Red Right 88

In Cleveland, hope dies last

Archive for the category “NBA”

11 Nov 2010

What Should the Cavs Do?

There was a lot of chatter when the NBA schedule was released about what the Cavs should do when the Miami Heat makes its first appearance in Cleveland on Dec. 2.

We have a suggestion, thanks to local filmmaker Dan Wantz. The Cavs should run a continuous loop of Wantz’ short video on the large video monitors outside the Q all day on Dec. 2.

The team should also show the video right before player introductions at the game.

We don’t know if the Cavs have the balls to do this, but it sure would be fun.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, NBA | Leave a comment
28 Oct 2010

It’s All Good For One Night

Nice job by the Cavs in beating the Celtics on opening night.

Nine players saw action for at least 15 minutes, the Cavs overcame an 11-point deficit in the third quarter, Boobie Gibson got hot in the second half with 16 points, and they did it without starting guard Mo Williams and with Antawn Jamison only scoring four points.

Now it’s not going to be like this every night. The team will struggle and there will be games where that 11-point deficit turns into a 25-point deficit. But with Toronto, Sacramento, Philadelphia, Washington and New Jersey coming up on the schedule, the Cavs have time to find their rhythm.

But for one night at least, the winning Cavs were back and it was all good.

***

We generally don’t put much stock in conspiracy theories, and don’t buy the argument that local media members – at least the print ones – are trying to run coaches or players out of town.

Nor does any media member in the area have the power to do that – Peter Franklin was the last guy to have that kind of juice in this town.

But that doesn’t mean that media members don’t frame questions or selectively use quotes to build an article to fit their predetermined angle.

Take a look at this piece at Cleveland Frowns, especially the video. You’ll see what we mean.

***

Finally, check out this story at Waiting for Next Year about the Indians and the playoffs of the late ’90s. But be warned, you will be depressed.

We still firmly believe if the Indians had been willing to part with Jaret Wright in a trade for Pedro Martinez, or had been able to convince Curt Schilling to come here in ’97, the Tribe would have won World Series in ’97 & ’98 and would have had a great chance in ’99.

Posted in Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians, NBA, NFL | Leave a comment
26 Oct 2010
1 Comment

Basketball time at the Q returns

Just in time to fill the void of a Browns bye week come the Cavaliers, who tip off their season Wednesday night at home against Boston.

After months of nonsense, ranging from LeBron’s elbow, LeBron quitting on the team against the Celtics in the playoffs, the playoff loss to Boston, the Cavs being the first NBA team to have consecutive 60-win seasons and not make the NBA Finals, the firing of coach Mike Brown, the resignation of general manager Danny Ferry, the summer of LeBron, the nationally televised Decision, the hiring of new coach Byron Scott and the endless speculation that this year’s Cavs team will be the worst team in the history of sports, it’s finally basketball time again at the Q.

And while we finally get to focus on the games, we’re left with two questions:

  • How good will this Cavs team be post-LeBron?
  • More importantly, how good do we want them to be?

Scott’s Princeton offense should be fun to watch as it emphasizes ball movement and works to get everyone involved. Gone are the days of dribble, dribble, dribble, stand around and watch, and shoot.

“When you’re talking about the Princeton offense, basically what you’re talking about is motion and cutting and screens and spacing,” Scott told The Plain Dealer. “To me, it’s just talking about basketball … it’s not just two or three guys playing basketball, you’ve got all give guys getting a chance to play.”

That sounds great, and we like that Scott has a system that he is committed to. Maybe after being a star-driven team for the past seven years, switching to a team-oriented offense is the way to go.

“This equal-opportunity offense gives everybody the opportunity to play – from the one to the five,” guard Boobie Gibson, who should see more playing time this year, told The Plain Dealer. “Everybody is capable of doing it. The way we share the ball, that’s a fun style of play.”

The one thing is that the offense asks players to relearn team basketball concepts and that may take a while. It wouldn’t surprise us to see the Cavs struggle early in the season as everyone gets to game speed with the offense, then show improvement as the season moves along and the players get more comfortable with the offense and find their new roles on the team.

Luckily Antawn Jamison is experienced in the offense, having played it in Washington, and it should be fun to see how Jamison, Mo Williams, Gibson and Jamario Moon work in a quick-shot offense (Scott wants a good look at a shot in six seconds).

So that brings us to our first question: how good will this Cavs team be?

Clearly they won’t be a 60-win team, but they also aren’t going to be a 12-win team either. LeBron was good, but there’s no way – barring several major injuries and/or a purging of the team at the trading deadline – that he alone was good for 50 wins. That’s completely absurd.

The problem with trying to gauge how good the Cavs can be is that the national media has spent the past five years or so telling us how everyone on the Cavs is horrible and that they only win because of LeBron. They can’t now admit how ridiculous that notion is, so it’s easier for them to predict the Cavs to be historically bad.

We can see this team being around .500 and battling for the last playoff spot. Terry Pluto – who knows a lot about the NBA – has them at 46 wins and easily making the playoffs.

And that leads us to our second question: how good do we want the Cavs to be?

There’s a reasonable fear among the fans that the Cavs will just become another team, winning around 40 games a year and losing in the first round of the playoffs. In other words, a repeat of the Mike Fratello years.

The flip side is that the front office should gut the team, accept being crappy while they rebuild through the draft, hoping to land the one stud draft pick that will lead the team back to the top of the standings.

But there’s no guarantees that strategy will work. It worked when they drafted LeBron, but what if the ball hadn’t dropped in the right spot during the draft lottery and the Cavs ended up with Darko Milicic? Or they do get the top pick and select Greg Oden instead of Kevin Durant?

Then what?

Maybe the Cavs should just be the best team that they can be. What if this year’s 36-win team lays the foundation for next year’s 48-win team and the 55-win team the following season?

What if the front office learns from the mistakes of the past 3-4 years and uses the resources available to them and the second chance offered to build the team the right way?

What if, instead of this being the end of a golden age of Cavalier basketball, this is really the beginning of something special?

Is that really any more improbable that what we’ve witnessed the past two-and-half years with this team?

We’ll start to get answers Wednesday at 7 p.m. when the Cavs tip-off. We’ll be watching to see how this season unfolds.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, keeping the faith, NBA
27 Jul 2010

They’re Breaking up the Band

Delonte West is the latest Cleveland Cavalier to be elevated to the status of ex-Cavalier, as the team traded him, along with Sebastian Telfair, to Minnesota for guard Ramon Sessions, Ryan Hollins and a 2013 second round pick.

It was understandable and not a surprise that the Cavs moved West, but it’s still disappointing. West was one of the players that made the Cavs so enjoyable to watch over the past three years. He was one of the team’s best players and his gritty, fearless style of play on the court fit in well in Cleveland.

Sadly, West’s off-court legal troubles – he recently plead guilty to two gun charges in Maryland and was sentenced to eight months of house arrest – and ongoing medial problems were too much for the Cavs to deal with anymore and they moved him out of town.

Sessions had his best seasons in Milwaukee, which is what made Mo Williams available to Cleveland two years ago after Sessions’ rookie season. Following the trade, he averaged 12.4 points and 5.7 assists in his second season. He moved to Minnesota last year as a free agent and struggled, averaging 8.2 points and 3.1 assists.

Sessions is in the second year of a four-year, $16 million contract, which means he is very cap friendly for the Cavs. Plus, the team picked up another draft pick, which is just another chip that can use in a potential trade down the road or to pick up another young player.

The 25-year-old Hollins is a super-athletic, but raw, forward/center who averaged 6.1 points and 2.8 rebounds last year.

So, while certainly not a blockbuster type of trade, it is another step in the slow process of rebuilding the Cavs.

But you’ll be missed Delonte.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, Delonte West, NBA | Leave a comment
19 Jul 2010

An Inside Look at Free Agency – Allegedly

When I first read Adrian Wojnarowski’s take on LeBron’s free agency journey from Cleveland to Miami, I, like most Cavs fans, said, “yep, that’s the LeBron I know.” A me-first, spoiled, athlete who treats others poorly and who turned his back on Cleveland.

But when I went back and read it a second time, I started to wonder. Am I agreeing with Wojnarowski because his story is accurate, or do I believe it because, as a jilted fan, I want to believe it? I’m not sure, but what I do know is, it would be a lot easier to buy into this tale if Wojnarowski actually quoted someone.

That’s right, in almost 4,100 words on how LeBron landed in Miami, we get exactly two quotes – one from a “league official” and a “top NBA front office executive.” Neither are quoted by name, of course.

The article lays out some pretty harsh criticisms of James:

  • claiming Team USA did not want him on the 2008 Olympic team
  • that James forced Dan Gilbert to fire coach Mike Brown and that Brown did not respect James
  • that James wouldn’t allow photos or videos at the birthday party of Chris Paul’s son because James was attending
  • that William Wesley was driving a wedge between James and Maverick Carter

And on and on.

Now all of this may be true, or at least mostly true. But without a single person willing to go on the record for the article, how can we know? How do we know that someone with an ax to grind didn’t feed Wojnarowski an “inside look” that is more speculation and half-truths than reality?

Or that Wojnarowski wanted to believe this so he allowed himself to be led down the path? He wasn’t exactly balanced in his coverage of LeBron during the free agency period:

Sadly, as we all learned during the past few months, proper sourcing and going on the record just isn’t all that important in today’s media. On any given day, ESPN will have 3-4 stories on it mainpage without any attribution.

And that leaves it to us, the fans and readers, to try and sort through the mess to find out what’s the truth and what’s propaganda.

Posted in Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James, NBA | Leave a comment
15 Jul 2010

Roll up your sleeves – it’s time to get to work

We all knew things were going to be tough for the Cavs post-LeBron. But in the past few days, it’s become clear that things are going to be really tough, at least in the short term.

The team not only has to replace the two-time MVP in the lineup, but they have to learn and adjust to coach Byron Scott’s system, which is significantly different that the one run by former coach Mike Brown. Scott wants the team to run off of “rebounds, turnovers and even made baskets, we’re going to try to run off all of them,” Scott said in published reports.

And after five years of watching taller guards come up short – Sasha Pavlovic anyone – the team is now looking for guards who can push the ball to create offensive chances.

The Cavs came up short in their bid to acquire Houston guard Kyle Lowry, and now are reportedly looking at Mike Conley (Memphis) and Ramon Sessions (Minnesota). They may also give some time to current guard Sebastian Telfair.

Not exactly the cream of the crop, but at this stage they may be only players available.

The team is also taking a look at 2009 first-round pick Christian Eyenga – remember him? – at the Las Vegas Summer League.

This is what Brian Windhorst had to say about Eyenga:

“Whether you’re watching him in a practice or a game, usually within a few minutes it is easy to see why the Cavaliers were so attracted to the talent of Christian Eyenga. Often, at the same time, it is easy to see why it is hard to figure what to do with him.

“The 2009 first-round pick from the Congo is immensely gifted with remarkable leaping ability and long arms on his 6-foot-7 frame and the ability to get from one side of the floor to the other in an instant. He can close to block a shot in a flash or outrun everyone on the floor to finish a fast break.

“But then he’ll miss a defensive assignment, take the wrong angle on defending a screen roll or get trapped on the wing without a move to counter the defender.”

Oh boy, that doesn’t sound like fun.

Windhorst also said the Cavs are kicking the tires on Adam Morrison, who has averaged 7.5 points on 37 percent shooting for his four-year career.

This just gets funner by the minute.

But the hardest article to read may have been one Windhorst penned for ESPN.com. In it he says:

“In the midst of trying to pick up the pieces, the Cavs are suddenly staring at one of the league’s toughest conundrums, one that nearly every franchise faces once a decade or so. How can they rebuild? How should they rebuild? How can they sell the rebuilding process?

“The questions are unpleasant and the answers are complicated for reasons the Cavs can’t control and reasons they can.

“In the unrelenting heat of Vegas, though, reality is here. The Cavs see it as they watch their summer league team attempt to install new coach Byron Scott’s running offense, a system for which they don’t have the personnel right now. They hear it when they talk to agents about their clients and the troubles recruiting them to what is left of the team. They feel it in the glares of other executives as they know teams see them as desperate.

“The truth, whether the team and its fans are prepared to admit it, is the Cavs cannot rebuild quickly or on the fly. They will not be competing with the Heat for the championship this season and more than likely not next season either. After being one of the focus points of the NBA since making the Finals in 2007, the national television games and late postseason runs are done for now.”

This is where the Cavs have to get it right. They now have an opportunity to rebuild the team in a way that will allow them to be competitive long-term, rather than worrying about appeasing one player. And it seems as if Dan Gilbert has seen the light, telling Sports Illustrated in this week’s issue:

“It’s kind of a relief on the organization,” he said. acknowledging that the franchise had made trade after trade with the short-term goal of convincing James to to re-enlist. “People have to understand this was a LeBron-centric situation. We haven’t experienced trying to do it the right way, and in a way it’s exciting for us to move forward without that kind of weight on us.”

Building a winning team in the NBA takes patience, smarts, good management and luck.

The Cavs have the first three pieces in place. Hopefully they didn’t squander all of the fourth piece over the past seven years.

Posted in building a winner, Cleveland Cavaliers, hard work, NBA | Leave a comment
01 Jul 2010

Great Scott! Byron’s the Man

The Cavs have reportedly filled their coaching vacancy, agreeing with Byron Scott on a four-year contract.

Did they make the right call? Can Scott lead them to a championship? Will his hiring impact LeBron’s decision? Let’s try and figure it out.

What do we think?

Scott is the Cavs third choice for head coach, after Tom Izzo and Brian Shaw. Izzo thankfully turned down Dan Gilbert’s bouquets to stay at Michigan State, while Shaw appears content to wait out Phil Jackson in LA and take over the Lakers, probably after next year.

LeBron James reportedly wanted a head coach with NBA experience, both as a coach and a player. Scott fills the bill in both categories.

Scott is hardly known for pushing his teams too hard, usually preferring a bit of time on the links to an extra round of practice on the court.

Scott has been around superstars both as a player and a coach, so he shouldn’t have a problem dealing with LeBron if the need arises.

Scott may have gotten a raw deal in New Orleans.

What do we know?

Scott took the Nets of all teams to the NBA finals twice, losing both times. The Nets lost to the Lakers and the Spurs, which is certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

He won only eight playoff games total over the next six seasons he was a head coach (all eight coming in New Orleans).

Scott was fired in both his previous spots after the team turned against him. Players will like him, but he’ll eventually be tuned out. He won’t develop the younger ones — the younger ones who will be a challenge to develop, the type of development that separates good coaches from great coaches. He’ll clash with some players, he’ll refuse to play others and he’ll be let go after a while.

Chris Paul liked playing for Scott in New Orleans. “Anybody who knows me knows that Coach is my guy,” Paul said at the time of Scott’s firing in New Orleans. “It’s not just because of basketball stuff. I understand that it’s a business and all that stuff, but I’m honestly not the player I am today without Coach. I don’t have the Olympic gold medal and All-Star Games without Coach.”

Scott went through rebuilding efforts in both NJ and New Orleans, so in the highly unlikely chance that LeBron leaves and the Cavs have to start over, he’s experienced.

Scott stresses defense and prefers an up-tempo offense, demanding full control over choosing his assistants. His teams reflect his personality — scrappy and tough, not just physically but mentally.

Scott has a losing record as a coach, albeit he’s only three games under .500.

What does it mean?

With the hiring of Scott, the Cavs have brought in an experienced head coach that gives the team credibility with LeBron and other free agents. The learning curve that would have been required with Izzo or Shaw no longer exists.

Hiring Scott may have torpedoed the Knicks and Nets before they even get started on courting LeBron.

If Phil Jackson wasn’t willing to leave LA, and Shaw wasn’t either, Scott appears to have been the best option available. He certainly is better than the coaches of the teams that are allegedly the “frontrunners” to sign LeBron: Miami (Erik Spoelstra), Chicago (Tom Thibodeau), New Jersey (Avery Johnson) and New York.

So while hiring Scott is superior to hiring Izzo, it may be a step behind hiring Shaw.

Let’s call it a solid B and get on to the next order of business: Has anyone asked Chris Bosh what he thinks of the hiring?

Posted in Byron Scott, Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James, NBA | Leave a comment

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