has swirling around it. There’s also the potential for more trouble, given that Bruce Ratner’s real estate development company is involved in an ongoing investigation for corruption.
One thing is for sure, though: the franchise’s current situation has provided Jay and Prokhorov the opportunity to show just how convincing they can really be. Have at it, gentlemen.
