With the Cavs treading the line of unwatchability thanks to yet another double-digit loss last night, I thought that I’d turn my attention to other basketball matters.
Ever since LeBron made the choice to sign with Miami, it dawned on me that Heat fans (all 1,000 of them) were about to be introduced to an entire array of tics, habits, and pre-meditated actions that those of us who had watched LeBron closely for the past 7 years already knew backwards and forwards. For the benefit of those Heat fans (150 of whom just decided in the span of the past sentence that they’d rather go pay a cover at a club on Collins than show up for the game on time), I decided I would put together a quick field guide to prepare them for life with LeBron James. It’s taken me a long time to get to it, but if there’s one sentiment Miami basketball fans can relate to, better late than never.
1) Any time LeBron goes to the floor and stays down, don’t bother holding your breath - he’s getting back up.
In his 7 seasons as a Cavalier, James missed a grand total of 24 games. I believe that in the past 2 seasons, at least 5 of those games were premeditated DNPs based on the Cavs’ having already locked up the top playoff seed. He can be criticized for many things, but being frail isn’t one of them.
That said, about once a game he’s going to hit the ground on a drive to the rim. He will stay down. He will grimace. He will wait for his teammates to crowd around him. The crowd will go silent. The announcers will hold their breath and speak cautiously.
Then one of James’s teammates will help him up. He will walk away gingerly. The crowd (assuming their dinner reservation is over and they’ve made it to the arena by now) will cheer raucously. Then, he will proceed as if nothing happened. Because nothing did happen. So don’t be like this guy.
2) No matter how hot he gets from the field, or how meaningful it would be, don’t ever be surprised when he misses a free throw attempt.
James has never shot better than 78% from the stripe. He managed that once, two seasons ago. There is no trajectory of improvement visible in his season-to-season stats. They look like polygraph results. Simply put, I’ve seen him play in a lot of big post-season games, and I waited for years for him to give me reason to be confident in his performance at the line. Never happened. So any time he gets to the charity stripe in a pressurized situation, strap on your seat belts.
3) Be ready to enjoy “Mike Brown’s Offense” at the end of any reasonably tight game.
We’ve covered this before, but for years analysts loved to blame Coldstone Mike Brown for LeBron’s tendency to pound the ball on the perimeter for 16 seconds of the shot clock on every key late-game possession. They acted as if it was the coach’s fault that LeBron was letting the defense set up, refusing to move the ball, and forcing his four teammates to stand around and watch him dribble. As you may have discovered by now, no one knows what Mike Brown’s crunch-time offense looked like because it was never run. If you don’t believe me yet, just keep watching.
4) If you want to see someone get wasted, get them to agree to do a shot every time James begins an answer to an interview or press conference question with either “Aw, man” or “Oh, absolutely.”
I would only recommend doing this if you have a stomach pump onsite, an ambulance parked in your driveway, or a hankering to be charged with manslaughter.
5) If you’re expecting him to show up to a Dolphins or Marlins game wearing that team’s gear instead of a rival’s, you’ve got another thing coming.
He may attend a Dolphins-Cowboys game, but he’ll have a star on his hat. You may catch him at a Marlins game, but only if they’re playing the Yankees in the World Series. And in that case, be ready for pinstripes. Look, James says and does the right things for the cameras and tape recorders about 98% of the time. When it comes to representing as a front-runner, though, you’re dealing with the other 2%. I expect this won’t be as big a deal in south Florida as it was in Cleveland since nobody goes to Marlins games anyway, but it doesn’t mean James’s behavior will be any different.
6) Don’t get too wistful when he inevitably says that he would’ve “probably” chosen to play at the U had he gone to college.
His lack of concern for offending the locals only applies to the professional level. He’s a complete shill when it comes to the NCAA. I’ve heard him suggest he would’ve almost certainly played for Ohio State…and North Carolina…and UCLA…and Syracuse…and the list goes on. It only depends on which crowd he’s in front of that day. The only reason he’s never suggested that maybe he might’ve shunned the draft in favor of joining the Army is that they don’t draw big enough crowds.
7) No matter how true it may be that he would dominate if he played in the post more, don’t expect to see it become a regular part of his arsenal.
Unless Spoelstra and Riley can get through to him in a way that no one in Cleveland could, LeBron is going to play the way he wants to play. And the way he wants to play is on the perimeter. Yes, he’s the size of Karl Malone. Yes, the rare time he goes to the block, he’s unstoppable. Yes, it would make a ton of sense for him to mix this into his regular game plan. Why doesn’t he? Well, James was quoted during his time in Cleveland as saying that the post isn’t “fun.” You may want to keep this in mind when you consider his conviction about winning not one championship, not two, not three, not four, not five…
Oh, and while we’re on the topic….
8) Barring an emergency, ditto for playing point guard / point forward for any extended period of time.
As scary as he is in scoring mode, James is an absolute marauder in pass-first mode. There was a stretch of games in January or February of last season where injuries forced him to be the primary point guard. During that time, I believe he averaged between 12 and 13 assists per game. I know for a fact that he led the league in per-game assist average during that stretch. However, as soon as the opportunity arose for James to go back to doing what he’d been doing before, he took it. He can talk all day about how he’d prefer to not have to be the team’s primary scorer, but as in most cases, actions speak louder than words. They also apparently speak louder than wins.
9) Don’t be shocked by anything he says the next time he plays at Madison Square Garden.
Now that James has shunned them, you and I know that the NYC basketball faithful are not going to feel the same way about Lebron as they did in the years leading up to his free agency. So there’s no need to flirt with them rabidly through the press anymore. Does that mean LeBron won’t do it? Hell no. Because in all but the most extreme cases (see: Quicken Loans Arena, Dec 2nd, 2010) LeBron is completely oblivious. Considering that your team has his signature on a 6 year contract, I’d recommend that you indulge in the comedy of this.
10) If you believe him when he says he’s not paying attention to his stat line—specifically regarding how close he may be to a triple-double—then talk to me about a great investment opportunity on a bridge in Brooklyn.
I promise you that you will never see him go harder for a rebound or be more pissed at a teammate’s missing an open shot than when he is 1 or 2 shy of the magic mark. And I promise you that afterward, he will claim complete and total ignorance. All he was trying to do was get a win.
There are plenty more points that I’m sure are slipping my mind right now, but this should be a good primer for all of you loyal Miami fans. Enjoy the ride—at least on those rare nights you remembered a game was on.
For months, I’ve been hearing the same chorus about LeBron from Clevelanders: “It’s not that he left, it’s how he did it.” Last night, I think we could all say it’s not that the Cavs lost, it’s how they did it.
The size of the egg they laid makes a few things crystal clear to me.
Byron Scott is, at this point of the season, a fraud. I wrote about this once last week. But every principle that Scott preached as being foundational for this franchise is M.I.A. after 18 games. For a supposed running team, the Cavs are almost exactly average; they currently rank #14 in the league in Pace. For a supposed defense-first team, they are below-average; they currently rank #19 in the league in Defensive Efficiency. And speaking of defense, the numbers aren’t even the be-all end-all.
The Cavs are soft and lax. I’ve now heard multiple national commentators—some of whom I normally like quite a bit—proclaim the Cavs to be some kind of hard-nosed, blue-collar team that gives maximum effort on every possession but just doesn’t have the talent to win consistently. This is as bogus as the notion that the problem of the last few Cavs’ teams was “Mike Brown’s offense.”
I’ve watched Scott’s Cavs enough to know that they consistently refuse to close out on perimeter shooters, consistently give easy lanes to uncontested shots at the rim, and consistently go about 6 minutes of regulation in every game giving strictly token effort. Result: they now rank #27 in the league in Opponent 3P% (39.3), gave up 60 points in the paint to Boston on Tuesday night (which 48 minutes of effort should render impossible), and don’t appear to be showing any sustainable level of improvement. Of their last 10 games, 7 have been losses, and only one of those Ls was by less than 11 points.
The debacle against Miami was a perfect indictment of Scott, in my mind. Many writers touched on the point that this was likely to be the closest the team gets to a playoff-atmosphere game for several years. I agree with that sentiment. Frankly, it was the only game on the schedule this season that had any real importance to the fan base and (likely) to the players. Without a doubt, it was the only game that meant anything to Dan Gilbert. One game out of eighty-two. This was the entire season.
So what happened? By halftime, the Cavs were down 19 points. By the end of the third quarter, Miami’s starters went to the bench and stayed there. At game’s end, the only thing that kept the Heat from hanging a +30 on the Cavs was a meaningless Jawad Williams layup in traffic.
Scott couldn’t keep his bench from joking with LeBron during dead-ball situations, even after he explicitly jammed them on it during halftime. Not a single Cav fouled LeBron hard on his way to the rim. Instead, James was allowed to do whatever he wanted, however he wanted. He was given permission, in many ways, to feel comfortable on the court, even as 20,562 paying customers did everything in their power to try to counter-act it.
It’s not that James laid 38 points on the Cavs in 29 minutes. It’s how he was allowed to do it.
Sometimes it’s impossible to stop a player with James’s skill level from exploding. But it can be made more difficult if his defenders exert effort, persistence, tenacity, toughness—all of the elements Scott has preached since signing his contract. The Cavs showed none of those things tonight. The players are complicit to a degree, but a finger has to be pointed at the coaching staff as well. I know which one I want to use right now.
Had the Cavs won or at least been competitive in last night’s game, I could see them gaining confidence, buying into Scott’s system, playing for something larger than just one game, possibly eking their way into the playoffs. But to be donkey-punched like they were last night means the only thing that matters now is rebuilding the team as quickly as possible, and the players know it. I find it hard to believe that they’re going to suddenly go all in on Scott’s system at some later point in the season. Last night may already have been his Waterloo, at least with this roster.
This means that the worst possible outcome for the 2010-11 season is the #8 seed in the playoffs. The Cavs as an organization need to start looking toward the future and the lottery. The trade clock needs to start on every member of the roster with any name value. This means Varejao, Jamison, Mo Williams, and even JJ Hickson. (My take after watching him for the past three years: Chris Grant should sell high while other teams are still enamored with his potential and his shiny new jump shot. Because he still can’t consistently hold onto a rebound, catch a pass, or defend any player of merit.) The talent evaluators need to see if players like Christian Eyenga, Manny Harris, and Samardo Samuels have any real shot at contributing at an NBA level.
In short, if last night’s game really was the 2010-11 Cavs’ playoffs, they were shown the exit in just as embarrassing a fashion as the 2009-10 Cavs in the Eastern Conference Semis. And that means that it’s time to re-evaluate. Again. And if I know anything about Dan Gilbert, I feel like Scott may have the least job security of any rebuilding coach in league history. If that’s indeed the case, right now I am 100% in Gilbert’s corner in that line of thinking.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to write this column. I considered posting a video of myself offering suggestions for what the people of Northeast Ohio should be doing instead of spending a whole lot of time worrying about a basketball player named LeBron James. But here I am, staring at the screen, typing away. I suppose I can’t stop myself from writing, no matter how badly I sometimes wish I could.
And, based on my contributions to our Twitter feed and to this blog, I apparently can’t stop writing about LeBron. Or “Bron” as I used to call him when he was still a Cavalier (admittedly, I relapse sometimes, on occasion). The man’s contributions to the Cleveland sports world probably inspired us to create this website as much as anything. He showed young fans in Cleveland who missed out on the Browns playoff runs of the 80s and the Indians near championships in the 90s, that success was possible at the highest levels.
It is fair to say then that LeBron has had an impact on my life, both in tangible (I’ve written about him) and intangible (witnessing greatness moves me to want to be great) ways. I am okay with that. I believe that sports, entertainment, and art can motivate and inspire, so long as the observers are active participants. Interpretation though is key.
Recently, we’ve talked here about not putting professional sports on a pedestal of importance. I will continue to be irritated by the existence of Cleveland Browns Stadium, funded with nearly 75% taxpayer money, wasting precious real estate on the lake. I intend, at some point, to begin a campaign to have the Indians change their nickname and mascot to something that isn’t entirely regressive. I will try to talk fans down off of the ledge if the Browns make it to the playoffs in the near future and blow a game. Cleveland isn’t cursed, I’ll say. Come on, man.
After spending the first 18 years of my life in Northeast Ohio, I have devoted the majority of my time over the course of the past twelve months to occupying the same terrain. Cleveland has changed. Parts of it have progressed. Cleveland, I know, will always love sports. I will continue to love sports, as well. I understand. And it’s not wrong. I admire sports enough to write about them 2-3 times a week, after all. But the sad truth is that Northeast Ohio allows itself to be defined by its professional sports teams far too easily and far too often.
This is why, I think, tonight could be seen as a crucial turning point in the history of this region. The national perception of Cleveland will be affected by whatever happens. Most people watching from around the country will be hoping for a train wreck. Part of that is human nature. Another part of that is the expectations that the media and the past behavior of Cleveland sports fans have filtered into the collective subconscious of America.
I had a mild argument a couple of weeks ago with a friend at Bar Cento in Ohio City. He said Cleveland has nothing to care about except its sports teams. My friend grew up in Cleveland, and he feels this way, so you can imagine what people who have never been to the Midwest must think. I countered by saying that there may be some truth to that, but there is no reason why sports have to be the only thing in Cleveland. They don’t. If the citizenship spent as much time trying to build something in the city center as they do flocking Downtown on Sundays, paying $25 for parking while drinking Four Loko (R.I.P.) and getting bombed into oblivion, there would be more “other things” in Cleveland.
This is not to say I’m against taking a break and having fun - although sometimes I certainly act like it. I’m definitely not against drinking - I’m a writer for god sakes. In reality, what I’m saying is that the future of Cleveland and of Northeast Ohio depends on us. We can be the region that people want us to be, drowning our sorrows whenever the Browns, Cavs, or Indians face a major setback, setting things on fire when we feel betrayed by someone we’ve never met, or storming the field during a promotional beer night. Or we can be something more. Something bigger, better, smarter, more ambitious and more sophisticated. The next time you have a decision to make that will effect your hometown in some direct or indirect way, I urge you to consider this:
What could I do that would make someone come to Cleveland instead of make fun of it?
It is up to us to be committed to things that truly matter and villains that have actual effects on our environment, like abandoned homes and dwindling opportunities for recent college graduates, not multi-million dollar child stars named LeBron James.
We won’t all be at the game tonight. I won’t be. Even if I was, I couldn’t move the entire crowd to put on a proper display for the television cameras. Just like the actions of a team of pro athletes shouldn’t define us, neither should the behavior of a group of drunken provocateurs.
More importantly, whether it’s tonight or tomorrow or some night in the future, during a playoff series against the Heat, I urge everyone who feels the need to lash out at LeBron to lash out instead at the national perception of Northeast Ohio and of Cleveland.
LeBron might not have made the city light up like Vegas - and Dan Gilbert may be trying to do it in some ways I feel a little uncomfortable with and some ways I feel more positive about - but that doesn’t mean we can’t contribute to the same type of goal.
It turns out that Cleveland can learn something from professional athletes like LeBron. Their level of confidence and belief in themselves is exactly what we need more of.
I write this not as an anti-LeBron Clevelander, or a pro-LeBron Clevelander, but just as a fan of the game of basketball.
Before the season, I was as big of a believer in Miami as anyone I know personally. Right now, however, the Heat are only 5-4 - which is worse than the “new look” Cavs started each of the past two seasons. In truth, I thought the Heat would roll off about twenty wins in a row after they destroyed Orlando a couple of weeks ago. But that win was earned because of a suffocating defensive presence … a presence that has more or less faded. As a result, Miami hasn’t finished games against good teams. You know what happened at home against Utah. You probably saw what happened against Boston tonight. Without defense, the Heat’s offense simply isn’t good enough to carry them to victories.
Hold on a second. Did I just write what I meant to write, or was that an accident? The Heat’s offense - with arguably the two best perimeter players in the league and a top ten PF - is bad?
Yep. Right now, it’s bad. And I’m beginning to have my doubts about whether it will actually get better or not.
Stats heads love Miami. I believe in data. I believe in statistics. I also believe that numbers don’t tell the entire story. Basketball is a team game. The way the pieces fit matters. Miami, I realized, could have issues because they had two guys, in LeBron and Wade, that played essentially the same role. Ball in hands. Get to the rim. If the lane gets clogged, make a play or get to the free throw line. This is basic basketball…
What I also knew was that LeBron and Wade were going to have to learn how to be effective off of the ball. I thought they could figure it out and figure it out quickly. At the moment, I’m not so sure.
It’s important to remember that both LeBron and Wade have been playing a specific way - the way we saw them both play last year - not just for the past 7 years, but probably for the past 15 years, at least, for as long as they’ve been playing basketball. It’s not easy to simply wake up, step out onto the court, and suddenly make yourself into a different player. It would be like if Tim and I abruptly started writing poetry instead of movies…
Ugly.
The problem I see with Miami, so long as they’re not going to play defense, is that when LeBron or Wade plays their usual role, i.e. high pick and roll with the 5 or the 4, the other superstar is turned into a spot up shooter. In this way, Dwyane Wade or LeBron James becomes Anthony Parker. Which is just a total waste because LBJ and DW are actually far worse shooters than AP. Miami certainly shouldn’t be paying Wade what they are to take spot up 3P shots.
This is, I think, why the Heat’s defense has, in spots, been better than their offense. Individually, Wade and LeBron can both do what they’re use to doing on defense, and the team will still be effective. It’s on offense where they have to change their games - and, I would argue, perhaps for the worse - that they look lost. And they should.
This was the fundamental problem the Cavs had for the past couple of years, trying to build a team. Analyst after analyst would scream at the Cavs for not having a second superstar … but, in reality, LeBron was too good of a playmaker and scorer for the Cavs to have another superstar. Why get Dwyane Wade just so you can turn him into Mo Williams or Jamario Moon?
Short answer: you don’t. You pay Anthony Parker $2.9M and you smile about it.
I’m not sure how Miami can attack this problem. The easy answer, and maybe the best answer, is to start playing consistent, lockdown defense. When it comes to offense, however, Wade and LeBron can only adjust so much. Their games have been built on fundamental skills that have made them great. You can’t just tell a player to stop being great, to try to be average, to make spot up jumpers when they know they’re capable of far, far more.
In actuality, my theory that the Heat should trade Dwyane Wade is only gaining support. I would love to see how the Heat would look right now with just Bron and Bosh and not Wade (I’d love to see Bosh and Bron playing together on a slightly adjusted ‘09 - ‘10 Cavs team even more, but I digress…). Miami has LeBron. They don’t need Wade. Really, Mike Miller is a more appropriate player for this team than Wade is.
If the Heat continue losing, this could get really ugly. I will be very, very curious to see how LeBron reacts if - somehow - Miami’s record stays around .500 for several more games.
Nine games down. Seventy two to go. Man, it’s fun to jump to conclusions.
First off, in brief, my scheduled post for Tuesday was swallowed by Tumblr rolling out software updates to its queue system (fuckers). Dramatically hurt by this betrayal, I turned to Twitter to lay out the content of my piece in 140 character brush strokes.
Now, to the matter at hand. Some time last night, while watching the MLB playoffs, the following thought came into my head: The Heat should consider trading Dwyane Wade the first chance they get.
I put it on Twitter for all 30 of our followers to see. And now I am here to explain my thinking in more detail.
Dwyane Wade is 28-years-old. He will be about 29 and a half by the time he, LeBron, and Chris Bosh are fighting over the Larry O’Brien Trophy on the floor of the arena in Miami or somewhere out west (probably out west, because the Heat will most likely win the title in 4 or 5 games).
LeBron James, on the other hand, will be only 26 and a half years old. Chris Bosh will be 27 and a couple months. Wade, as many of you know, is often injured. He has missed 103 regular season games in his 7 year pro career. Most statisticians will tell you that by the time a player reaches his late 20’s he is already declining. Injuries will only accelerate that.
It follows then that Wade will never be more valuable than he is right now. And, make no mistake about it, a healthy Wade is very valuable. But that value is decreasing by the game, especially if he can’t stay healthy this season. And his hamstring injury three minutes into the Heat’s first preseason game is a bad harbinger, I think, of things to come. Let’s not forget, Wade said he was feeling banged up before the game even started.
If I’m Pat Riley, I have to be concerned about this. Sure, the team may not absolutely need Dwyane Wade to win the championship this year - but they do need him, or a player of his caliber, to run off three, four, or five titles, maybe even more. And, in my mind, that is exactly what Riley sold LeBron during their multiple meetings over the course of the past year.
You see where this is going. Bill Belichick has made a living off of thinking like this. Trade a player right before he declines, or right as he starts to decline, in order to maximize his value and fleece a hopeful, unwitting competitor like, say, the New Orleans Hornets.
What do you do if you’re New Orleans, and Riley calls you and says, “Hey, I’m willing to give you Dwyane Wade for Chris Paul … what do you think?”
The Orlando Magic, most likely, would turn down a Dwight Howard for Dwyane Wade swap. What about the Utah Jazz? Would they give up Deron Williams? What if the Knicks were to give up Danillo Gallinari, Anthony Randolph, and Eddy Curry’s expiring contract for Wade? That would make free agency in the summer of 2011 even more interesting.
I could toss out more examples, but you get the idea. My overall point is that Riley is in an interesting position. He has a very valuable player who is probably declining. He has two other valuable players - one of whom is the MOST valuable player - who are not yet declining. If Riley can flip Wade for multiple assets that would potentially improve the Heat’s depth immediately as well as their future prospects, shouldn’t he explore that?
I believe he should.
Look, I’m not a moron. I realize the Heat aren’t actually going to trade Wade this season. I assume, however, that Pat Riley and LeBron are cold-blooded enough to go through with it at some point down the road if the situation arises.
These guys don’t want one ring. They don’t even want three. I’m certain that LeBron wants at least seven … and although that’s going to be terribly difficult to accomplish, that doesn’t mean that Riley won’t pull out all the stops to try to get there.
Noted: You like this? I can pretend to be a newspaper writer, too! Anyway, two bullet points…
I listened to half of the inaugural Byron Scott radio show while I was at the gym today, and I must say that the intro is hilarious. Why? Because the producers use the following quote from Scott: “I’m committed to this organization, to win a championship, and I think this team is right there right now in that position where they can get over the hump.” Now, this is funny to me because I’m almost positive Byron said those words when LeBron was still in town.
Finally, loyal reader Joseph Hughes of North Coast Zeitgeist fame, proposed this reception for LeBron when he comes to the Q in December. I thought it was worth sharing with you guys. I have to say though, I would definitely not want to be the guy whose fraudulent #23 jersey was retired right in front of a guy who is already one of the greatest players to ever play the game. Talk about an awkward moment. No worries though, I’m sure many, many Clevelanders are far less shy than myself.
