I was going to take today to write about the value of Tarence Kinsey, inspired by reasons I won’t mention here, but then I listened to Bill Simmons’ podcast with Chad Ford while I was at the gym.
During the podcast, Ford calls out Danny Ferry for building the wrong kind of team around LeBron, specifically referring to the age of his teammates and comparing that with what Sam Presti has been putting around Kevin Durant in Oklahoma City. Ford’s major point is that at the end of next season, who makes up the young nucleus that LeBron will want to continue playing with, stating that he’ll have better options elsewhere.
When I first heard this, I thought, “Chad’s absolutely right. Other than Delonte - an above average role player - Mo - a second tier PG - and Varejao - who may or may not re-sign - the Cavs have no one. Boobie’s a specialist and an inconsistent one at that. Sasha has been a disaster. Hickson showed no improvement over the course of last season and his back is still not right. The trades we’ve heard rumors about - Shaq, Vince Carter, Jamison - those are all players on the back end of their careers. There’s nothing here that’s going to appeal to Bron. The Cavs are dead.”
I start thinking crazy thoughts. Cavs need to trade up to get Rubio or Curry. Maybe they can trick the Celtics into giving them Rondo. Please let the Hornets decide they want to cut all salary and maybe Ferry can leverage the entire team to get Bron’s best friend Chris Paul (who Bron tried to convince Ferry to trade up and draft, but the team didn’t have the assets to do so).
Right now I don’t see any of these things happening.
I suppose we could go back and look at Ferry’s tenure here and see what misses he’s had with older players or think about younger players he could’ve gotten, or who he might have drafted (the Cavs haven’t had a lot of picks for a variety of reasons) - but I don’t know that we can truly sort through that because it deals so much with hypotheticals and hindsight and possibilities and potential…looking back is an inaccurate sciene and not particularly something I’m personally fond of or this website as a whole is (read our slogan, after all).
But remember, Ferry wasn’t here at the beginning and when he got here he was saddled with a history of bad draft picks, bad deals, and the legacy of the backstabbing Carlos Boozer.
I do feel, however, as if it’s somewhat bothersome that the Cavs talk about trading for players like Shaq and not for Stoudemire when it’s widely believed that both are on the market. What it seems like, to me, is that the Cavs may be treating the ‘09-‘10 season like it could be their final run at a championship - that’s the only reason a player like Shaq makes sense - and if the Cavs don’t win it this coming season and LeBron leaves, it’s a decision-making process we’ll all have to question.
Note: I understand this isn’t the most extensive post - and there are a lot of counter-arguments to be made, Windhorst’s article about Ferry’s tenure as a GM to cite, other teams (like Miami) to compare, the fact that the players Ford suggested the Cavs should have gotten (Carter and Jefferson) are not in-line with his argument against Ferry’s principles; they’re more in-line with it. There’s also the matter of which teams really will be a better option than the Cavs in 2010…but I’m kind of under the weather and I need to be working on my novel, so please, have at it in the comments.
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