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 
January 10, 2010
Cavs / Blazers Bazooka Point

Good road win for the Cavs tonight, and a special congratulations to Andy Varejao. Tonight’s announce team essentially confirmed that Andy’s leading the league in (unadjusted) +/- has made it into the “points that must be covered when announcing a nationally televised Cavs game,” right up there with:

1) LeBron’s court vision being the best part of his game

2) Lebron’s efforts to perfect his jump shot over the summer (insert Chris Jent reference here)

3) Shaq’s “secretly” excellent passing

4) Z’s amazing comeback from his barrage of early-career foot injuries

5) Z’s starting off as a point guard before his growth spurt

6) The number of different leagues Jamario Moon played in before the NBA

7) Whatever is currently shaved in the top of Boobie’s head

Tonight, I’d like to give some dap to Jawad Williams, who has been seeing extended minutes since Jamario went out with an injured groin. 

Jawad scored a career high 10 points on 3-7 shooting against the Blazers tonight, including 40% from distance, in just over 17 minutes of play.  8 of those 10 points (and both of his makes from the great beyond) came in the 4th quarter, when the Cavs put the clamps on Portland and ran away with the game once and for all.

To return to the topic of unadjusted +/-, Jawad was also +16 tonight — the same as Lebron. He was +18 in 24 minutes in the win against the Wiz earlier this week. Again, there’s a lot of noise in those numbers, but he’s so far into the positives without adjustments that I feel pretty comfortable saying that he’s been an asset in those two games.

By no means am I advocating for Jawad to replace Jamario in the line-up, but it’s a credit to Danny Ferry that a 6’-6” wing who’s been a DNP for most of the season can step in temporarily and play well enough to help the Cavs get some more victories. (Update:  after writing this entire post, I just saw that Brian Windhorst also highlighted Jawad in his blog recap of the game tonight. BDub reports that Jawad is actually +29 since Jamario went out and is willing to suggest that there’s a possibility he could become a regular rotation player due to the fact that he’s stronger than Jamario, wants to play D, and fills the need of the infamous “stretch 4.”)

Cavs are right back at it against the Warriors Monday night. Anthony Randolph is out, victimized by a fractured ankle suffered earlier this weekend.  I was going to say that this makes the Ws another undermanned team, but considering that they routinely play Monta Ellis 48 minutes a game these days, it’s fair to consider them permanently (and intentionally) undermanned.

-T

P.S. The image at the top of the post is a product of Portland’s famed Voodoo Doughnuts,  a must-visit if you’re ever in the Rose City. Not even really that tasty, but just utterly bizarre and incredible.

9:59pm  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/328257121/cavs-blazers-bazooka-point
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FILED UNDER: Cavs Trailblazers Blazers Lebron NBA