-This much has become clear over the last three years: you can hang with, maybe even beat, the Kobe/Gasol Lakers if you focus on defense. Trying to outscore them has not gone well at all. The Celtics beat them, the Rockets took them to seven, and the Thunder gave them all they could handle. They’ve rolled through everyone else. That team has too many weapons for any team that tries to go at them guns blazing.
-The Celtics’ defense: it’s really good. And yes, part of me is happy that Orlando fans know how they made Cleveland fans feel last season. However, I like the Magic a lot more than I like the Celtics. I’m conflicted.
-So, explain to me how John Calipari is the guy to fix a talented team with a great player that keeps losing big games and can’t make free throws.
-Draft lottery tomorrow: important. If New Jersey/Brooklyn grabs that #1 pick, do the Cavs have any young players who can hold a candle to a potential Wall/LeBron/Lopez core?
-Beautiful piece on LeBron by Joey of Straight Bangin‘.
-So, when is Dwight Howard due for an MRI on his elbow?
Please explain ” A talented team” comment. Where is the talent? It’s amazing to me anyone could look at the Cavs roster and claim “it’s talented” In comparison to the teams left in the playoffs, the Cavs are by far the least talented. Who on the Cavs has the talent of Derek fisher,Pau Gasol,Amare,Rashard Lewis,Jameer Nelson,Vince Carter,or Rondo and Ray Allen. the Cavs didn’t flame out of the playoffs because of Lebron, the Cavs lost because Lebron is all the team has. It doesn’t matter how talented the superstar player is, if all you do is surround him with 2nd round and undrafted players it won’t work. You won’t win the big prize. The Cavs for the last seven years have been out coached and out managed. The surprise for me is not that the Cavs lost, they should have. A team that poorly constructed and coached should not be in the final round. I’m surprised that for two years straight Lebron was able to lead a bunch of cast offs, has beens, and an amateur coach to the best record in the league. And that is a testament to how great a player Lebron is.
@Eric
The Cavs have talent. I’d rather have Jamison on my roster (a no. 4 pick, former all-star, former Team USA) than Carter. I’d rather have Mo (1st round pick, all-star) than a 35 year old Fisher.
Heck Shaq is HOF. He may be old but he was MVP at the all-star game last year.
AV even made the all-defense teams this year.
This roster did not lack talent. It just lacked a coach who could use it when plan A (a 100% LeBron) didn’t work out.
He meant the Calipari-Bulls scenario, or really any scenario where some other team sign Calipari and Lebron. I’ve never heard the rumor that Calipari would come to Cleveland.
I dunno Eric, maybe you are just more optimistic in some way than me. When JK said “talented team” I just assumed he meant someone else besides the Cavs.
Don’t really agree with lebron being characterised as a player who ‘keeps losing big games.’ That doesn’t sound like the lebron iv been watching for the last 7 years. One bad series shouldn’t define a career.
@Eric, with all due respect, you lost any credibility by including the words “Derek Fisher” and “talented” in the same sentence. Fisher is a modern day Eric Snow with a somewhat better jump shot. At one time he was a solid player but he certainly is a weakness for that team. Now it may not matter because the Lakers have the size to just pound any team inside (sans maybe the Cavs if they were, you know, still playing) and they have Kobe.
As for the Cavs roster, Jamison is still a very good player. We just didn’t put him in a place to succeed come playoff time. It is unfathomable that the Cavs did not run offensive sets for their second best offensive player. It’s also ridiculous they didn’t (1) run the pick and roll with Jamison and Lebron more often and (2) stick Jamison on the left block and let him go to work. That is all on the coaching staff. I believe Jamison, Andy, Mo, West, can all play significant minutes for a championship team. The Cavs issue isn’t lack of talent; it’s a lack of top tier talent that teams like Boston or LA or Orlando have beyond Lebron.
bye bye bron bron
JK, how ’bout mentioning something about Zydrunas Ilgauskas and his future? He plan on retiring? Wazup?
@Chip P
I heard he is retiring to take a full time position as a DVD salesman
^ lulz FTW, wish they played those commercials again before the fall
I’d like to toot Rich’s horn for him. Here is what Rich said after Game One:
“Here will a be “is SVG a better coach than Mike Brown” game over the next week. It seems clear Matt Barnes is hurt. He is going to struggle and struggle mightily to stick to Ray Allen. Kind of like Anthony Parker (Although he wasn’t hurt). Let us see if SVG sees this and increases Reddicks minutes (much like Mike Brown could/should have done with Moon) or if he goes MIke Brown and just puts his head down and changes nothing. My money is on SVG making the right decision and playing Reddick more.”
The game isn’t over, but Reddick has played 30 minutes, has had a very solid night (16 points on 8 shots), along with 4 assists and 4 boards, and a +4 (one of the few Magic with a postiive +/-), while Barnes has only played 20 minutes and has been far less effective.
Of course Reddick would make the boneheaded advance of the ball late in the game.
And this Boston Orlando series is going just like I thought. Orlando isn’t nearly as talented as people think they are. No, Rashard Lewis is NOT a legit all-star. He is a one dimensional player in every sense of the word. No, Nelson is not on par with Rondo. No VC is not a legit guy that you can’t count on in the playoffs to come through.
Said this after the Cavs series…the Celtics, again, do not have the best player in the series. But after number 1, they have the next 4.
Now, who out there will question Orlando’s talent level around Dwight Howard like the question LeBrons? Why is it we see everyone else as mega talented, and the Cavs as talentless?
Am I crazy if I would take Rondo over Howard at this point? I realize Rondo’s jumper isn’t that great, but…. Dwight still has NO legit post moves. He can be shut down. Rondo without a jumper still can’t be shut down because that guy can get to the rim and break people down at will. Plus, he plays defense… maybe not at the level Dwight does, but his D is closer to Dwight than Dwight’s O is to Rondo’s…. if that makes sense.
I waiting for the natl. media, and maybe even Brian Windhorst, to either take back what they said about this “terrible” cavs roster, or change their opinion on the Magic roster. I’m guessing they’ll do neither and just chalk it up to Boston being great.
For w/e reason, everyone is sold on the fact taht this Cavs team has no talent. When Orlando gets swept, will they same? No. I dunno know why, unless it is true that the natl. media just wants LeBron to leave, so they try to play up his supposed lack of help.
And no Colin, you aren’t crazy. It is not overstating at this point that Rondo is more than in the discussion for best PG in the league.
Seriously, I’m taking him over Deron Williams right now, and quite frankly I’m taking him over Paul. Maybe that opinion changes next year when Paul plays healthy again, but Rondo is a top 3 PG in the league at the very minimum.
I wish Rondo wasn’t such a tool so I could actually like him. I want to throw-up every time I think about the story of him talking trash to Chris Paul about winning a championship.
Why does anyone have to take back anything about what they said about the terrible Cavs roster? Isn’t it possible that Boston > Orlando > Cleveland? I surely don’t think the roster is terrible. This roster was absolutely capable of winning it this year, although both Lebron and his teammates played terribly. If you’re honestly evaluating the roster though, you have a few older dudes that are not in their prime. Jamison’s solid now, but for how long? As for the younger guys, Varejao’s a good player, but I think he’s about as good as he’ll ever be. Mo Williams is a good player, but he basically had one good quarter and one good half all series (and then there’s Orlando last year…). If you’re talking strictly about what team would Lebron have the best chance of winning championships on over the next 5+ years, Cleveland isn’t exactly the prime choice.
Lebron sucked. He played terrible. If he wouldn’t have played some of the worst basketball of his life, maybe the Cavs are still playing. However, he wasn’t the only one that sucked, and if someone else on the team had picked up the slack, then maybe the Cavs are still playing. Anyone who complains about the supporting cast has a pretty compelling argument. You can’t be superman 100% of the time; it’s simply not possible, and even if you are superman for an entire series (see Orlando), it still might not be enough. When someone else on the team elevates their play, even for a game, it can make all the difference (see Boobie Gibson against Detroit, Mo Williams scoring 24 in Game 5 against Orlando, Delonte West scoring 21-5-7 in Game 3 against Boston 2 years ago). Really good things can happen when other guys come to play. I think it’s fair to criticize the roster for not being able to provide more games like this.
My point is I think we as fans always think the grass is always greener. For instance, right now, who is the better player..Rashard Lewis, or Antawn Jamison? I bet if I polled most of the Cavs fans, and fans around the league, you’d hear Rashard Lewis. After all, I am being sold that he is one the Magic’s prime pieces and Jamison isn’t a 2nd star or even close.
Look closely though. Rashard Lewis made 18 million dollars this year. He is owed over 60 million in the next three years. You’d think a guy getting paid like that, eating up that much cap space, would be a perennial allstar wouldn’t you?
This year, he averaged 14.1 ppg and 4.4 rpg? Wow. Really? 18 million for that kind of production? Notice we get more than that out of the terrible Mo Williams for a lot less money? 20 million next year for a PF who can’t get me 5 rebounds a game and isn’t gonna sniff the all-star game unless he hits 45% of his threes? We get on Ferry’s case all the time about spending to much for average players, but it isn’t this bad.
I guess I’m saying that it seems to me that I’m always being sold on the talent of all the other teams around the league. I’m told the Magic are just stacked to the teeth. I’m also told (heard Mike Tirico say it just the other day) that the Cavs don’t have enough talent and LeBron should leave. But really, if we look closely enough, they aren’t that far (if at all) behind the Magic, a team that I was told had the most talent in the entire league by quite a few people before the playoffs started. But it isn’t true…either that or the Cavs lack of talent isn’t true.
I still contend, Todd, that this Cavs team has enough talent, they just don’t have a coach who can actually use it correctly. Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe I’ll never get a chance to be proven wrong or right, but imo this teams overall talent isn’t far behind any of the remaining 4 teams, if at all (they surpass PHX).
What makes it even harder to judge how the Cavs’ talent level stacks up is that, this season, they didn’t play their best lineup combinations enough. Just for example, how we would perceive the “talent” if the team had gone with Varejao/Jamison/Lebron/Moon/Williams as its starting five? And then actually made use of the players’ best strengths?
I do think you have to look at that Celtics team very differently now, because of KG. He wasn’t even playing when they lost in 7 to the Magic last year, and he wasn’t healthy for much of this season. When he’s healthy, the Celtics still have 4 starters who are at or near all-star caliber.
With the Lakers, it isn’t so much their overall talent that stands out, but the fact that their “number 2″ and “number 3″ guys, Gasol and Odom, are probably better than anyone else’s number 2 and number 3. But after those three, the Lakers’ roster is just average.
Well I’ll certainly agree there is no doubt that Gasol is the best number 2 guy in the league. But I’m not gonna say Odom is better than Allen/Pierce as a number 3. Odom, when he plays like he feels like trying, is a freaking beast that could seriously be a top 15 player, if not top 10 player in the league. However, it seems he rarely feels like doing that.