The Anthony Bennett Renaissance
2014-02-13
The 2013-2014 Cavaliers are a silly team. Their silliness oscillates between comical and sinister at unhealthy speeds. One month, Andrew Bynum is acting like a full-on Wes Anderson villain and indeterminately throwing objects, and the next month Anthony Bennett is teasing DeMarcus Cousins, the first post-LeBron four game winning streak has everyone smiling, and Kyrie is starting an all-star game this weekend. This season is entertaining in the same way that eating three bags of cheetos in one sitting is entertaining: fun in the moment, but it might leave you with a body ache afterwards.
Silliest and body-achiest of all is Anthony Bennett. Early this season, it was tempting to forget about him, to push Bennett into your brain’s corners. The Cavaliers drafted him knowing he was injured and that they had a lot of power forward types already. While a number one pick was undeniably a big deal, the team was focusing on a playoff run and his job was to back up Tristan Thompson. Had the Cavs won more games, his struggles probably wouldn’t have been highlighted to the degree they were.
But it took dude five games to make a basketball shot and his PER was lower than an average GPA. Even in a no-expectations vacuum, it was awful. The phrase ‘tire fire’ was overused but it was at least accurate. The problem wasn’t so much that Bennett was inefficient, but rather, that he was drastically behind on certain metric baselines that NBA players have an assumed mastery of, like body fat and spatial awareness. Criticisms poured in. An infographic showing how bad his rookie season was compared to past number one picks made the rounds. The Cavaliers were and still are one of the bigger disappointments of the NBA season, and Anthony Bennett was having serious basketball problems. Narrative-wise, he and the team were two sinking ships, dancing as they spun into the abyss. Well, for a while anyway.
The Anthony Bennett Renaissance is upon us. Bennett has shaken off the incompetence of his fever-dream start and is beginning to look like the player he was at UNLV. He posted his first double-double against the Pelicans, and even confidently turned away one of Anthony Davis’ shots, the ones that basketball fans fawn over. It was such a stunning reversal of trajectory, it makes you wonder how the Cavs managed to mangle his early development so thoroughly. Rather than ease him into the NBA slowly, or make him learn on the job, Victor Oladipo style, Cleveland strode the frustrating middle ground. He played on a short leash without an offensive support structure or communicative teammates. Neither Mike Brown nor his guards ever made a point to manufacture shots for him, and Bennett never seemed confident enough to make decisive, successful plays on his own. His entire season up to the Pelicans game had been an exercise in grasping for momentum and slipping, only to start over again. The inertia he had to overcome thickened daily.
Now, he has finally laid a foundation for a productive season, which speaks to his talent. It was disconcerting to watch him struggle with basic tasks after seeing the type of player he was in college. As a Runnin’ Rebel, he was an evolutionary power forward, big enough to spar down low and athletic enough to spread the floor and pass out of double teams. The absence of his athleticism this season was conspicuous. A shoulder injury shouldn’t have prevented him from being in shape and an NBA team shouldn’t have let their number one pick fall as far out of shape as Bennett did. Bennett is a professional athlete and is responsible to keep his body in condition, but the Cavs are an NBA organization with huge incentives to use their power as employers to motivate Bennett to work out. It seems that lines of communication are subpar.
During his low times, it was tempting to write Bennett off as a bust, and many did. If you looked at stats, there wasn’t a case to be made otherwise. There wasn’t a hidden code in his steal rate or whatever that indicated improvement was on the horizon. Numbers showed a player amongst the worst in the NBA and the eye test confirmed it. He was floundering and couldn’t do anything well. The argument for patience didn’t have much support. Those numbers, rows of goose eggs and turnovers, were a tautology that pointed at Bennett’s irrelevance. His badness was a monument to itself.
The same Bennett who produced those numbers is now playing much better. He looks like a floor-stretching bench four with room to improve. His potential as a pick-and-pop partner for Kyrie Irving should make Cavs fans smile. This mini-resurgence is a small sample and all-star weekend may take the wind out of his sails a bit, but this uptick should serve as a counterargument to the characterization of basketball skill as static and modular. Bennett is not cursed by any set of stats, and he is young and ductile enough that you should expect improvement. This is not to say that there is no truth or value in stats. There is a lot for basketball fans to learn, but context is absolutely necessary before you can draw any kind of meaningful conclusion.
Quick comment on AB – as it stands right now, it seems to me that he is too much in love with his long jump shot. Several times he gets the ball with an open lane to the hoop, but quickly settles for a long jumper. At this stage of his career he has a barely OK jump shot – technically it’s a bit of a moon ball – he gets a lot of air under it. AB really needs to think about working it into the midrange area. Once he cans a couple midrange j’s and is “feeling it”… Read more »
@ Howard scales I thought Waiters was already the 4th best and arguably the 2nd best guard from the draft.
After tonight i dnt think there is a person who would take harrison barnes over dion waiters….from the 2012 draft there is only two players i would take over dion Drummond n Davis because what they do cant be taught. I feel dion n lillard will end up being the best two guards from that draft 3rd n 4th best players
Can someone compile a report on how the players that the experts wanted the Cavs to draft instead of TT, DW, and AB do in the Rising Stars game? (Yes, I know they all did better than AB).
DIOOOOOOOOOOOON!
IT’S THE DION WAITERS ZONE
I agree with Underdog.
I am rooting for all the Cavs to get fulfill their potential. Ideally, they would all do it starting with game 1 next year.
AB showed some immaturity when he gained 20 lbs after surgery. Cavs showed some immaturity by allowing him to stay there to the beginning of training camp. Bad start. Cavs, then, appeared to have no plan to facilitate his transition to the pro game. Dysfunction and failure and loss of confidence and ineptitude was the result. But the talent and the physical ability is for real, and despite the horrendous start, it began to work itself to the surface. He begins to make NBA plays in practice and gains a little confidence. He loses some weight and gets in shape.… Read more »
I will argue on both sides of this one. Now that AB is starting to play ball, you obviously don’t send him to D-League. For one thing, they need him.
But at the beginning, when he was out of shape and had no confidence, the D-League would have been good. Where does the theory “playing in the D-League will destroy a players confidence” come from? I have always thought is was BS. Can anyone who believes this theory offer any evidence?
D league couldn’t kill Green. Neither Danny nor Gerald.
I was only referring to earlier in the season, when he would maybe play 10 minutes over a 10 game span. While I see the merit of playing against NBA competition, AB’s was in terrible shape to begin the season, and I don’t care how good you are, if you are a rookie and out of shape you are going to struggle terribly. If they had let him play D-league ball in November and early December, he would of at least come physically ready earlier than he did. That being said, he looks much better now, I just hope he… Read more »
Kirk at WFNY pwns my previous statement.
Kj, I’m with you in this instance. While I could see the argument for awhile for sending AB to the NBDL (esp. when he was receiving a steady diet of DNP-CDs), I don’t understand why anyone would still be pushing for it. He’s getting minutes and he’s actually producing in the NBA. His confidence and comfort level are both clearly on the rise. At this point, the organization’s approach to Gum Drop Bear is water under the bridge.
The fact that he’s not in the Rising Stars game is a bit of a stunning indictment. Still, I’m encouraged with every good game he has, but he can still disappear as he did against Detroit. He’s gone from “destroying the fabric of space and time with his awfulness” to two a guy who might give you two average replacement player games out of every three.
Still with the D-League crap? Really? Hasn’t that been clearly put to bed? Yes, yes it has. Why? Because keeping him up here practicing against better competition matters more than the D-League! Clearly that has been shown.
Can we please give the professionals in the Cavs org a teeny bit of credit? Maybe they understand better what to do with him and that sending him to D-League would have destroyed his confidence, not helped it? How bout it?
I wish Gum Drop was playing in the Rising Stars game tonight. Oh well, he doesn’t necessarily deserve it based on his season of work, but I think he would show well in the contest.
Just a heads up, Anthony Bennett’s first double-double was against the Kings and his breakout game came against the Pelicans. Otherwise, great conclusions and prose.
Nicely written. Good job!
Bennett’s drastic improvement is probably my favorite part of this frustrating season. While I preferred Noel or Olapido like many others, I wasn’t pissed off with his selection. I liked him in college and Tristan had yet to show that he can protect the rim or stretch the floor. Revisionist history journalist’s mocked Bennett to the Wizards often and claimed he would make a dangerous offensive weapon for John Wall, but a few months later mocked the Cavs for taking two spots higher in a draft that didn’t have clear cut #1 prospect. I was actually getting to the point… Read more »
I, like most Cavs fans (heck Cleveland sports fans), just hope these last few games will be the new trend, and not an anomaly \. We obviously can’t expect double-double efforts from AB, but just watching his limited minutes you can tell he’s starting to figure it out, if only a little. What I still don’t understand is the decision not to have him play a little D-league ball. The major problems it seems are his lack of feel for the NBA game (as all rookies should have) and obviously his condition. Getting him some quality minutes, albeit against much… Read more »