The NBA season never ends; free agency starts today.
I wrote the following post prior to the announcement that Cleveland extended qualifying offers to Semih Erden and Luke Harangody. Why did this happen? In their age 25 and 24 seasons, respectively, managing to see the court in less than half of the outings for a team that proved victorious in one-third of it’s games, while posting sub-replacement level PER; these two men apparently are non-expendable.
Anyways, I’m just bitter because after churning out the following yesterday, now I need to eliminate two players. I was not planning on watching Erden or Harangody in a Cavs jersey again. DJ White and Scott Machado…you never existed to me. Man, I hope Kevin Jones rules. I’m running this regardless…let me know your preferred 2012 free agency strategy and targets.
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Derrick Brown dunks against Detroit
The Cavaliers roster is rounding out nicely; a team relatively full of legitimate NBA players looks likely to take the court next year.
With the incoming rookies, and a recommended pick-up of Gibson’s option, Cleveland owns contracts with 9 players for $33 million. Baron Davis’s amnestied $14.9M still counts towards the required team minimum salary, so almost any combination on six players allows the Cavs to meet their CBA needs. The nine current players are:
- PG = Kyrie Irving
- SG = Dion Waiters, Daniel Gibson
- SF = Omri Casspi, Luke Walton, Kelenna Azubuike
- PF = Anderson Varejao, Tristan Thompson
- C = Tyler Zeller
To fill out a reasonable 2012 – 2013 roster, the following needs exist:
- Back-up and third Point Guard
- Fifth Wing, preferably including some size
- Fourth and Fifth Bigs, preferably another shooter
Since last year, Anthony Parker retired and Antawn Jamison left. The Cavs need to wrestle with other teams’ offers to Alonzo Gee. Let’s tackle that first:
Alonzo Gee - I am of the opinion the team should match most foreseeable offers for Gee; 4 years & $16M sounds about right. Keeping Gee provides continuity benefits – a lot of new faces don the wine & gold next season.
Familiar faces rest at the end of the bench; I say bring one of them back, as rostering eight new players next season seems excessive. As part of summer-league & training camp, a battle ensues. Hypothetically, I’ll say that Samardo Samuels survives as the “Fifth Big”. Luke Harangody, Semih Erden, Manny Harris and Donald Sloan – our time together sadly ends (obviously written yesterday. Erden and Harangody will be back. Also Kevin Jones is onboard, so apparently no Samuels?).
So, I’m looking at four free agents and am not making big splashes. That sounds like front office strategy for the off-season. Chris Grant and company exhibited amazing patience over the last two years, and appear to prefer that for one more off-season. With the 12 guys mentioned above, plus the Boom-Dizzle contract, the Cavs salary obligations approach $55 million. I like the team that is being constructed and think it prudent to give the Irving, Waiters, TT, Zeller group a season to mesh while the franchise evaluates future needs. I go back & forth on this, but again rest on the side of the fence of keeping Varejao. He’s awesome and it will be interesting to watch how he fits with this team, both as a player and a mentor.
If Cleveland signs four free agents to short-term contracts with total 2012 – 2013 salary under $10 million, they enter 2013 – 2014 with $20 – $25 million in cap space. Even assuming the Cavs compete for a play-off berth next year, utilizing their bevy of future draft picks, the team picks twice in the mid-first round of each of the next three drafts. Saving cap flexibility for another season or two, while accumulating young talent, then luring one high-quality free agent to Cleveland immediately before extending the team’s 22-year-old All-Star point guard…well, all that cap space, a competitive team, and the stud PG may be the only bet to lure the premium free agent. That off-season is not this off-season.
With that as intro, here are some favorite “money-ball” free-agent options to make the team competitive next year for cheap.
Back-up Point Guard
Rumors occasionally pop-up about Jonny Flynn, the former sixth-pick with a career 11 PER. To me, bringing aboard a project back-up point guard sounds ill-advised. Despite already being amazing, Kyrie Irving is only twenty years old. No need diverting any developmental coaching from Kyrie. Instead, perhaps a steadying veteran influence proves beneficial.
AJ Price played three seasons for the Indiana Pacers, never fully embraced as their back-up point guard, but accumulating 2200 minutes and a 12 PER. Not an efficient scorer, he creates shots off the pick & roll, while giving solid effort on defense. There’s not much exciting about him, as he turns 26 next season. What he is though, is a tolerable back-up NBA point guard, who spent the last two years on playoff teams. Over the next two seasons, the Cavs likely win 35 – 45 games per year. For two years and $2.5 million total, AJ Price represents a proven, suitable second-string floor general.
3rd point guard
Scott Machado of Iona and Jordan Taylor of Wisconsin recently completed their senior years and went undrafted. I say, try them both out this summer, and give a two year, $1.3 million contract to the more impressive player. Only the first year at $600K is guaranteed.
Tall Wing
Derrick Brown is a restricted free agent that turns twenty-five next season. Defending big shooting guards and small forwards poses issues for Cleveland, as Alonzo Gee’s height matches up poorly with say…Joe Johnson. With career NBA average of 13 points per 36 minutes, on exceedingly-acceptable 55.4% true shooting, Brown serves as a great value pick-up to add size & athleticism. Nearly 6’ – 9” with a huge wingspan; last year he held opponents to a 12.1 PER, while playing over half his minutes at small forward. In addition to coming from Dayton, I like this fit with the current team and would overpay in the short-term (easy for me to say). For two years, what amount makes Brown decide to come home to Ohio, and forces Charlotte to not match? I’ll say 2 years at $3 million per season. For a player that always made league-minimum and is currently wearing that “worst-team-ever-stink”; hopefully that gets signatures on paper.
If unsuccessful there, how about Tracy McGrady for one year and $2.5 milllion? An elite passing wing, over the last two seasons, he averaged 12, 6 & 5 per 36 minutes, while making 37% from deep. With my stated goal of “adding NBA players of value while not committing long-term money”; McGrady fits the bill. His last two contracts, he signed one-year minimum-salary deals. With a doubling of his recent salary, maybe he signs with Cleveland for a year.
Fourth Big-Man
Cleveland signed Kevin Jones of West Virginia to a partially guaranteed contract. He lead the Big East in scoring and rebounding last year, and for the sake of this post, he knocks off Samardo Samuels as fifth big. For the record, I like this singing.
As my money-ball veteran free agent big man, I propose to chase DJ White, also recently of Charlotte. Surely you say “why pilfer multiple players from the worst team in NBA history”? Well, of Charlotte’s total 3.4 win shares last year; Brown and White accumulated over 90%. Last year, White made 43% of his long twos, in-line with his career average. A very respectable mark for a power forward – per minute, he shoots and converts these shots at a frequency equal to Lamarcus Aldridge. Obviously that is the only place they are similar, but White rarely turns the ball over and has a career PER of 15. For 2 years at $1.5 million each, he appears as a good fit for Cleveland, playing fifteen minutes per game at the four when Andy switches to Center.
Summary
For under $6 million a year, and with no contracts beyond 2013 – 2014; I added a suitable back-up point guard, a big & athletic wing, and a floor-stretching power forward. Nearly pristine salary cap flexibilty remains, and a highly adaptable rotation can be formed for any opponent. In this “punting on 2012 free agency, money-ball scenario”, the season-opening roster is:
PG: Kyrie Irving, AJ Price, Scott Machado
Wings: Dion Waiters, Alonzo Gee, Derrick Brown, Omri Casspi, Daniel Gibson, Kelenna Azubuike
Front Court: Anderson Varejao, Tyler Zeller, Tristan Thompson, DJ White, Kevin Jones, Luke Walton
I count the reigning rookie-of-the-year, Anderson Varejao, two highly-regarded first-round picks, plus seven other 26-and-under players that have proven themselves legitimate NBA players in the last two years. It’s not a contender, but is an honest-to-goodness real-NBA team, with no bad-contracts and lots of reason for optimism…for Cleveland Cavaliers fans, that’s a beautiful thing.
Love the Derrick Brown idea. Not sure about T Mac. Don’t need any distractions from young guys developing. Glad you are on board with keeping Varejao. He isn’t slowing down for a few years.
Still waiting on the OJ Mayo comments….
For some reason, I’ve always liked Kelenna Azibuke…he was a productive player @ Golden State…his per-36 stats would be impressive…maybe he can be the Cavs next diamond in the rough, a la Alonzo Gee this past season.
Derrick Brown and D.J. White ? Not so sure…maybe one of them.
McGrady….eh….NO.
Unfortunately, our “tall wing” will probably end up as Luke Harangody and our fifth big will be Semih Erden.. which I guess is ok as they won’t be seeing much playing time anyway. At backup point I hope the Cavs look at Jonny Flynn or John Lucas III. Preferably Lucas, he could run a second unit well with Casspi and Zeller.
I don’t want anything to do with Johnny Flynn. He is mind-bogglingly terrible.
i really, really, REALLY want Ersan Ilyasova. That dude is a beast. Doubt there is any chance of hell that happens, but hot damn if that wouldn’t be the cat’s pajamas.
Wouldn’t mind trying to get Ian Mahinmi as another big.
Doubt there is any chance of getting Batum, but that would be might nice, as well.
I think we should go after that JJ Hickson fella. He looked pretty good with Portland, and i hear he has a ton of potential. Anybody familiar with him?
I like your choices Kevin but I doubt the Cavs really want to turn over half of their roster. The first sign of that reluctance is the fact they wanted to purge their extra draft picks. I just get the feeling that Scott likes having a group of players that are as familiar with his system as he is familiar with them. As far as signing FA’s to contracts I’ve noticed that Grant likes to keep as much of the bench as possible on one year guarantees. That gives him better flexibility with the CAP year to year for players that are not essential parts of the team’s core. Note that Kevin Jones’ contract has one year guaranteed. Harris, Sloan, Kennedy and Samuels all have non guaranteed one year contracts. By tendering Harangody and Erden Grant basically offered them slightly more than league minimum contracts for one year, after which they can become UFA’s. Grant had all of the end of the bench players tied up for one year last year and has positioned himself to do so again this year. The existing CAP space plus Boobie and Walton’s expiring contracts will give the Cavs a lot of CAP space after this year. Having the five or six guys at the end of the bench all have expiring contracts also, gives them another $4-6M of additional CAP space after 2012-3.
JAG,
The “one-year guarantee” bench guy thing probably works for one more year, but when you have 5 or 6 of those guys…they’re not really end of the bench guys anymore. At the first sign of injury or foul trouble, suddenly you’re playing a couple of guys that essentially no one in the NBA besides you wanted.
I admire front office patience, but at some point as a fan, it would be nice to know that I never have to watch Luke Harangody play small forward again.
Cranky M,
I really like Ilyasova, but obviously went with a “small-ball” strategy for this post.
I came really close to including Mahinmi as the “Fourth Big”, but wanted a player with a jump shot, and White will also be cheaper. For two years, if White can play while Zeller is on the bench, the Cavs always have a big with a respectable jumper on the floor. White’s defense is pretty bad, but it’s not like I was trying to build a champion with the three pick-ups described here.
What do you guys think of Jeff Green. I think he could be had at a bargain price and could still turn into a playoff caliber starter in my mind. He Has played on OKC and the Celtics behind Durant and Pierce. He adds side scoring and shooting.
Tom Pestak,
Yeah, as I started looking at the available free agents, Derrick Brown really hit a nerve with me as a great short-term addition. I hope the Cavs consider some small additions like this. Can the team really go three straight off-seasons of free agency without adding ONE free agent that has even the slightest track record of NBA success. To keep belaboring this point; I’m over these situations where, as an example, someone gets hurt and Luke Harangody needs to play small forward for a game. Surely the team can bring in one player other through the draft or as an undrafted free agent, right?
rodney mac,
It sounds like a lot of teams are contacting Jeff Green. Assuming he has a choice, unless Cleveland significantly overpays, he’s probably not coming to Cleveland.
For cheap though, he would fit my “tall wing” criteria. He’s always been good at defending small forwards.
For those still on the Valenciunus bandwagon Chad Ford recently made it clear that his agents threatened contract disputes if anyone but raptors took him. Apparently wouldn’t come over in that case.
4 x 8 and Tom,
Is there some McGrady related baggage that I am forgetting about?
At this point, he’s really reduced his usage, improved his passing, rebounding & defense, and even knocked down 46% of his threes last year. Surely an aberration, but as noted in the post, that’s 37% for the last two seasons. For 15 minutes a night, he’s turned into a quality role player. Better teams that Cleveland will definitely offer him to come play for the minimum.
Again, I think this team needs shooting so I am proposing guys like Meeks and R. Butler and we can gripe all we want about potential but go look at FA Anthony Randolph’s PER last year. Just sayin…Oh and Meeks has a career TS% of .562 and an eFG% of .518 for his career. Dude can shoot…
Like the posted and the players listed. That being said from what it sounds like and with use picking up Luke and Erdin. The Cavs will probably get Sonny Weems and Jonny Flynn and call it a day. Don’t hate picking up ether because the Cavs core is young and will play alot of mins. Plus Dion Waiters will be cover some PG mins so no real need to have a 3rd PG unless someone gets hurt for awhile.
Hmmm. I am kind of baffled that you guys don’t seem to quite get Grant’s strategy for this year: he doesn’t want to be that good. Semi and Luke are terrible players. You don’t keep them for long term development if you want to be good. I think it’s obvious that the plan is: be bad for one more year, get another top 5 pick, leverage our other picks into a top 20, and then have a ton of money in the 2013 free agent class. LET all the other teams waste their free agent money this year. There will be a ton of free agents next year, and a lot of teams above the luxury line who will have to have fire sales. All these young assets will let us trade too. The Cavs don’t want to get tied up in slightly above average guys like Ilyasova or Jeff Green this year. I am betting you will see one year players who are “character guys” near the end of their careers who can teach the young core. The one flaw in that plan is if the young guys get too good too quickly. I’m betting the Cavs will be sitting players for the most minor of injuries next year in order to avoid that.
Left a post about why the Cavs won’t be going after quality free agents this year for the comment monster. I do like Sonny Weems though. As for a 3rd PG, love to See Zack Rosen.
Kevin,
That’s the point of the one year guaranteed contact thing. In another year or two the Cavs will be ready to add whatever they need in FA or via trades that take back big contracts. If they add anyone now it has to be short term, like your plan, because they don’t really know what they need long term yet. After this year they will know what they have in Waiter’s and Zeller. This is a big year for TT’s evaluation also. If, as some people would like, they sign complementary FA’s now, and those three players don’t work out so well they will have lost the chance of improving the team via CAP space. They need to find out what they have from the draft before starting to build around them. The one year guarantee plan for the end of the bench list, gets two players shorter with every draft that has two first rounders.
I’m thinking with the addition of Zeller to back up Andy at C, along with Casspi and Boobie ,they could have a serviceable rotation. Azubuike and the rest of the leftovers are not that bad to fill in the rest of the bench, although I like the possibilities from some of your suggestions.
JAG,
I understand, it’s just that instead of the low-priced non cap-killers the Cavs are choosing, I strongly prefer slightly upgraded guys like Derrick Brown over Luke Harangody.
In the long run, it doesn’t make a difference either way, but I am ready for Cleveland to win 40 games. Maybe Cavs management isn’t ready for that.
Also, I’m going to give myself some props. At the start of this season, I wrote a fantasy article called Destination: 2013, where I espoused Cleveland going after Asik and Ryan Anderson in free agency this summer. I narrowly selected those two over Ersan Ilyasova. At the time, I thought each was an underrated value play. Now they’re three of the hotter free agent targets and will probably all be overpaid.
Woah, we picked up Kevin Jones? Awesome. He can contribute immediately and be a rebounding machine.
As a Wisconsin fan, Jordan Taylor is a stud. He may be undersized, but he’s extremely smart and doesn’t make many mistakes. As a junior, he also set the 4th best Assist:Turnover ratio in NCAA history, and would have been a first round draft pick had he come out, instead of staying for his senior year. I really hope the Cavs take a flier on Taylor and give him a chance to back up Kyrie.
I know this isn’t a draft thread, so I apologize, but I never realized just how amazing Waiters advanced stats are. His PER, eFG% and AST%, ORtg, DRtg completely dominate Beal’s and Barnes’. Carry on.
http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/dion-waiters-1.html
http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/bradley-beal-1.html
http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/harrison-barnes-1.html
Kj,
I didn’t really look at Meeks for a few reasons:
1. As a starter on a playoff team and a quality shooter, my guess was Meeks might get a contract similar to what is being discussed for Gee.
2. Shooting isn’t what I was looking for. I thought a big wing seemed more critical on the team. Kyrie is obviously a great shooter – Gibson, too. Waiters maybe. Gee is 35% career from three and Casspi 36%. Zeller and DJ White (in my scenario) provide some floor spacing from the front court.
I have a negative conception of Anthony Randolph in my head, but for a contract similar to what I discuss in this article; I could be talked into it as a decent gamble. Looks like Dallas is interested in him.
HoopsDogg,
I understand Grant’s apparent strategy (I say apparent, because I don’t know exactly what they’re thinking). At this point though, I’m bored / frustrated with perpetually watching “terrible players”. At this point, I would like Cleveland to at least sign real NBA players to short-term & low-cost contracts.
The potential flaw with the “Erden & Harangody strategy” that you don’t mention is “what if the (drafted) players don’t get good enough?” That is way more frequent than the issue of the players getting to good too fast. At some point, the team just needs to start signing quality players, give the fans a competitive product, and be smarter than everyone else by making the most of future draft choices wherever they are. In my opinion, they did a solid job of that with their #24, #33 and #34 picks this year.
Obviously, I agree with the strategy of playing “small-ball” this summer and saving cap space for next season. I’m just done tanking. Maybe that’s stupid on my part.
“The Cavs don’t want to get tied up in slightly above average guys like Ilyasova or Jeff Green this year.”
If you think Ilyasova is just slightly above average, then i don’t think you’ve actually seen him play very much.
I don’t see many people suggesting big-money, long term free agents on here to begin with, so i have no idea where you’re coming from with that. And i don’t think there’s much chance that they’ll be bad enough this season to get a Top 5 pick again, unless they suffer an injury to Andy or Kyrie.
HoopsDogg,
I thought about including Zack Rosen in my 3rd PG discussion, but it appears that Harangody will be the third PG next year.
Aren’t we overlooking Lester Hudson?
I can’t believe that seven months after the lock-out ended; Roy Hibbert is getting offered max deals and Nic Batum gets offered 4 years & $50 million. $50 million!! That’s crazy…right?
I think the Cavs should be offering a bunch of money at Batum. He is a great young player with elite athleticism and defensive skills. He would fit great into the Cavs system and would be good in transition too. In my opinion, he could become part of the young core of the Cavs. Kyrie, Waiters, Batum, TT, and Zeller would be a great team to build with
If they get Ilyasova, that’d be great, but I think they are in “win now” mode if they do. Also, they’d have to commit to playing Ilyasova at the 3 for 15 minutes or so a night.
It looks like they’ll try to suck for one more year. Looking at other teams that grew through the draft, OKC (3 years), Portland (3 years), Memphis (3 years), Atlanta (4 years), and the Wizards today (4 years) they all spent at least 3 years of relative bottom dwelling before becoming a 40 win team.
If they are good this year, that’s great because it means Kyrie, TT, Waiters, and Zeller were much better than expected. If not, I won’t be that disappointed; then we’ll get a shot at a great big man (Noel, Cody Zeller, Adams, Gobert) or a big time wing like Shabazz or Kyle Anderson.
i wish my name was Shabazz.
Carry on….
Why would they have to play Ilyasova at SF? Have Andy and Zeller be your center rotation, Ersan and TT your PF’s.
Not tht it matters, since i’m sure they won’t so much s make an offer for him.
Anyone have information on how Weems’s season overseas last year went? If he was still playing Toronto-style defense over there, i’ll have a hard time getting excited about these rumors connecting him to the Cavs.
Seems like the fans are thinking be patient, Kevin. I dunno, the only reason to bring in players over 30 is to teach the young guys some professionalism. Is T-Mac that guy? My guess is no. I never minded having AP here for specifically that reason. Even Jamison – although Jamison was almost too good, without him we would have had more ping pong balls.
Cavs can NOT rely on splashing in FA. Players don’t want to come here. I don’t know why. Beautiful practice facility, good management, owner willing to spend at all costs, great home court advantage. I guess these guys all want to play near a beach or something like that. Hopefully the Cavs can bring in Alonzo Gee 2.0 this year for cheap. A young athletic guy that would make a championship 9 man rotation (as Gee would).
Nathan,
Weems played for Zalgiris in the Lithuanian League. If you go to Eurobasket.com, click on Lithuania on the left side, then find Zalgiris in the standings, you can track down Weems’ stats if so inclined. Zalgiris is a Lithuanian powerhouse, but that country’s league is not particularly strong – Zalgiris finished 21 – 1 and won the championship. His team did make the final 16 of the Euroleague; Europe’s top club basketball competition.
In 15 Euroleague games, he scored well, but was very turnover prone and finished with a 16 PER (via draft express). So basically, an average-ish Euroleague player.
I have no idea how his defense looked.
Tom Pestak,
I teeter on top of a fence between patience and impatience. Which side I am on at any given time probably depends on my hydration level. To a large extent it has little to do with team management’s relatively inconsequential decision to extend a qualifying offer to Luke Harangody. Honestly, my bouts of impatience are more based on a cognitive disconnect with the gaming-the-system idea that “you need to be bad to eventually be good”. It’s just not a concept that I think is any fun. The lottery, tanking, etc are the NBA’s system, so I guess Cleveland needs to play along, but I’ll never embrace it until the team arrives at contention again. And if for some reason the “lottery plan” doesn’t work out; all that’s been done is subjecting everyone to really bad basketball for a few years.
I agree with NOT splashing in FA this summer – my ideas are more like “dipping a toe in the pool”. Also, this is an opportune time to reinforce that I am excited about the direction of Cleveland Cavaliers basketball with the young nucleus of Irving, Waiters, Gee, TT and Zeller.
No. No. NO to Ilyasova. Overpay a guy who just *happened* to have his best year as a pro by far in an unrestricted contract year?
The odds of him being yet another one of the many “awesome contract year before flopping back to reality” players is FAR more likely than him actually having “put it all together” last year. Especially in a compressed shortened season.
A career sub-15 PER guy happening to have a 20 PER season right before becoming a free agent? No thank you…
You’re all chomping at the bit to sign Spencer Hawes too, right? How about signing JJ back. His advanced stats are just a shade behind Ilyasova last year after all. No seriously…take a look.
Put me in the camp of “give me a good mix of both awful and excellent basketball” this year. I want to see Kyrie, Dion, AV, TT and Zeller perform excellently; and then Luke, Erden, and the D-League All-Stars come in and lose some games for us. If the team as constructed isn’t capable of competing for a championship, then I want another high lottery pick next year to put us in a position where doing so is possible.
The problem with being bad for one more year is that next year’s draft class is extremely weak:
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/blog/_/name/nba_draft/id/8111253/an-early-look-2013-nba-draft
It’s ESPN Insider only, but this sums up what you need to know “The 2013 draft is so devoid of top returning underclassmen and has such a marginal freshman class, one NBA scout said our 2013 Top 100 list may be the weakest since the dreaded 2000 NBA draft…. When you remember that the best prospect out of the 2000 draft was 46th pick Michael Redd, you get a picture of what we might be in for.”
As a Xavier alumnus, I also would like to express my support of signing Derrick Brown to a two-year deal. He is an explosive athlete with a pretty decent shooting stroke (55% true shooting percentage in ’11-’12). He struggles to create his own shot, but can finish in transition and around the basket. Although he isn’t a great rebounder (awful 9.5 RebR in ’11-’12, good for almost dead last at his position), this weakness would be mitigated on the second unit with tenacious rebounder Tristan Thompson gobbling up every loose ball. Moreover, D.B. has the personality to fit in with the philosophy of the organization: He is a hard working, high-character guy who will not complain or create a distraction.
In other words, he is an Alonzo Gee clone.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but did I read somewhere that Semih Erden is signing in Europe?
Also, I think Azibuike could turn into a very good piece. Didn’t he average around 14-16 points a game for Golden State? I know that says nothing about his defensive capabilities, but he could be good for 20 minutes an 10-15 points off the bench every night.
I must also add that I think we’re in the right direction. Zeller was a solid pick, and I knew next to nothing about Waiters but have since done countless research on him and I actually love the pick now.
Oh, and another note, why can’t Boobie be that positive veteran figure? He’s always been a hard worker and a positive locker room guy. Between him, Andy and dare i say it, Luke Walton, I like the veterans on the team.
The problem with Hickson is his defense. John Hollinger himself notes that the type of player most likely to be worse than his PER indicates is a PF that is bad at defense. That is JJ Hickson. Every team he has been with, the defense has been worse with him on the court than off the court, including this season with Sacremento and Portland. Based on 82games.com, he typically allows the player he is guarding to accumulate a PER of between 17 and 19. Adjusted plus / minus stats have always HATED Hickson (see this little post I made in January; http://www.cavstheblog.com/?p=7172)
Azibuke was hurt last year and way out of shape when he came in. If you recall from the first lockout, some guys were never the same. He may end up being one of those players.
As for the 2013 draft, it may not be deep but it’s topheavy. Also, a lot of guys played behind players who were playing an extra year last year because of the lockout. I don’t think it’ll be as bad as people think. The top 5 look very good.
http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-mock-draft/2013/
Matt,
Haven’t heard anything on Erden.
Azibuike was solid in Golden State – the biggest issue is that he hasn’t really played in the NBA in 3 years.
Boobie is totally a solid veteran figure. I’m all for the Cavs picking up his option.
HoopsDogg and Spots,
The first thing I notice about the 2012 draft vs 2013 is that Evan Fournier is 19 years old and was the French Pro-A player of the month in March. He was selected 20th in 2012. Rudy Gobert is three months older than Fournier, played 13 minutes per game in Pro-A this year while averaging 5 & 4, and is projected as #4 in 2013. So this is highly conjectural, but my early inclination is to agree that 2013 is weak. The top few picks will probably be strong, but for how long can the Cavs’ strategy be to rely on 13% chances of a ping pong balls getting drawn? At some point, the team just needs to start playing ball. To me, that time is now (within reason).
As for the backup PG, I’d much rather see the Cavs sign either John Lucas or Patty Mills over the putrid Jonny Flynn, who is one of the worst point guards in the NBA. To illustrate how inconceivably awful Jonny Flynn has been in his short NBA career, let’s take a look at his advanced stats for the past two seasons:
2010-11 (ESPN Hollinger Stats)
Turnover Ratio = 18.5 (third worst among PGs)
Estimated Wins Added = -1.9 (fourth worst among PGs)
True Shooting Percentage = 44% (third worst among PGs)
PER = 7.13 (third worst among PGs)
2011-12
Turnover Ratio = 12.9 (middle of the pack)
Estimated Wins Added = 0 (51 out of 67 PGs)
True Shooting Percentage = 44% (sixth worst among PGs)
PER = 11.2 (51 out of 67 PGs)
Thus, despite his slight improvement this season, Flynn remains an inefficient player who cannot shoot and has a propensity for turning the ball over. Not exactly what I want in the guy running the second unit. I’ll pass.
I was hoping the Cavs would make an offer to Batum, but the Wolves offered 12 mil/yr for 4 years. I don’t think I’d want to Cavs to go that high on an offer. But I am curious what the T-Wolves are doing at SF. First Budinger, now Batum. Are they looking to move D. Williams? Seems a little early for that….
Scuzz,
I had the same thought about the Timberwolves. They picked Wesley Johnson at #4 in 2010 and Derrick Williams at #2 in 2011. One year later, they’re offering $12 million / year to a SF? What a goofy franchise.
Williams was 20 last year and only played one shortened-season. Many questioned Williams’ position at last year’s draft; these are the results of only one season, but according to 82games.com, at SF he out-produced his match-up with a PER of 13.8 compared to 13.5. At PF, he was worse on offense and defense, being outproduced 12.6 PER to 16.6.
Kevin,
Interesting data about the difference between SF and PF. With the pickup of Waiters and Zeller, I’m not entirely sure what the Cavs need at SF. With Irving and Waiters in the back-court, you have two interchangable players in that either could drive and set up other players for a shot, while the other one could play at the perimeter. TT would have to play close to the basket, while Zeller could be in the paint or about 14 ft away. So, where do they need their SF to be? I was hoping they would pick up Hollis Thompson because of his 3 pt. shooting. It would be nice to have, but not sure how necessary that is now.
Here’s a link about Semih Erden playing in Europe:
http://www.hoopsworld.com/agent-no-deal-in-turkey-for-semih-erden
Doesn’t say anything really, except that he’s received very good offers from Turkish team but his wish is to stay in the NBA.