Like a lot of other Cleveland sports junkies, I grow a little more frustrated every day by the Cavs. However, I’m no longer talking about the record or the lack of defense. I’m not talking about the players. I’m not even talking about the infallible Byron Scott (for once).
I’m talking about the front office.
Clearly, the team isn’t going to turn things around. At this point they’ll be lucky to avoid the worst record in modern NBA history. But I worry, because I have seen nothing in weeks that indicates the front office has accepted this unavoidable reality.
Mike and I have already argued on this blog for months that the best possible move is for the Cavs to declare the present a total loss and do anything they can to prepare for the future. By now, we’re certainly not alone, and it’s no longer a revolutionary opinion (if it ever was).
Yet every day I check for Cavs’ trade rumors, and every day I come up empty.
So for all the talk about the need to collect assets and build through the draft, I have no real evidence that the front office is making overtures to try to do that. And if they’re not, I cannot for the life of me imagine why. Because at this point, that’s their only function besides scouting the NCAA and Euroleagues—making this team worse now (and better later) by pawning off any semi-valuable players to contenders at the highest possible price.
Other people have written about how Dan Gilbert’s near-psychotic need to win faster than LeBron has already hindered the rebuilding process. The argument is that after being humiliated by James, Gilbert convinced himself that the Cavs should try to compete for the playoffs this year as a way of saving face.
Of course, I don’t have behind-the-scenes knowledge of what’s going on in the owner’s box, but I suspect that there’s a good deal of truth to this theory. All you have to do is realize that whatever the Cavs could’ve gotten for Andy over the summer would’ve been better than what they can get for him for the rest of this season, which is basically nothing.
The real problem is that I now fear that Gilbert will try to save face by holding onto would-be “stars” like Jamison and Mo in hopes of avoiding the worst record ever—without realizing that those big(ger) names are directly contributing to the reasons the team is losing as much as it is. (To prove Byron Scott is either a hypocrite, out of options, or out of touch, consider that Jamison is averaging 31.3mpg this season despite Scott’s insistence that only players who will lock down on defense will see playing time. Watching Jamison try to D up reminds me of that moment in every ghost movie where someone or something passes directly through the body of a specter and leaves all witnesses amazed and terrified.)
I admit that just because I’m not seeing rumors on the web doesn’t mean that talks aren’t happening behind closed doors. The Cavs’ case is also hurt by injuries to some of their more tradeable assets: Andy out for the season, Mo having only appeared in 34 games because of nagging ailments.
But between now and the trading deadline (which is only a month away), I sincerely hope to see strong evidence that Chris Grant and company are working the phones like mad to try to get what they can for what they have. If they’re not—or if Gilbert’s ego is holding them back in any way—this rebuilding process is going to be as delayed and bumpy as major real-world construction projects so often are. Having been up close and personal with one of those for a number of years, I hope for the city’s and the fan base’s sake that none of us have to suffer through that.
If you follow front office moves, you already know that today Cavs exec Lance Blanks was hired away by Phoenix to be their new general manager. Blanks worked under Danny Ferry during his entire tenure as Cavs’ GM, along with the brief stint under Chris Grant after Ferry’s contract expired earlier this summer.
As someone who has staunchly defended the Cavs’ executives for the past several years, I find this to be an interesting moment. We all know that among most NBA fans and pundits, the perception of the franchise’s front office has been less than favorable for a long time. Ferry is still routinely blamed by the usual talking heads for hastening LeBron’s exit by trying to build a team with veteran rentals rather than young players. Practically every trade made or rumored trade NOT made has been another bullet for the critics. The consensus among the people with microphones—as well as the fans who listen to them without thinking on their own—is simple: the Cavs’ front office was a disaster. This has become Gospel.
And yet…other franchises keep offering jobs to Cavs execs!
After years as Assistant GM, Blanks—whose name only surfaced as a contender for the job last week—has now been hired away by a well-respected organization in the Suns. Danny Ferry was Paul Allen’s first choice to take over as GM of the Trailblazers about a month ago. Ferry declined, reportedly due to Allen’s similarities to Dan Gilbert in terms of the level of meddling he was capable of. And lest we forget, Atlanta tried to hire current Cavs GM Chris Grant to be their General Manager back in 2008. Grant declined the offer in order to stay with the Cavs as Assistant GM and VP of Basketball Operations.
Why on Earth would this happen? Well, there are three possibilities:
1) Danny Ferry secretly spent the past five years compiling a vast photo archive of owners around the league in compromising positions
2) Key decision-makers in other franchises are all complete morons who somehow managed to miss the Cavs’ execs’ obvious laundry list of bad decisions, dysfunction, and general instability that people like Bill Simmons and Chad Ford have been trumpeting for years, or…
3) Contrary to what those same scions of public opinion seem to believe, people who know basketball can see past the crap and have realized that the Cavs’ front office has consistently been pretty fucking good for a long time.
As you may guess, I happen to stand firmly in the camp #3.
One side note: Blanks’s ascension to the top post in Phoenix cements the fact that long time Spurs’ GM R.C. Buford is the Bill Parcells of NBA executives. Like Parcells, Buford’s former assistant staffers are dispersing to the highest decision-making positions in franchises around the league. Danny Ferry worked under Buford in San Antonio before being hired by Gilbert in Cleveland. Ferry brought Blanks with him from San Antonio, then promptly hired Grant away from Atlanta. Blanks has assumed the GM post in Phoenix, Grant has taken over in Cleveland, and Ferry will undoubtedly have another shot as soon as he wants it. Sam Presti worked under Buford for several years before being hired to run the Sonics, who of course then become Oklahoma City. A few weeks ago, Presti’s assistant GM Rich Cho was hired by Portland to be their new GM—the job Ferry turned down after yet another former Buford staffer, Kevin Pritchard, was fired from the job on draft night. Finally, New Orleans hired Dell Demps, another Buford disciple, away from San Antonio to assume the GM job in New Orleans. So if you count Grant thanks to his association with Ferry, 1 out of every 6 NBA teams is currently being headed by someone who can be traced back to Buford, with two former staffers (Ferry and Pritchard) having already been GMs. Pretty impressive, especially for a guy who styles himself like this.
Back to the real point.
On the one hand, I am sad to see Blanks go. His departure symbolizes the end of the brigade (Ferry, Grant, Blanks) who I came to place a great deal of trust in over the past several years. I may not have agreed with every move they made, but I also have read enough to know that some of those moves were more or less forced on them by LeBron via Dan Gilbert. I will always wonder what the team would’ve looked like had that trio been allowed to operate without restrictions, but I guess none of us will ever know. Though you can bet your ass that if I ever run into Ferry or Blanks in an airport like I did with Derek Anderson, I will go out of my way to thank them and inquire.
On the other hand, I am also very pleased to see Blanks go. Not because I wouldn’t he rather have stayed with the Cavs, but because the more success he, Danny Ferry, and other Cavs’ alumni have as the top execs in other cities, the harder it will be for ignorant critics to continue the myth that the teams’ failures during the LeBron era were the fault of the front office.
Best of luck in Phoenix, Lance. Thanks for your efforts here in C-Town. Keep fighting the good fight.
I was on the verge of writing another column for tonight, one that may have been more fun, when Minnesota Timberwolves GM David Kahn and Cleveland Cavaliers GM Chris Grant burned the phone lines down to the ground, finally, and finished a deal that had been obvious to just about everyone once it became clear that “Razor” Ramon Sessions was on the trading black.
Razor and Ryan Hollins … welcome to Cleveland.
Delonte West, we will miss you deeply. Sebastian Telfair, we hardly got to know you.
I could definitely write a long column about my appreciation for Delonte’s game, especially as I witnessed it during the 2008-9 season. I’m not going to do that, however, because I want to keep our focus on the Cavaliers on the future instead of the past.
From the Cavs’ perspective, this trade accomplishes two very important things. Number one, Sessions gives the team another creator on offense. Number two, Hollins - at 7’0” - is a center. The Cavs had either zero or one of those prior to this trade, depending on where and how Byron Scott decides to play Anderson Varejao.
Telfair’s contract expires at the end of this coming season, at $2.7M, and Delonte is owed only $500K if waived before August 3rd (as numerous other media outlets have undoubtedly already reported).
Sessions is owed $12.3M through the 2013 season. Hollins is owed $4.8M over the next two years.
In other words, for Minnesota, this was a salary dump.
(For some reason, Kahn also felt compelled to give a 2nd round pick to the Cavaliers in 2013 as well.)
As uncomfortable as I feel about the notion of Cleveland now having Milwaukee’s backcourt, circa 2007 - an irrational feeling that isn’t based on anything - I’m positive about the deal overall. Sessions did not have a very good season last year, playing in Kurt Rambis’s forced attempt at the triangle offense, but he was pretty damn good the year before he became a free agent.
Sessions isn’t a very good shooter - 51.3% TS, .3 3PA per 36 min at 18% - and is only about average in turnovers when compared with other point guards. His advanced stats, on the other hand, have been above average, especially in the aforementioned pre-free agent year, with a PER of 17.6, a WP48 of .201, and a 2 year Adjusted +/- of +1.86.
I can’t remember seeing Hollins play enough to make any kind of accurate assessment of his game. Last season, he played 16.8 minutes per game and was not even close to good by any statistical measures (11.0 PER, -.147 WP48, and a -7.91 APM).
Well, at least Hollins is a body.
Sessions is 24-years-old. Hollins is 26.
Despite the depressing nature of Hollins’s career production so far, I still believe this deal makes the Cavaliers a better team. As much as I want to believe the good Delonte is still out there and will come back one day, his situation in Cleveland was probably too strained for it to make sense to keep him in town. Good Delonte is a better player than Razor Ramon, but good Delonte may not exist anymore, and none of us will ever know what kind of stresses his mental health had on the team behind closed doors.
If we accept then that Delonte had to either be traded or released, the Cavs basically got Sessions, Hollins, and another asset - a 2nd Round Pick in 2013 - for Telfair.
It’s hard to argue with that trade, even if it may not change life in Cleveland dramatically.
So far Chris Grant and Dan Gilbert have to be applauded for not irrationally trying to jump start the post-LeBron era for the sake of making a splash, to the long term detriment of the organization. We’ll see what happens next.
I haven’t heard anyone mention this yet, but yesterday on Michael Reghi’s radio show, Brian Windhorst all but said the Cavaliers are looking to make a deal to with, presumably, either Golden State or Sacramento that would involve trading a starter, to get into the lottery on June 24.
Windhorst implied that this move is something outgoing GM Danny Ferry didn’t approve of, but that it was being demanded by majority owner Dan Gilbert. This, combined with the notion that Ferry may have had to cede some of his already diminishing power to a new coach, may have been what led to his decision to resign.
So what are the situations in Sacramento and Golden State like? Let’s start with draft picks. Sacramento picks #5 and Golden State picks #6. None of us here at Mesa watch college basketball, so we can’t offer much in the way of college scouting, but T.I.T. goon Chad Ford has Sacramento picking Al-Farouq Aminu at #5 and Golden State selecting DeMarcus Cousins at #6 in his last mock draft.
Aminu is a 19-year-old 6’9” SF out of Wake Forest. Cousins is a 19-year-old 6’11” C out of Kentucky.
We have to assume that the Cavs - and every other team in the NBA - is trying to figure out the order in which players will be taken after John Wall goes #1 to Washington. And for the Cavs to been engaged in trade talks to move up that high in the draft, they have to believe that a player they very much want will be available at #5 or #6.
You can see where this is going already, right?
If we’re guessing, and really that’s all we can do right now since we can’t breakdown the Cavaliers performance in the NBA Finals, we have to assume that Golden State is the more likely trade partner, since we know the Cavs discussed Stephen Jackson, Corey Maggette (and probably Anthony Randolph) with them earlier in the year, and that sometimes trade talks take any number of months to manifest in an actual deal (see: Shaq). We also know that teams look to cut salary before they’re sold, and that the Cavs do have some expiring contracts (Jamario Moon, Anthony Parker, Leon Powe, Sebastian Telfair, and Delonte West, whose contract is mostly unguaranteed).
We also have to believe that if the Cavs could truly get Cousins, there is reason to think of it as a major move. By multiple metrics (John Hollinger’s Draft Rater and Dave Berri’s PAWS), Cousins was the most productive player in college basketball last season.
He also, um, played for Kentucky. Which LeBron visited on multiple occasions. He was coached by the great vacater of wins, John Calipari, who, um, LeBron is reportedly very fond of (did you know the Cavs have a head coach opening?) Now if Gilbert can just deliver Cousins to LRMR…
Of course, no deal involving a draft pick is likely to be consummated until draft night when it becomes definitive that said player the Cavaliers want is truly available. But the strategy of attacking the building of the team through the draft is critical at this point in time for the Cavs, especially since they’re over the salary cap and could be losing James.
I have little sense of which starter Golden State (or Sacramento) would want from the Cavs. Mo Williams is unlikely, unless the Cavs took Maggette back (he’s owed more money over the course of his deal than Mo). Antawn Jamison for Maggette wouldn’t save Golden State much cash. Monta Ellis’s contract is awful - $44M over the next 4 years - and so is Andre Biedrins - $36M over the next 4 years, so I assume both of those guys are probably in play. Obviously, taking on that kind of money would be very risky unless you were guaranteed of getting a star in the draft. And there are no guarantees in the draft.
But a deal involving Ellis or Biedrins is exactly the kind of deal one has to imagine Ferry might not be crazy about…
At any rate, we can only speculate on all of this, but it will be interesting to see what, if anything, occurs on June 24th. I bet some kind of deal does go down.
You can listen to Windhorst’s whole interview via ESPN Cleveland. Also, congratulations Chris Grant, you’ve now been awarded your first tag on JMID. Perhaps a nickname is next.
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