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.
Last night, while watching the Cavaliers lose in rather pedestrian ways to the Hawks, I was thinking about which team I would rather be a fan of right now. I was very prepared to say I would rather be a fan of the Cavs than of the Hawks … until I read this insider piece from Jodie Valade about Byron Scott’s desire for a “dominant” back to the basket post player.
In the article, Scott once again proclaims the brilliance of the Princeton offense:
“I’ve watched teams that have post up guys, and I know what a post up guy can do as far as this offense … when you get a good post-up guy this offense runs even better [emphasis mine].”
I guess he means even better than 30th in the NBA.
That quote - as if there is some surprise to the notion that a fantastic post-up player will help an offense - was followed by Valade’s analysis:
“Barring an opportunity to snag one of the few back to the basket players in the league (Orlando’s Dwight Howard probably isn’t available), Scott wouldn’t mind a dominant perimeter player, a la Chris Paul whom he had in New Orleans or Jason Kidd whom he had in New Jersey.”
Just a shocking appraisal. You mean Byron would rather have Chris Paul than Mo Williams or Ramon Sessions? Remarkable.
Valade deploys another quote from Scott next:
“Most teams in the league that have a lot of success either have a big-time post up player or a big-time player. Either one. Either a dynamic post-up player or a perimeter player who’s pretty damn good. One of those two.”
This, I guess, is what we are treated to in post-LeBron era Cleveland: proclamations by the head coach that his team would be even more successful with a “dynamic post-up player” (when was the last time one of these guys entered the league?) or with a “perimeter player who’s pretty damn good” while beat reporters inform us that Dwight Howard isn’t on the trading block.
Watching the Cavs lose tonight, I must say that their effort was fine, but little else was working. The team’s pace is getting better - up to 12th in the league - but they still don’t know how to push the ball … either the guards don’t dart up the floor or the bigs don’t run with them. Watch the Mavericks play fast. Watch the Heat play fast. On top of this, the Cavs are too small to finish at the rim. And because they can’t finish at the rim, and they can’t beat anyone off of the dribble, the defenders are free to guard the perimeter players tightly, preventing them from getting open jump shots - which, frankly, is the one thing a lot of these guys are good at.
Of course, much of this is a product of the players being chosen to fit alongside of LeBron, so I don’t blame them … but Byron Scott sure sounds like a coach who is trying to transition from “this team has more talent than any of the other teams I took over - and I don’t have to teach them how to win” to “we’re not losing because of me - no, I need a big-time player.” Add to this an owner in Dan Gilbert who defined his franchise with the clear basketball principles of two men (Danny Ferry and Mike Brown) … and then simply excised them for the hodgepodge of concepts we get to watch now on a nightly basis.
Please, Chris Grant, trade Anderson Varejao while he’s still in his prime. Let the man be great at what he does for a team that actually has a prayer.
And, in the meantime, Hawks fans … you may think you’re stuck in a cycle of mediocrity, but … well, actually, you’re not better off than us. We’re both f’d. Except we get lottery picks.
Ha ha ha.
On Sunday, Adrian Wojnarowski posted this piece on Dwight Howard’s championship ambitions, and the inevitable pressure his demands place on the Orlando Magic’s front office, given his eventual status as a free agent in 2012.
This is a story all of us in Cleveland are beyond familiar with. We heard LeBron James repeatedly say that his entire free agency decision would be based on which organization gave him the best opportunity to win multiple championships. It seems that this track has proliferated throughout the NBA, from Carmelo Anthony to Chris Paul and now on to Howard. Everyone wants championships, and they want them now. ASAP. And not just one. Many.
Now that the Cavaliers are no longer competing for the title - and who knows when they will again - I’ve gained a little bit of perspective on the NBA as a whole. Basketball remains probably my favorite sport, but there is no doubt in my mind that professional basketball has a major issue moving forward when it comes to competitive balance.
Every superstar player wants a championship, but only one superstar gets to win one every year (give or take 1 or 1.5 superstars, depending on your definition of a superstar). If a superstar doesn’t win the title, he blames the organization, not himself - he’s a superstar after all, how could it be his fault? - and threatens to bolt town at the first chance he gets, whether it’s through free agency or by demanding a trade.
In the past, these threats could be seen as somewhat idle since only one superstar (Shaq) ever took less money to switch teams. No more. LeBron changed all of that.
On its own, superstar players wanting to win championships isn’t a bad thing for the league. Commissioner David Stern should want competitive athletes. Competitive spirit fuels close games, heightens drama, and makes the sport more exciting to watch. So what’s the problem then?
The real problem is that, in the NBA, almost nobody wins a championship.
Since the 1979-80 NBA season, only eight different teams have won titles.
Thirty years of basketball, eight champions.
This strikes me as entirely unsustainable.
Yet, at the same time, this total lack of competitive balance has been going on for almost one-third of a century and professional basketball in America is still in business. It is, of course, nowhere near as popular as the NFL though, and I don’t see how the owners and the league office can’t be concerned about how this dynamic effects the future of their business.
I would go so far as to argue that the lack of outright dread on this topic suggests that the owners must be making so much money that they don’t really care about the quality of their product. Despite what the owners are now saying publicly in the wake of ongoing negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, how else could they possibly be happy knowing that each year only about four teams have a legitimate chance of winning the title?
They can’t be. It’s ludicrous.
And now that superstar players, who grew up seeing Michael Jordan lauded for winning six championships while Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, and Patrick Ewing were derided for “not being able to get it done,” are placing an extreme emphasis on not just being great, but on being champions (you know, like Adam Morrison), the whole system is in real trouble.
The entire purpose of Bird Rights - allowing teams to pay the players they have more than any other team, to keep athletes, especially great ones, in a single organization for as long as possible in order to build continuity with the fan base - is in complete jeopardy.
We’re talking about a different franchise meeting the apocalypse every few years because its superstar is unhappy that he didn’t win a championship. And since, as we’ve seen, almost nobody wins a championship, that means there are going to be a whole lot of unhappy superstars, a whole lot of uprooted fan bases, and a whole lot of rebuilding teams.
I’ll let you decide whether or not this new breed of finicky superstars, all of whom are willing to relocate far quicker than they are willing to accept responsibility for winning and losing or demonstrate an understanding of precisely how impossible it is to win a championship, will actually create competitive balance or make it even worse.
Is the issue really resolved if more and different teams get to hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy because LeBron, Wade, Dwight et al decide to don new jerseys and/or team up? No, I don’t think so. Not if we enter each and every season with only 3-4 teams that are legitimately capable of standing alone in June.
John Hollinger’s statistical probability model recently determined that there is a 79% chance that either Boston, Miami, or San Antonio wins the championship this year.
In June. It’s December now.
This is a very real and very deep problem for the NBA. And it’s what worries me about the future of professional basketball in America.
