Ladies and gentlemen, this is what everyone in the basketball world has been waiting for.
This Thursday, July 1st, officially marks the start of free agency. Given the activity on the rumor / spin mill since the Cavs’ season ended last month, it’s hard to believe that there’s another gear that this can all go to. But there is, and starting 12:01 AM on Thursday, we’ll all get to see what that’s like.
I for one am looking forward to it.
However, as much as I appreciate a good theater of the absurd—and really, is there any better description for this entire feeding frenzy around the class of 2010?—I’m looking forward to it for a different reason.
This is the week when we’ll finally start to get some answers about basketball in Cleveland. However, I want to heavily emphasize “some.”
Obviously, the franchise did nothing in last week’s draft—no picks, no trades, no significant moves of any kind. In fact, other than some clandestine coaching interviews that may or may not have happened, business has mostly ground to a halt since Reptile was rebuffed by Tom Izzo a few weeks back.
This week will be a different animal. Windhorst asserts that the front office hopes to have a coach in place before the start of free agency, regardless of whether or not Phil Jackson indirectly tries to cock-block the Cavs by dragging out his decision about returning to the Lakers. That, at least, will be something.
Theoretically, noted (metaphorical) hostage-taker LeBron James *could* make his big decision by this weekend, too. But I wouldn’t bet on it. If I’ve learned anything about James by studying him over the past 7 years, my guess is that he’ll drag this decision out all the way until he can officially sign somewhere on July 8th. If not longer. Remember, he’s been building to this moment since he signed his last extension at the end of the 2006 season. The idea that he’s going to just make a decision on the first or second day of free agency is naive, in my mind. He’s going to milk this thing for all it’s worth.
In other words, if you’re holding your breath for resolution on the James front, I’d suggest you wait another week before starting.
I’m no longer going to attempt to speculate on where he’s going to go when it’s all said and done. I doubt it will be Cleveland anymore, but I have no real evidence to base that on. Then again, I’m not sure that anyone else really does either. We’ve all been living in the LeBron spin zone for so long that it’s impossible to believe that anything being heard is the truth. (Sidebar: according to cap specialist Larry Coon, the Bulls are still likely going to be about $4MM away from being able to accommodate 2 max contracts after the Hinrich trade goes through, so don’t let any obnoxious know-it-all types tell you they’re a James Johnson trade away from having the space. They’re a lot closer than they were, but a $4MM difference is not insignificant.)
Unfortunately, we all know by now that James is the linchpin in the entire personnel game for the wine and gold. Coach or no coach, the front office won’t feel ready to make any roster moves until James has at last shown his hand. Which means that we’ve all got at least another week before any of the dominoes start to fall.
So take a deep breath. Even though the race begins Thursday, there’s still a lot of spectating to be done before anyone crosses the finish line.
Some of our readers (though probably not many) may remember that a few months ago I did what I called a “Cap Reality Series” on some of the teams in the market to try to land LeBron this summer.
That series turned out to be a waste of time. Why? Because it was based on a complete misconception of James’s mentality and priorities. The primary error was that I took him at his word when he said that he cared about winning championships above all else. Since that time James has mailed in a playoff series, refused to speak to the Cavs’ #1 coaching candidate, and made it clear through his actions that his main goal is to market himself to as many people as possible.
As a result, much of the evaluation I did was way off-base. And in fact, some of it is laugh-out-loud funny, like when I slammed the Clippers for thinking it was a good idea to go into this historic off-season having just fired their head coach and GM. I still think it’s a stupid move, but it’s a bit ironic considering that the Cavs ultimately ended up doing almost the same thing by firing Mike Brown and then letting Danny Ferry walk away at the end of his contract.
Suffice it to say that if I were to write those same posts again today, I would come up with very different results. In some sense, that’s what I want to do right now, but only in one case—and really, in one aspect in particular.
The case would be the New York Knickerbockers. The aspect would be their head coach, Mike D’Antoni.
When I wrote my Knicks Cap Reality post in February, I had this to say about D’Antoni:
Even more importantly, is it even possible to build a championship team when it’s being coached by Mike D’Antoni, perhaps the least defensively minded coach in recent NBA history? I’ve heard analysts say that LeBron would love to play for him because D’Antoni would let LeBron run all game. Not only does Bron not care about running all game, he’s openly said over and over again that he knows defense is what wins championships. So why exactly is the D’Antoni / New York combo such a great fit for him?
Last weekend, I started reading Jack McCallum’s 7 Seconds or Less, his book about the 2005-6 Phoenix Suns. For anyone who doesn’t know, the Suns granted McCallum full access to basically all team functions as a nominal “special assistant” to the coaching staff that year. He was in the locker room, on the practice court, on the team plane—basically, everywhere the team went from the first pre-season practice through the end of their playoff run.
McCallum provides a revealing behind-the-scenes view of the personalities on the team, from the players to the coaching staff. In fact, the coaches are in many ways the stars of the book. And of course, D’Antoni is the featured attraction among this set.
I now have a much better sense of why D’Antoni has been pitched as the ultimate “player’s coach.” I have to say that it sounds like he deserves the title. He’s almost relentlessly positive with his team, and at the same time, does a tremendous job of bonding with them. For instance, McCallum makes a point early in the book that D’Antoni has been known to play video games with the players prior to regular season games, and that the players absolutely love this. (He also happens to be pretty freaking hilarious, which is generally a great quality for whatever you’re doing.)
Above all, D’Antoni’s offensive system is (theoretically) most players’ dreams. As long as they adhere to the principles at its core, the players have carte blanche to operate as they see fit within that offense. It’s telling that at one point during their playoff series against the Lakers, the Suns are floated a page from a Lakers’ assistant’s scouting report that was left behind in a hotel room. The neon quote from the scouting report was, “In Phoenix’s offense, literally nothing is frowned upon.” Admittedly, this isn’t true. Isolation plays, for instance, would be frowned upon in the Suns’ offense. But D’Antoni and his coaching staff loved this quote so much that they would insert it into practices and huddles as a kind of tongue-in-cheek sign-off. (“OK guys, go out there, match their intensity, be smart, and just run the offense. Remember, literally nothing is frowned upon.”)
However, here’s the other element that’s worth mentioning: throughout the book, D’Antoni talks a good game regarding defense. He spends time and energy going over it in pre-game meetings, at half-time, in practice. He’ll pitch defense to his players as the key to winning games. In short, the man knows how to pay the concept lip service.
That said, in private, his answer to everything is that his team just has to score more. For instance, Amar’e goes down with a knee injury early in the regular season—the opening salvo in the history of knee injuries that has turned Stoudemire into a certified health risk. Not for a moment does D’Antoni suggest that maybe the team should try to fill the void left by Amar’e by defending better or changing their style of play in any way. Instead, he immediately decides that they just need to amp up their scoring.
McCallum also makes a point that D’Antoni’s mind is basically made up about basketball at this point. He knows what he believes, and what he believes is that fluid offense and quick quality shots are the best way to win games. It’s not that defense doesn’t play a part in D’Antoni’s game plan; it’s just a really small part. He also tends to apply it selectively to a few guys. In the 2005-6 season, Raja Bell and Shawn Marion were the guys who were expected to go out and play stellar defense night in and night out. The rest of the team? They should try. But you know, if it didn’t work out, just keep scoring.
In my opinion, this is the perfect storm for a coaching pitch to James. Not the defense-minded James who wanted to win multiple championships, AKA the James of February 2010, but rather the James who wants to put up gaudy numbers, be the center of the greatest show on hardwood, and ultimately, not be challenged by his coach, AKA the James of Now and Forever. D’Antoni can sell James the idea that he does care about defense, and the James of public record can believe him and feel secure knowing that he’s in good hands. In reality, though, both men will know what the story is: D’Antoni will inflate James’s offensive numbers to historic proportions, and if he wants to defend, by all means go for it. It’s James’s show.
This last trait is the most important one. Woj and Ric Bucher have been adamant that James essentially believes that any improvements he needs to make to his game are going to be best determined by him. Coaches aren’t going to teach him anything. This is exactly the type of mindset that D’Antoni would bring to the table. He will be LeBron’s friend. He will laugh and joke and talk with LeBron. He will urge him to shoot, to pass, to run, to put on a show. And yeah, ok, every once in a while, to defend. But by and large, he will let James operate as James wants to operate. I suspect this will even apply when LeBron suddenly decides late in games that he wants to stop the ball and go 1-on-5 (AKA the fantastically mislabeled “Mike Brown’s offense”). Will this run counter to D’Antoni’s instincts as a coach? Absolutely. But as far as I can tell, he’ll let it go in exchange for three quarters per night of D’Antoni offense.
What does this all add up to? In my opinion, it may make the Knicks the leader to sign James. I honestly believe that. Look, he’s not going to Jersey to play for Avery Johnson. I’m becoming increasingly skeptical that he’s going to play in Chicago for Tom Thibodeau. And I ultimately believe that he doesn’t necessarily want to try to make it work with Dwyane Wade in Miami, because he knows Wade would still be the Alpha Dog there. Under Mike D’Antoni, the Knicks seem to offer what the real LeBron James cares about: the spotlight, the money, the numbers, and free reign to do as he pleases on the court.
Can D’Antoni win championships with James, though? Time will tell. But I for one am beginning to believe that time may be the only thing preventing us from knowing that answer.
I originally wanted to look at all of the Finals stats and see if, averaged out over the 7 games, this series was really as wacky as it kept looking game to game. But as of right now (11:14 PM PT), none of our usual go-to sites for numbers has the game 7 stats live yet. So instead, I’m just going to address the larger question that these playoffs have now raised for me. I expect it’s one I’ll be exploring in some capacity in the blog next season.
I can say with certainty that I learned more about the game of basketball in the course of the past year than I’ve ever learned about any sport in my life. Despite all of it, though, this post-season surprised me time and again. I don’t think I’m alone in that. But I also think that until I had that knowledge base, I couldn’t fully understand the magnitude of the difference between the regular season and the playoffs. Orlando riding a ridiculously efficient 3 point shooting streak from game 7 of the 2009 East semifinals through a six-game ECF was one thing; the Celtics resurrecting themselves from the land of the dead (see: the 4 seed in the East), tearing through the overall #1 (Cavs) and #2 seed (Magic) only to miss the title by a scant 4 points in the seventh game of the Finals against the overall #3 seed…that’s entirely another.
The aspect of this that I’m grappling with is my level of belief in advanced statistics. Or really, a better way of putting it would be that I’m trying to figure out the degree to which I should apply advanced stats in my thinking about the game, and the degree to which they should be counter-balanced by “intangibles,” or elements that sabermetricians haven’t yet figured out a way to quantify.
There are certainly some things in the playoffs that worked as we would’ve expected. For instance, LAL and Boston were both in the top 10 in efficiency differential and the top 6 in defensive efficiency. The fact that they ended up in the Finals isn’t necessarily shocking—especially when you consider the hospital ward full of injuries that the Cs experienced over the course of the season.
On the other hand, things like Derek Fisher—a guy who rated below average all season in almost every advanced statistical category—being a legitimate difference-maker throughout the playoffs, were much more surprising.
Of course, the go-to counter-argument for any stat geek is that this is just another example of randomness. Because of the much smaller number of games involved, the playoffs can begin at any peak or valley in a player’s performance. But part of the reason that I chose Fisher to use as the above example is that historically, he is in fact a better player in the playoffs than the regular season. (If you don’t believe me, compare his career regular season advanced stats with his career playoff ones here.)
This raises a potentially interesting question: if stat heads can show evidence of a difference in play between the regular and post-seasons for individuals, how do we reconcile those in terms of our expectations for teams come playoff time? Does it also suggest that we should be trying to figure out some kind of team playoff statistics to help in our post-season evaluations? This would be a difficult task since personnel can be a revolving door from one year to the next, but there may be a way to combine individual players’ post-season stats—or at least those of the core players—to try to determine if there’s likely to be a difference in the entire franchise come playoff time.
On some level, what I’m saying is that advanced stats are great, but their value is clearly diminished in my eyes when it comes playoff time. The regular season is definitely not irrelevant, but not everything is going to carry over straight off the same stat sheet that described the previous 82 games. There’s always a deeper level you can examine, and I’m a little disappointed in myself for not looking at more of the mitigating factors. Then again, this is why I don’t gamble.
However, one of my long-held beliefs was reinforced with steel thanks to these Finals. Part of the reason I have always hated the sports franchises of Boston so much is that even in the rare instances where I am rooting for them, they still manage to fuck me. The 2009-10 Finals is another notch on their belt in that regard. Thanks for keeping tradition alive, Celtics.
PS: One final thought - if you know anyone planning on rallying for LeBron James this weekend, tell them to stay home. Even Buzz Bissinger is sick of his shit.
In the Cavs’ front office tonight, one simple question sums up the past week and a half of work on their coaching search and their increasingly futile efforts (or so it seems) to re-sign LeBron.
“Now what?”
As everyone knows by now, Tom Izzo announced at a press conference on Tuesday evening that he has rejected Reptile’s “framework” offer of $30MM over 5 years, unlimited use of a private jet, “on demand” baths in liquid platinum, a swimming pool filled with gold coins a la Scrooge McDuck, and who knows what else, to coach the Cavs.
CBS Sports’s Ken Berger wrote earlier that LeBron has now effectively locked the entire franchise into a cryogenic chamber until at least July 1. He argues that no “name” coaching candidate (and potentially no coaching candidate period) will ink a deal with the team until James’s status is known. Furthermore, even the team’s attempts to get back into next Thursday’s draft are handcuffed by not knowing for sure which players should be traded away, given that the centerpiece of the team is a question mark.
This last notion is one that I want to focus on—the reason being that I don’t totally buy it. (Of course, this may be because I have the luxury of being a fan / observer with no consequences attached to my thinking, aside from occasionally embarrassing myself in print on this blog. But hear me out.)
Consider the Cavs’ current roster for next year for a moment. Done? Good. Here’s my question: apart from Andy, should anyone on that list really be untouchable?
To me, the answer is a resounding “no.”
This is the cold truth that the organization has to face up to: the Cavs have to proceed as if they’re in a rebuilding mode, regardless of whether or not James comes back. Why? Because either way, it doesn’t change the fact that the current roster will still be deficient on a foundational level. Mo Williams will still be an undersized, streaky, score-first point guard who collapses in the playoffs. Antawn Jamison will still be a supposed stretch 4 who doesn’t shoot well from midrange or long range and acts as a complete sieve on D. Delonte West will be traded regardless of James’s final decision. Boobie Gibson will still be an awesome catch-and-shoot player who brings little else to the table. Glitch will still be, well, Glitch—although his continued flubs have me on the verge of upgrading him to something like Permanent Fatal Error.
The rest of the roster consists of two categories: capable role players (Moon*, Parker, Powe) whose value from a productivity standpoint is high in relation to their salary, and a couple of young guys who *could* grow into starters or sixth men (Danny Green and Sebastian Telfair) if they continue to develop.
(*Note: As we’ve stated over and over again, Moon’s advanced stats really suggest that he should be a starter, or should play starter’s minutes. But I’m lumping him in the ‘role player’ category because that’s the perception of him around the league, as far as I can tell.)
In fact, it’s arguable that the team’s most flawed players happen to double as their worst contracts. I would contend that Jamison has more value from a production standpoint than Mo, but I’m not concerned about comparisons. Antawn’s absolute value is somewhere far south of $28.4MM over the next 2 years, and that’s the issue. In either case, the player in question should still have value to other teams in the league. Dealing either (or preferably both) of them for some mixture of cap relief, draft picks, or younger players should really be a no-brainer.
This leads me to the other part of the equation: with or without James, the only sound solution for the Cavs is to get younger. Regardless of whether he was hamstrung from above or below, the Danny Ferry era proved conclusively that as executed, the “win now with veterans” strategy did not work. Repeating it would be disastrous. Finding lower-level veterans to fill in around your young assets never appears to be that difficult, and the difference in marginal value between a “really good” veteran versus an “average” or “decent” veteran is much smaller than the gulf between having a promising young core versus, well, not.
Finally, because of LeBron’s ability to play multiple positions, it’s pretty hard to argue that the Cavs wouldn’t be able to figure out where to upgrade. Although his ability to switch between playing 3 and 4 leaves the forward spots open to some potential redundancy if the Cavs were to try to upgrade there, both guard spots are gaping holes, and finding a legitimate center—i.e. one capable of guarding Da-Wight, which Andy can’t do—would also be a pretty clear victory.
Look, even though I now think he’s an asshole, a liar, and a complete prima donna, LeBron James is really, really good at basketball. More to the point, he’s both extremely versatile and phenomenal at elevating the play of his teammates. If Chris Grant and Reptile do the reconstruction right, it’s entirely plausible that the Cavs would still be a playoff team next season and a contender again another year or two after that. LeBron’s own play and The James Effect on his teammates are that huge.
So if they’re thinking about things clearly, the front office has to recognize:
1) The Cavs can’t win a championship with Mo Williams and Antawn Jamison as key components of their core
2) Assuming the right moves are made, trading those players now lowers the team’s ceiling for the next season or two but raises it dramatically after that
3) While some of the other players on the team are a good or great value for the money, it’s bad business to hold onto them if it kills a deal for a potential young star (even if it’s in the form of a high draft pick)
4) There are at least 3 positions (1, 2, and 5) where the Cavs could use a serious upgrade
5) All of the above are true with or without LeBron
Clearly, I’m simplifying here. There are other considerations, such as which type of players will be benefited by the new coach’s system. But Berger is right: it’s now a foregone conclusion that the coaching search won’t be concluded until July. With the draft now 8 days away, it’s potentially disastrous for the front office to freeze on trades until that same period. (Realistically, a good coach will figure out how to best utilize the abilities of the roster he’s given anyway. He can then work with the front office in the future to refine it.)
Reptile and Chris Grant may not have a clear view of LeBron’s plans, but there is enough else on their roster that’s definite enough to construct a strategy. Whether or not they choose to be imprisoned by James’s chess game is ultimately on them.
As everyone who follows the Cavs already knows, Tom Izzo still hasn’t given ownership a thumbs up or thumbs down regarding the head coaching offer prepared by Reptile. Earlier today, Woj posted this article re: the source of the hold-up. In it, he makes a couple of points that I wanted to address briefly.
1) Izzo’s hesitation stems from his lack of certainty over who in the Cavs organization still has a relationship with LeBron
I just have this question: considering that Danny Ferry and Mike Brown were supposedly run out of the city by LeBron’s unspoken wishes, who in the organization EVER had a relationship with him? As far as I can tell, there are three potential answers here. First, some of the other players on the roster. The problem here is that this has nothing to do with the front office. It could also potentially be a landmine if Chris Grant and/or Reptile rule LeBron’s friendships on the roster out of the equation when making personnel moves this summer—which, for the record, I believe they should absolutely do.
The second answer is LeBron’s pre-existing friends, i.e. the guys who were given jobs with the team because LeBron wanted them to have jobs with the team. Randy Mims, the renowned “player liaison,” is at the forefront of this group. But this answer doesn’t provide any comfort for Izzo (or fans clinging to James), since all of these jokers would just as easily be given the same jobs and perks at whatever new team LeBron decided he wanted to play for.
The third answer is the assistant coaches who have been retained. Chris Jent, Mike Malone, Melvin Hunt. This seems like the most substantive and logical answer. Jent, of course, has been traveling and working with James year-round since at least this last summer, a kind of promotion from the heavy in-season work he was conducting with James in previous seasons. Keeping Jent and the others on staff was one of the savvier moves I’ve seen Reptile make in this whole chess game. Ultimately, it may not make much of a difference. Although I would guess that LeBron does in fact have a relationship and some loyalty to these coaches, I don’t think either is strong enough to prevent him from jumping ship on its own. This isn’t Manny Ramirez, who was reportedly so taken aback when he found out that he couldn’t take the Tribe’s trusted equipment manager with him after he signed with Boston (because, you know, the guy was still employed by the Indians) that he considered trying to rescind the contract.
But as our old friend B-Dub reports, at this point, it sounds like Izzo’s best bet in the guessing game of who has inroads to James may be to look in the mirror. But that’s still far from a guarantee that James will return.
2) One of the main reasons Izzo is seriously considering the jump to the NBA is his frustration with Michigan State’s inability to recruit elite talent
This is a huge red flag in my book. I really wish it wasn’t, but it is. The reason is that, as I’ve written before, it’s arguable that Cleveland is the least appealing NBA city in the league. Admittedly, I don’t think this is a fair assessment. Even without James, the Cavs have an owner willing to spend, world-class practice facilities, a (supposedly) highly regarded young GM in Chris Grant, and the minor name cache that has come with their continued regular season success the past several years. Compare that to, say, Detroit, where the team is being offered for sale, the GM has earned a well-deserved reputation as a complete bumbler, and the city itself is in even worse shape than Cleveland. I’d rather play for the Cavs, but perception is reality.
Let’s also not lose sight of the fact that even if the Cavs aren’t the least appealing franchise in the NBA, they’re nowhere near the top. Short of a complete transformation of the city’s economy, there’s very little that’s ever going to change that. We’ve all seen free agents pass over the Cavs to take equal money elsewhere (for recent entries, see: Artest, Ron and Ariza, Trevor). I maintain that LeBron’s unwillingness to give the team a long-term commitment has played a large part in their inability to recruit better. But when it comes to pitching the team to potential new players, the reality is that the Cavaliers are in an even worse bargaining position than Michigan State is in the NCAA. If this is really one of Izzo’s main frustrations with his current gig, he should think long and hard about this particular alternative before he decides it’s really going to be any different.
Of course, if LeBron chooses to stay with the Cavs long-term, that changes the entire equation. But if Izzo’s being honest with himself, the above reasons make it less than difficult to imagine why Reptile’s lucrative offer continues to give him pause.
