A day after Colin loosely criticized criticizing rotations; I have a full post doing that. At Cavs:the Blog, that is what we call synergy.
If someone told me the following things would be true in 2012 – 2013:
- Kyrie tallies 23 points and 6 assists per game on 57% true shooting;
- Dion averages 15 points with a 17.5 PER; and
- Andy plays 85% of Cleveland’s contests and posts a nightly 13 & 13;
My guess would have been, “Ready or not, playoffs, here we come!!” Instead, Cleveland sits with a record of 2 and 5, and the sixth-worst point differential in the league.
You know the problem: bench play. Aside from Daniel Gibson, the weighted-per-minute-PER for the non-top-six players is 5.8. Their worth according to basketball-reference…negative 0.7 win shares. That must be league worst.
Let’s assume for a minute that a season where Kyrie and Dion thrive, that is sabotaged by the bench, and results in another top-eight pick is a bad thing. What can Cleveland do with the current roster to avoid the lapses of quality basketball caused when the starters sit?
Andy is furious about losing. He is willing to play 12 minutes a game without Kyrie to make it stop.
- Already enacted is step one; no more Luke Walton. Mr. Walton, you clearly have a good head for the game. May your coaching career bring many successes.
- This is the most important one; make sure that Kyrie or Andy is on the court at all times. Did you realize that in Andy’s six games, he has played only seventeen minutes without Kyrie? There are two players on the team where I confidently think the opponent can not forge any 12 – 0 runs, and their minutes need dispersed a bit more. If both continue to play 35 minutes per night; start them both, sit Andy with six minutes to go in the first, while Kyrie plays the entire quarter. Sit Kyrie for the first half of the second quarter, with Varejao on the court all twelve minutes. Repeat in the second half.
- CJ Miles must stop being horrible. Four straight seasons each featuring over one-thousand minutes, he posted PER’s above replacement level and offensive ratings over 100. Each of those years included decent assist rates and low turnovers. He is not in the same universe as those numbers through the early portion of this season. Time for him to figure things out and return to prior levels.
- Tyler Zeller needs back on the court. In the two games prior to injury, he totaled 17 points and 14 rebounds. Get well soon, TZ.
- Approaching 100 games into Samardo Samuels’ career, he remains a sub-replacement-level player. I would like to see Jon Leuer continue seeing playing time. Slightly younger than Samuels, Leuer posted solid NBA numbers last year. Cleveland knows what exists with the old guy; give the new blood an opportunity.
- Sorry to repeatedly be so hard on you, Donald Sloan, but you must go. Now 744 minutes into your career, an 8.7 PER does not portend NBA-caliber performance. When Kyrie sits; Cleveland needs to suit-up a crew featuring Dion AND Andy, or something like: Gibson, Miles, Gee, Leuer, Varejao.
I continue to think that, when healthy, the five starters, plus Boobie, Miles, Leuer, and Zeller can resemble a decent nine-man rotation. Sure, this is contingent on CJ Miles not resembling a steaming pile of garbage. Let me know your ideas, or if your preference is a season of Kyrie = All – Star, Dion = first-team-rookie, Cavs = 25 wins and high draft pick thanks to crappy bench play…let me know that, too.
Finally, come back Tuesday morning for “Part Two: A Numerical Take on Dion’s First Two Weeks”.
Sure improve the bench. That’s the easy part. The hard part seems to be taken care of. They now have one great player in Irving and one player who looks like he’s going to be great in Dion.
If that’s all we learn this season, then this season is a success. Filling in around the stars is much easier than finding the stars. They’ve done the hard part.
@Cols714 Unless you’re the lakers appearently. Badum tasst. I hate to say it but I have to agree with you. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that our season expectations should have been much lower than they already were, which is kind of sad. Basically expect the same win % as last year just with fewer blowouts and losing streaks capping out at 10 as opposed to 20.
We have a strong core now (KI, DW, TT, TZ + possibly AV). You play the core and let them grow together.
If the rest of the rotation stinks then great. Let’s get another top pick then bring in quality rotation players when we make a push next season. We may also find a diamond (i.e. another Gee).
I’d love to see us playing for a playoff spot but it’s clearly not going to happen.
All about next year baby.
And heck, it’s fun watching Irving, Dion and AV go out it, even if we lose.
There is no reason for an even worse record. We have some awesome young talent and if Scott can’t figure this out by now well maybe he needs to go. He leaves many of us scratching our head on not calling needed time outs way before they are down 15 points. Gets big attitudes with players and benches them and brings out pathetic replacements. We’ve had some close games and you have to be open minded and consider is Coach Scott’s decisions are perhaps sub par. It’s time for results that are far better than last year.
After Lebron left Chris Grant and Danny Dan Gilbert (aka “Fathead Dude” aka “Comic Sans” aka “Beat up a guy at a bah mitzvah”) went all in building the team organically through the draft for three years in the OKC model. 2010 wasn’t a rebuilding year. It was the spring cleaning of the previous team. In 2011 they were fortunate to obtain Kyrie and Tristan (patience people). In 2012 they added Dionicon and Z 2.O. The 2013 draft is the third year of the rebuild and the upcoming season after that is when they will make their leap.
I wish I could have believed that the Cavs would win 35+ games this season as many have predicted on lovely blog. It wasn’t part of the plan. The Bynum deal was part of the plan. James Harden this season was part of the plan. Grant has added multiple future draft picks (Kyrie and Zeller were both part of those) due to Gilbert’s commitment to the organization and this upcoming draft should be the last year they are in the lottery. The bench is terrible. It’s supposed to be. It’s intentional. It’s not a mistake. The starters have gone toe to toe with all 7 of their opponents thus far. They are 2-5 because of their bench.
They will finish with a bottom 6-8 record if they stay healthy. It shouldn’t be a surprise. They have the most cap room in the league at this moment and didn’t try to sign anyone other than Miles from another team. I looked at their free agency this season as intentional sabotoge. They could have added a stronger bench but it would have been a mistake. Patience pierponts. It’s all going according to plan.
I think that Kyrie making his first all-star appearance, Dion making all first team rookie, and the Cavs having a top 8 pick would be the optimal situation for us moving forward. If we can get some ping pong ball love, we may end up with a top 4 pick and that gives us a great core moving forward.
When the front office decides we’re ready to start contending for the playoffs, Dan Gilbert will open his wallet for the free agent parts we need coming off the bench. We’re at the lower end of the spectrum in salary for a reason. It keeps us bad for one more year and gives us flexibility moving ahead. Rounding out your bench with mid-level exception free agents is the easy part; we need one more core player in the front court before I think this team is ready.
I would really like to see us pick up a PF in the draft this year to move Tristan to the bench where I think he would be an effective player. I don’t think he will ever be skilled enough to warrant regular starter minutes on any playoff caliber team. If we can move him to the bench our second unit improves dramatically.
@J Hill:
I was never optimistic about this season, at least regarding the win/loss record. This Cavs team is just too young and lacking in veteran players to win many games. Only one guy in our starting five has played more than three years in the NBA. That’s insane.
Cory Hughey,
I don’t think many people projected the Cavs winning 35+. I had them at 33 wins, and think most of my co-horts projected slightly less than that. I still think (with reasonable health) that they have approximately that level of talent.
30 or so wins seems about right. I think 35 would be their most optimistic scenario. Lower expectations and enjoy watching two young stars learn to play together. Next year we can start thinking about playoffs.
I thought the cavs would contend for the playoffs and get to 38 wins, and still think they are capable of it, but Scott has other ideas. He keeps playing sloan and Miles even when miles couldn’t beat me one on one right now (hopefully that changes). He keeps playing Verajoa and Kyrie at the same time, leaving us incredibly vulnerable when they rest. He doesn’t always put Dion in charge when Kyrie sits, which would obviously help our chances of winning, no question. Scott doesn’t want to win.
Same thing happened last year, there was a reason an old, washed up, terrible, no-future-here Jamison got the most minutes on the team and tristan didn’t break 30 minutes a game. Scott is losing on purpose and more worried about disciplining and humbling the youngsters than winning.. It could work out great, it very well may be the smart move, but I didn’t expect him to do it so obviously two years in a row, especially when we have a young core of 4 and cap space to add another great piece without the draft, and aren’t bad enough to get top 5 lottery odds no matter how much tinkering Scott does with the lineup. I just hope he can flip the switch next year and doesn’t lose credibility in the locker room. The players have to know what he’s doing, and know that the goal is not to win games right now.
Calm down everyone… We are a young team starting the season with a 6 game road trip. It comes early, so we look worse than we are. That being said, I think we are close to a .500 team and certainly no better.
That .500 record is contingent on a logical rotation and our players playing with a modicum of intelligence. Right now these our our biggest problems in close to importance.
1. Byron Scott’s insistence on playing a “backup PG” instead of letting Dion run that unit. Sloan can’t see real minutes unless we are trying to lose.
2. Kryie’s individual D and Tristan’s team D combine to kill us on most possessions. Kyrie is about unstoppable on offense, but he isn’t even trying on D. His continually bends at the waist without any knee bend. It’s unacceptable. I love the guy, but this is silly. Tristan doesn’t know how hard to rotate and has bad timing.
3. Alonzo Gee is KILLING us on the offensive end. Anyone who is encouraged by his “expanded game” or believes he is going to develop into a good 3 point shooter is kidding himself. The guy is fine as an 8th man, but he should NEVER dribble more than twice. Seriously. Never. He and TT are efficiency disasters on the offensive end. Kryie and Dion have been so good, that our offense still hasn’t been horrific, but this is a huge problem.
4. Obviously, Miles and Casspi haven’t been good. But Miles has always been super streaky so he could just as easily catch fire this week and make us look great. Casspi is purely a confidence guy and he seems to have lost it yet again.
Number 1 and 3 are easily fixed to a degree. Scott is stubborn but not a total moron and Gee can be reigned in (I hope). If Kyrie can start guarding his own position, we wouldn’t have to play Gee as much anyway.
We are ripe for a trade. Not sure when or what, but he are an above average Wing player away from being quite decent. Even now, our backcourt is capable of winning any game for us.
Dion Waiters is for real.
I think it’s easy to pile on Scott for rotation choices, however sitting behind a computer, we don’t have nearly the perspective on why he makes certain choices and how to develop a winning team over the course of a season rather than a certain game. Sure Luke Walton has played terrible, but is he busting it in practice, doing things behind the scenes that make a winner? When Scott chooses who to play he is telling the guys what is important, what they need to emulate in order to get minutes and be successful. We see the results on the court, but if giving a pro some minutes makes Dion play harder, makes Gee and tristan and zeller and leuer maximize their talents, it is well worth it.
Ben,
I second most of your points. Alonzo Gee’s usage rate is 3 possessions per 100 higher this year than any other season. As a result, his efficiency is definitely down (too many turnovers, too many threes). His role in the offense needs trimmed back down.
What Corey said. Hits nail on head.
The year before OKC drafted their third piece (Harden) they were 23-59. That was with Durant and Green (2nd year), Westbrook (1st year) and Ibaka stashed away in Spain.
The next year they made the leap and went to 50-32, good for 8th spot in the West.
If we’re serious about putting a team together that can battle for titles over the next 5 – 7 years (and more!) it makes complete sense to bed in the rooks and get a top 5 pick this year.
Wow, Ben, that was really something else. One of the best pieces I’ve seen here. You got my appreciation for sure. By the way, those that have doubt, go to the ESPN team department and look for the stats. Check the PER numbers and Ben’s evaluation makes perfect sense.
By the way, the bench did not loose the game in Oklahoma. The starters did. You can check that from the play-by-play column looking at the last 10 minutes of the game.
Ben FTW!
But seriously, I think you nail it. Particularly on the topic of Gee.
Chris (and Corey) the problem with your model is that, other than OKC, no team has ever really drafted so many high quality players so quickly like that. Basically, we’d have to hit the nail on the head next year, or that pick becomes a waste.
The point is I don’t think ANYONE (including Byron, Grant, and Gilbert) has a schedule for how many losses/lottery picks we should have at this point. If a team is good at draft, it’ll find a gem anywhere. Need we bring up Kevin’s stats on finding top tier guys everywhere in the draft?
I have to disagree with Ben. I think he’s got some observational bias here. Gee is killing us, but it’s not his putting the ball on the deck. He’s been fine on the dribble, and has averaged 58% on non 3 point shoots (.621 at the rim) and 100% at the line, where he chips in 3 points a game, and his assist to turnover ratio is just under 1, but it is rising, which isn’t great, but isn’t the worst. His three point shooting has been BAD. He’s hesitating on rhythm threes, especially on the wing, and then launching bailout or pump fake threes which is worse than just shooting it in the flow of the offense. He is effective at the basket and on corner threes and very little else.
Here’s the shot chart.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/geeal01/shooting/2013/
Though, I don’t know how accurate it is because he HAS hit a couple of lefty layups. Yes, he’s probably a 7th or 8th man at best, but he’ll probably be in that spot next year…
“Kryie’s individual D and Tristan’s team D combine to kill us on most possessions. Kyrie is about unstoppable on offense, but he isn’t even trying on D. His continually bends at the waist without any knee bend. It’s unacceptable. I love the guy, but this is silly. Tristan doesn’t know how hard to rotate and has bad timing.” Amen. Kyrie needs to be called out for his defense by the coach, the town, and the national media.
Nate Smith and others,
Don’t know if you noticed yet, but the True Hoop TV thing at ESPN is about Kyrie today. An excerpt is:
Hollinger also noted that Irving’s defense was a ‘horrifying flaming train wreck.’ Irving’s response in his TrueHoop TV debut was interesting. Noting he was out of shape, he makes a rare confession for a professional athlete: “Honestly,” says Irving, “I was pretty horrible on defense.” But he also says that this season, “John Hollinger will definitely eat his words.”
Kyrie needs to get to work on that last part. Link is: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/51425/truehoop-tv-kyrie-irvings-motivation
This team is going nowhere this year. It’s time to cash out that AV chip for while we still can. It hurts to have to trade your second best player but there is no chance he is still a valuable player by the time this team is ready to compete (2013-14 is overly optimistic in my opinion). This draft sucks but hey we have to make lemonade. Also missing (yeah I said it) on TT is really going to hurt the long term plan to win by 2013-14.
Is it just me, or does being a Cleveland fan make us too desperate to please and too desperate to show our appreciation for talent that we let supreme athletes off the hook from ever maximizing their potential. I fear that Kyrie’s D will suffer the same fate as Lebron’s post game, as in, not develop for way too long because everyone is too enamored with what he does well that they let him coast, and he’ll feel entitled to do only that which he wants to do, that which everyone praises him for. Maybe Byron should sit Kyrie for the fourth quarter the next time he gets blown by with minimal effort and horrible knee bend, if Scott’s not trying to win anyways (see Dion, OKC game). Just an idea.
Its nice that kyrie admits his weakness and says he’ll work on it, but thus far it has been equally horrendous.
Seth, you do realize that in 14-15 Verajoa will be a whopping 32 years old right? Past his prime, sure, but still probably better than your average any 6-14 pick that we’ll get in next years draft.
Mallory, as for your assertion that the management has no plan of the number of picks we need, I’m pretty sure Scott’s rotation decisions make it pretty obvious that they do. If he wants to win, without hurting development, there is no reason Dion doesn’t run the second unit and that he doesn’t stagger Andy and Kyries minutes. As for your assertion that gems can be found anywhere, of course they can. But it is pretty much sheer luck. If it wasn’t, you would see the “smart teams” make a lot more trades of a few spots in the late teens and 20′s to nab that one guy they knew was a gem. You don’t see that often because the teams don’t know. Its a crap shoot. Thats why 30 teams passed on Jae Crowder. Its a crapshoot. Thats why if you go back and look at all the late first round gems in recent draft draft, very few of them were traded for, even if they were projected to likely be taken by a team a couple spots ahead of the team they fell to.
Your strategy can’t be based around nabbing those random gems outside of the top 10 or so picks. (outside of just stockpiling those picks so much so that the law of averages suggests one pans out)
Kyrieswirving – First, I highly doubt 5 games into the season Scott’s mentality is “lets see how badly we can lose with our bench.” I can’t remember who said it, or on what thread (this one or the other that Kevin wrote) but the basic gist was that we have no idea why the rotation is what it is right now – it could be a variety of things – Maybe Scott thinks Dion needs to learn to work with Kyrie before he can put him out there on his own for a while. Maybe Donald Sloan is working his ass off in practice and Scott is hoping to motivate Dion. To assume that, this early in the season, the plan is to tank is to completely and totally give up on what should be a decent team. There is absolutely no promise that next year’s pick, no matter where it is, will be any good. If we end up with two stars in Kyrie and Dion, that’s miles ahead of most NBA teams. Tanking just for a shot at three awesome players, so we can be just like OKC, is silly. There is no one model that leads to victory – maybe our mold is an awesome backcourt, a decent swing, and high energy front court guys. And maybe that will lead us to a championship, maybe it wont. But to assume that we need to waste away another year so we can pick FOUR times in the top 10 is ridiculous.
It actually upsets me that there are still people out there willing to let go of another year. Grant has done a decent job drafting, but that does not mean there’s any promise for another great pick. The best we can (and should) hope for is that, where ever we pick, Grant does a good job looking into what’s available.
Other than that, all we should hope for is a W every single solitary night. If you’re not mildly content with a young megastar, a guy who seems poised to be at least pretty good, and a bunch of decent pieces then you’ll likely never be happy.
I agree with Mallory. Winning is fun; now and in the future.
I don’t fear that they will become the Kings or Warriors at all. Gilbert won’t let that happen. Scott won’t let that happen. Kyrie won’t let that happen. The Kings are filled with pieces to different puzzles. I still thing Boogie and Evans could be solid players elsewhere.
There is a sad reality under the current NBA construction: there are five teams who can rebuild in one offseason and the Cavs aren’t one of them. I still have faith that Thompson will evolve his game…He might not. I’m confident in KI and Waiters. One more draft with two first rounders will give us a solid foundation and better odds going forward to build a playoff juggernaut down the road. If they would have spent away to improve the bench we’d probably have a second round playoff team at best in the future. I love Kyrie, but there has only been one title team in since the Pistons bad boys who had an All-Star point guard and won the title in the same year (2007 Spurs). I don’t like those odds.
The Thunder didn’t hit on all of their picks. They just tried to improve their odds and ended up with four key cogs. Harden was dealt. Dan Gilbert gets a ton of shit from the national media, but he would have paid for the title.
“The Kings are filled with pieces to different puzzles.” Corey Hughey+1
Cory, the thing is the Thunder and their fan base never intentionally tanked it to get these players. The growing pains were natural. The just rolled with the punches. All I’m saying is that it saddens me that people think the only way for us to win is to continue losing. Especially now, I refuse to believe that’s the case.
You want Leuer to see more playing time? Have you not noticed his defense? His defensive performance against Carl Landry was one of the worst i have ever seen.
Mallory, I totally agree with you. Picks are random, its way too early to give up and tank, and all that. However, have you ever seen a coach use worse bench management in your life? I haven’t. It looks like he’s letting the bench flounder on purpose, and when there is a clear benefit in doing so, and the coach is fresh off a half year of tanking, then I’m gonna go ahead and assume he’s doing what it looks like he’s doing. I don’t like it, but it sure looks like Scott has given up. Maybe all your excuses about Sloan busting his ass and so on are true, but I don’t have any evidence of that. All the evidence I do have points strongly towards Scott putting us in a position to lose on purpose. If he’s really busting his ass to teach this team how to win, then we desperately need a new coach.
Also, the Sonics most certainly did tank on purpose to get picks and piss off the fan base.