January 10, 2011
The End of Varejao’s Season

On Sunday, the Cavs announced that Anderson Varejao’s season is most likely over.

This has an obvious effect on the team, as Varejao was a part of the Cavs’ best performing line-up (Boobie Gibson-Mo Williams-Anthony Parker-Antawn Jamison-Varejao), a line-up that also got more floor time than any other unit. 

It is also worth mentioning that Varejao’s 2-year Adjusted +/- ranks 9th overall in the NBA at +7.40. 

One is left to assume then that with Varejao out, the Cavs are going to play even worse than they are already.

This, I would think, means the chances of the Cavs finishing with the worst record in the league have dramatically increased overnight. 

I know. This may not be a bad thing. 

But it also might be terrible. 

The problem, of course, is that the Cavs finishing with the worst record in the league guarantees them almost nothing beyond a top four pick in the draft, thanks to the lottery system. Furthermore, because of the threat of a lockout in the 2011-12 season, players will likely forego the draft, making this an especially poor draft class. 

In other words, the Cavs will end up with either pick number one, two, three, or four, in a year where there are no potential superstars available.

And, as we all know, your team is nothing until it has a superstar. 

At the very least then, if the Cavs were going to be without Varejao for the rest of this season, it would have been best if they could have got something else in return besides simply a better shot at the first pick in a weak draft. Now, unfortunately, that will be impossible - and it’s hard to believe that Varejao’s value will ever be higher than it was this season. He is, after all, a 28-year-old big man whose greatest talent is his ability to play hard as hell … how much longer can that last? 

We’ll never know if the Cavs could have dealt Andy in the summer or not. We’ll never know if the organization wanted Varejao on the team as a minor gesture to appease the people who bought season tickets when they thought LeBron would be here. I understand that for business purposes - for customer satisfaction reasons, really - the team had to at least pretend it could compete. Clearly, however, it could not. And now we’ve ended up with the worst of all worlds. A terrible team that’s pissing off ticket buyers, preparing to earn a top four pick in a yawner of a draft, that also just lost its most valuable trade chip. 

But hey at least the Q still gives away free Chalupas. 

5:00am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/2683529832/the-end-of-varejaos-season
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FILED UNDER: Cavs Anderson Varejao 
January 1, 2011
Cavaliers: Adjusted +/-

The above is a link to this year’s Adjusted +/- stats on the Cavaliers, from Basketball Value. I thought it would be worth checking out, given Andy, Boobie, and Mo’s inactive status for tonight’s game against Chicago. 

As you can see, in the one year numbers - which are noisy - Andy, Boobie, and Sessions are the only good things going.

10:05pm  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/2563702206/cavaliers-adjusted
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FILED UNDER: Advanced Stats Cavs Mo Williams Daniel Gibson Ramon Sessions Anderson Varejao 
November 11, 2010
Cavs-Nets Bazooka Point, Deja Vu Edition

Even though I missed tonight’s game, I still feel qualified to comment on one critical aspect of the loss.

Two Cavs players suffered injuries of varying intensity during the game: Mo Williams and Andy Varejao. Mo suffered a right adductor (groin) strain, and Andy suffered some bruised ribs. Mo had to leave the game for good in the third quarter, but Varejao returned with a compression shirt and continued to play.

I’ve read three different recaps of the game, and in each one, Mo’s injury is treated as the devastating one.

This is exactly backwards.

We here at Mesa have been champions of Anderson for as long as the blog has been running. Instead of a “role player,” as seems to be the conventional label for him, we have seen the second best player on the team in the LeBron era.

Like many other NBA players, Andy simply doesn’t get the credit he deserves because he’s not a scorer. However, he does a host of other things that collectively add up to much more than the value of someone who puts up 16-20 points per game. Above all, he’s a fierce defender—John Hollinger declared him the best defensive 4 in the league in his 2009-10 All Defense Team selection column just a few months ago. This is true not only on an individual level, but from a team standpoint as well. He has been without a doubt the bedrock of the defense for the past several years. 

In addition, Andy is an aggressive rebounder (as we all know) and one of the league’s best finishers at the rim (69% last season, 75% so far in 2010-11).

By contrast, Mo is almost strictly a scorer—and this season especially, not even a very good one. In his 4 games thus far, he’s shooting a dismal 36.2% FG and an even grimmer 14.3% 3FG.

For only the second time in his career, he is also under 80% from the free throw line. However, credit where credit is due: Mo is getting to the line 7.9 times per 36 minutes this season. His previous high? 3.0 FTA per 36.

Admittedly, Mo’s shooting numbers would almost undoubtedly head back toward his career averages as the season continued. But even if they did, there’s one simple element to this equation that we can’t forget: the Cavs have other players comparable to (or potentially better than) Mo Williams. Daniel Gibson has been as productive or more productive  than Mo all season, and if Ramon Sessions can find his bearings and return to his Bucks form, extended minutes for him will be arguably the best thing that could happen to this team’s win percentage.

On the other hand, the Cavs have no players who can make up for an injured Andy—unless Samardo Samuels becomes the steal of this year’s rookie class. Obviously Anderson isn’t damaged as badly as Mo, since he went back in the game after his rib bruising. But being able to stay on the floor and being healthy are two very different things. If Andy’s production drops off significantly (tonight: only 8 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and a -11 in 35 minutes), the Cavs will be hurt far worse by that than by any number of missed minutes by Mo.

Hopefully this won’t be an issue the Cavs have to deal with. If it is, you can bet that their record will suffer. In that case, though, let’s at least make sure that we can all correctly point to the real source of the problem on the injury tip.

-T

12:18am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/1541383127/cavs-nets-bazooka-point-deja-vu-edition
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FILED UNDER: Cavs Bazooka Point Anderson Varejao Mo Williams Advanced Stats 
January 2, 2010
Varejao Is A Beast ... Hickson Is A Dead Body

Included in this True Hoop post about Anderson Varejao taking the overall lead in unadjusted +/- away from Ron Artest is this rather revealing quote from Mike “Coldstone” Brown about Andy and J.J.:

“I play Hickson with Shaq because I want to play Andy the whole game, but I can’t play him the whole game. So I decided to start J.J. because in the first eight minutes of the game, we’re not going to win or lose it,” Brown said. “So if I play him 8 minutes in the first half and 8 in the second, that’s 16 minutes I don’t have to play Andy and it’s really not going to affect the game. A lot of times now, if you watch our games lately, when Andy goes in he ain’t coming out. I don’t care if Z is in or Shaq’s coming back in.

“It’s just at the start of the game it makes more sense for me and for the team to have someone else, and not play Andy 38-39 minutes a game. But his value to us with whoever’s on the floor is off the charts.”

5:47pm  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/313764579/varejao-is-a-beast-hickson-is-a-dead-body
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FILED UNDER: Cavs Anderson Varejao JJ Hickson