Our fine TrueHoop cohorts at Hardwood Paroxysm had a spirited debate about Dion Waiters the other day. I fall in the camp that thinks the Cavs rookie showed up at Summer League out-of-shape purposefully, because he likes a challenge. Summer League while in top condition? Too easy for D-Wait.
Pass it around:
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Wow does basketball need to start so that we can stop talking about baby fat and summer league. I wax between complaining about no content here, to complaining about the content. I need me some training camp.
Here’s a Topic: Cav’s front court rotation: who sticks? who plays? who’s in the D-League? discuss.
HoopsDogg,
I need me some training camp, too.
Front court rotation is easy…Varejao and Zeller start, they both sit at 6 minutes, when TT and Leuer check in. TT and Zeller start second quarter, until four minutes in when Varejao subs for Zeller. With five minutes to go, Zeller checks back in for TT. Basically AV, TZ, and TT each play 28-ish minutes a game and Leuer plays 12. For the most part, one of Leuer or Zeller is paired with one of AV or TT. A floor spacing floor stays on the court most of the time and everyone stays fresh and injury free due to reasonable minutes. Samuels is the fifth big man, picking up minutes due to blowouts, injuries, and foul trouble. Harangody and Michael Eric are in the D-League. Luke Walton is in a suit.
Maybe Andy gets limited due to his injury history, but byron seems to like playing veterans a lot and Andy is by far the best veteran on the team, and by far our best post player (unless zeller and/or Thompson do crazy things this year) so I think he’ll be playing 35ish minutes a night when healthy.
for the 4th scraps, I see Leuer and Samuels splitting it for the most part, and no one else getting minutes barring injury.
No love for Kevin Jones? There’s 18 guys on the team right now. For some reason i believe that either Eric or Jones will stick. Luer, Azubuike, Sloan, and Walton seem like cut/buyout candidates. The $1,000,000 (yeah that’s six zeros), ‘Gody contract still baffles. Can someone tell me if they needed this number to get to the salary floor, or who he has pictures of in the Cavs front office?
No love for Leuer?
I say get rid of Azubuike and Sloan, they either not on contract or non-guaranteed. Don’t pick up Eric’s contract. One commenter pointed out earlier in the offseason that by signing Eric to a contract, even if they cut him, Cleveland has the rights to assign him to Canton. That sounds like the best move. I can’t imagine there is alot of interest around the NBA otherwise for him.
I like Kevin Jones (but obviously overlooked him in my comment below). He would be my sixth big man, and would be on the active roster as much as practical. Give him a shot.
And yeah, the Harangody deal makes no sense. If they give up on K. Jones or Leuer because gody was signed…boo!
Jones probably doesn’t have much upside, but he’s a guy who can come off the bench and get buckets right away. He has a very diverse and efficient offensive game for a rookie, and he can play solid post defense against a guy close to his size.
51% shooting really doesn’t do justice to how efficient a scorer Jones was in college. He barely got any rest his senior year, playing an insane 38.3 minutes per game, and WVU’s only other offensive “option” shot 36% from the field. Opponents basically tried as hard as they could, through double teams or by any means necessary, to get anyone but Jones to take the shot for WVU. And in spite of being the only target of every single defense WVU faced day in and day out, he scored double figures in EVERY SINGLE GAME.
Furthermore, the 51% he shot is heavily weighed down by how many times he ended up stranded on the perimeter shooting jumpers at the end of the shotclock. If he hadn’t taken any 3′s, he would have shot an incredible 59.5% from the field, which again includes all the long 2′s he ended up jacking up at the end of broken plays. It wasn’t selfishness…WVU just had no other offensive options.
To see how efficient a player Jones really is, you have to look back to his sophomore year, when he played in a real offense with future NBA draftees Da’Sean Butler and Devin Ebanks. Getting mostly open looks from 3, he converted a scintillating 40%, and shot 52% from the field, and he has a lot more moves and a lot more touch now than he did then. He *can* make an open 3, but as the defense’s #1 priority for his Junior and Senior years, he was simply never left open, ever.
He’ll never be able to defend a starting NBA power forward, but if he can come off the bench and guard someone close to his size, he has enough strength to do just fine on that end. NBA length and quickness will make scoring more difficult for him, but I think Jones will still convert at a good enough rate to carve out a rotation spot.
Nathan,
Good comment. As an essentially zero-risk pick-up, Kevin Jones is definitely worth a look for a year.
It’s a great problem to have, but damn…the Cavs have more young talent than they have minutes at PF
Yeah, and it’s mostly speculative talent…not like, “that’s a potential trade chip”, but more of “i’d like to see what he can do”.
Better to speculate on Leuer, Jones and Eric than Erden and Hollins.