June 23, 2010
My Brief Love Affair With Mo Williams (Pause)

This morning, I woke up to read a draft rumors article from Woj of Yahoo! Sports, saying that the Portland Trailblazers were showing a “strong interest” in Mo Williams.

How did I feel when I read this? 

Encouraged. 

Now let’s compare how I felt this morning with how I felt the day I saw on the bottom of the ESPN crawl in my apartment that Williams had been traveled to the Cavaliers by the Milwaukee Bucks two summers ago…

Beyond enthusiastic. I called DAD. We talked excitedly. It was a great trade, as anyone who had seen Williams torch the Cavaliers during the regular season would attest. My enthusiasm was only supported by the 82 games that eventually followed. The Cavs finished with the best record of the LeBron era, and the best record in the entire NBA…

And then things changed. What? How could my enthusiasm for Williams being traded to the Cavaliers transform into encouragement that the Cavaliers might trade him away? 

A couple things. First, and most importantly, I got a lot smarter about basketball. I came to understand that Delonte West and Ben Wallace were both probably more important to the Cavs success in the 2008-2009 season than Mo Williams was. Secondly, Williams shit on the money in the entire ‘09 playoffs and for much of the 2010 playoffs. I also looked at his adjusted +/- stats and watched him play defense. I laughed about past expressions of disgust over the fact that Williams didn’t get on the All Star team immediately in ‘09 and never in ‘10 (although it was never me who was disgusted). 

What then is the lesson here? 

Well, the big lesson is to get smart and trust the data. A couple games against one opponent don’t make a career, or a season, or even a playoff series. The second lesson is that life is fickle. So are our long distance relationships with the players that we root for. I don’t dislike Mo Williams as a player or a person, even though he does talk about what he eats for dinner a lot on Twitter and seems to complain when people won’t give him free clothes. I love it when he makes shots. I hate when he gives up a blow by or goes 0-10,000. While I try to take the good with the bad, in the case of Williams, I’ve decided that there is far more bad than there is good. To paraphrase ESPN journalist Tom Haberstroh, it is an indisputable fact that the Cavs were 3.1 points better this year when Williams was not on the floor. The question is why? Is it Mo? Is it who Mo was playing with? Personally, I think it’s Mo. He’s a poor defender and a streaky shooter. That combination does not end well. 

Ultimately, the brief love affair I had with Mo Williams (pause) is probably a good example of why fans are called fans. Sports are emotional. Fans are called fans because they are “fanatics.” Someone came up with that term long ago and it was appropriate. (And likely shortened so that it was accepted by the actual fanatics - who wants to be known as a fanatic? I sure as hell don’t.) These swings of emotions we go through as supporters of, and rooters for, our favorite teams are why we can’t get upset with players when they skip town for more money or say things like “it’s a business.”

Why?

Because we may actually be just as unloyal as they are. 

8:48am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/729216676/my-brief-love-affair-with-mo-williams-pause
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FILED UNDER: Cavs Trailblazers Mo Williams 
February 4, 2010
Do The Cavs Play Better Without Mo Williams?

Here’s a follow-up to my post on Monday about the value of Mo Williams. Consider this “Part II” in which we look at the impact Mo has had on the team since he got to Cleveland for the ‘08-‘09 season.

Today, in his podcast (which is excellent by the way), Windhorst said that any talk of the Cavs being better without Mo Williams is “nonsense.”

Theoretically, at least, this makes sense. No one who’s really thinking right would ever try and use these last seven games without Mo as total and complete evidence of the case against Mo, which is what Windhorst was implying. Additionally, it’s very easy to argue in support of Mo by simply looking at wins: in ‘07-‘08, without Mo, the Cavs won 45 games. In ‘08-‘09, with Mo, the Cavs won 66 games.

What I think people sometimes tend to forget, however, is that Mo wasn’t simply added to the same team we saw in ‘07-‘08. There were other new pieces as well, including most notably Delonte West and Ben Wallace. We also have to consider that Bron had a monster season by sight and by stats, and Andy Varejao was fully healthy again.

In other words, let’s not pretend like Mo Williams was responsible for the Cavs winning 21 more games by himself.

According to 82games.com, this season, so far, the Cavs are +4.9 points with Williams on the floor and +9.6 points with him off the floor.

Translation: the Cavs have played 4.7 points worse with Mo in the game in ‘09-‘10.

Last season, the Cavs were +9.9 with him on the court and +6.3 with him off. So, the team actually played 3.6 points better with Mo than without him.

As I’ve written in the past, raw +/- stats can be tricky to analyze because a lot of variables factor in. Adjusted +/- numbers are less tricky, but still have some amount of imprecision to them, but let’s look at those as well:

RAPM ‘08-‘09: .449
APM ‘09-‘10:  -11.95
2 Year APM: -3.70

We see then that overall, Mo seems to have had a negative impact on the number of points the Cavs score / give up since he’s been on the Cavs roster so far, based on adjustments for teammates and opponents.

If we look at more advanced stats, likes Wins Produced Per 48, we see a similar average to below average story:

WP48 in ‘08-‘09: .119 (average is .100)
WP48 in ‘09-‘10: .091

And nobody really wants to talk about last year’s playoffs do they? I know I don’t, so I’ll just link you to his playoff stats.

There are certainly times when Mo can win games because of his shooting efficiency, but there are also definitely times when he can lose games because of his shooting efficiency. In fact, if we’re going to talk at all about the improvements the Cavs made in their roster this year to deal with the issues they faced against Orlando in the Eastern Conference Finals, I think it’s critical to remember that if Mo had shot the ball even slightly better that series, the Cavs would have one.

My point is very similar to the one that Windhorst makes in his podcast, although we’re getting to it in separate ways. The other issue that the Cavs have to address is scoring. What we’ve seen from Shaq recently, makes you think he could be the guy … but there’s little question in my mind that a second reliable shooter / scorer would make everyone feel more comfortable in the playoffs.

To finish up, just remember that we’re not talking about Mo Williams versus Eric Snow, or Mo Williams versus Boobie Gibson. I’m not trying to argue that Mo doesn’t do more for this Cavaliers team than those two players, but whether or not he’s a true All-Star quality point guard - or better than Delonte West - is definitely up for debate.

Hopefully, this can start a conversation about how Mo fits with the Cavs, what he brings to the table, and what the team might look like without him, remembering, obviously, that Delonte is still here (the good Delonte, hopefully).

1:00am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/370305718/do-the-cavs-play-better-without-mo-williams
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FILED UNDER: Cavs Mo Williams Delonte West 
February 1, 2010
It Started With A Simple Question…

It started with a simple question that DAD asked me:

“Do you think the Cavs would trade Mo Williams?”

I hesitated.

There’s a reason why I hesitated.

But the answer is no.

Why?

Because Mo is still owed $26.3M over the next three seasons.

In the face of a new collective bargain agreement, in which nearly every contract that pre-dates it would be overpriced, no one is going to want to pay that kind of money to a guy who the Cavs are actually better without…

…which should be a good lead-in to a longer post I intend to write this week.

10:59pm  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/366563955/it-started-with-a-simple-question
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FILED UNDER: Cavs Mo Williams 
January 25, 2010
Cavs-Heat Bazooka Point

Cavs pulled off another “we’re thankful the clock ran out when it did” victory tonight. They are now 3-0 without Mo Williams in the line-up and 2-0 without Delonte West. Their average point differential in those three games is +2.67, which includes one point wins over Miami and Oklahoma City.

It looks a lot like the Cavs are having problems winning without Mo … or is it really that they’re having problems winning without Delonte?

As the trade rumors begin to fly and mid-season reports come in, we can better evaluate where the Cavaliers stand, and where they should look to improve.

Before I started looking at the stats, I was less concerned about the Cavs future than I am right now.

I knew the team wasn’t getting much from Anthony Parker or J.J. Hickson (who was back to his usual low-rebounding self tonight: 1 board in 13 minutes). I also realized that Shaq was best-suited as a match-up player. I knew it hurt big-time to not have Delonte playing at his full capacity. And I also understood that LeBron was having another monster year - and when a player has monstrous, historic seasons they carry their team.

But I had no idea Mo Williams has essentially been ineffective.

Here are the numbers:

WP48: .091 (Below Average)
PER: 16.3 (Slightly Above Average)
Adjusted +/- ‘09-‘10: -3.56

And here’s an interesting statistic - with Mo on the court, the Cavs play 5 points better than average. With him off the court, they play 11.3 points better than average.

This means that Mo’s net on/off court +/- number is -6.3.

I think this is one of those spots where stats can be tricky. Mo is such a streaky shooter that I bet if I had the time to go back through the entirety of the Cavs season so far, we’d see big swings in his production and his +/-, some games he lights up the moon, and other games he sinks in the ocean.

In those latter games, Bron has to carry the offense.

I realize that I sound exactly like a typical national pundit when I write that … which is why I was so surprised to see that the Cavs are starting 4 players with below average production numbers and only 4 Cavs players in total have positive net on/off court +/- numbers: LeBron (+17.0), Andy (+19.5), Z (+3.3), and Delonte (+1.9)

What all of this suggests to me is that the Cavs are going to be vulnerable to close games in the playoffs. And we all know how those go … you want as few games as possible to come down to made free throws and missed fadeaway jumpers. Although the Cavs will win a lot of those games because of LeBron’s superior play - like ridiculous steals on ridiculous behind-the-back passes - they won’t win them all.

I’m going to wait a week or so to be completely convinced, but I’m becoming more and more convinced that the Cavs need to make a trade for a player who can create his own shots and play strong defense. And there’s one guy out there who fits the bill:

Andre Iguodala

As @WojYahooNBA reported earlier, the Sixers are pushing the Cavs to take him off their hands.

8:24pm  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/353779898/cavs-heat
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FILED UNDER: Cavs Heat Andre Iguodala Mo Williams