The Point Four-ward: New Year’s Daze

Four points I’m thinking about the NBA and the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) A lot of what I’m going to say here is anecdotal rather than analytical. These are points and ideas born from conversations I’ve been having over the last couple of holiday weeks. They are more temperature-taking than anything else but, as with other recent Cavaliers seasons, I’ve found it useful to see exactly at what point the fan base (and myself) go completely off the rails. That point could well be now.

The overriding feeling of those I’m talking to is the same as mine: these Cavs just aren’t any fun.

And it’s not looking to get any more fun if, as reported today, LeBron James misses the next two weeks nursing a holiday cookie tray of injuries (or, more precisely, diagnosed strains to his ailing knee and back).

This Cavaliers team just hasn’t been any fun to watch. Even for those who predicted struggles, these particular (and all too familiar) struggles have given Cavs fans precious little to cheer about for any sustained duration.

Tom and Nate have detailed the flaws in the construction of this roster. But the overall lack of basketball cohesion of what was expected to be some very dynamic parts goes deeper than just the supporting cast. It starts, unfortunately, with the suddenly human James and how he works with head coach David Blatt. James has spent the last few days refuting rumors of a rift between this team and their coach, but many of the issues that have brought about those questions are now tabled for a couple of weeks as Cavs fans hope that rest is what will turn their star forward back into the best player on the planet.

Before today’s news of James’ shelving, I’d already planned to talk about how it might be time to relieve him of the responsibility of being the team’s primary ball handler. The next two weeks might help shed some light on whether such a change is realistically in the team’s future. While much was made of James’ decision (along with the coaching staff) to take the point guard reigns and the immediate uptick it caused in the team’s success, many also saw the ball stick, its best player using huge chunks of the shot clock to work ISO action on his man to uncharacteristically mixed results.

James is without question this team’s best passer, so deciding to have him initiate the offense makes sense. But it may be the easy solution that winds up stagnating the team’s overall development. The initial conclusion — that James manning the point would increase ball movement and help the team as it learns Blatt’s offense — seems further and further from the truth. For this team to reach the heights once imagined, they have to figure out how to get James the ball in different spots rather and actually run some of the offense that had many (myself included) so excited about the Blatt hire last summer.

Hopefully, the next two weeks when Blatt won’t have his “coach on the floor” will give the NBA rookie coach a chance to find some things that work in maximizing the talent of those on his roster not wearing number 23.

2.) Of course, any argument that Blatt’s trial period with his King-less roster runs into the thicks when you actually look at the healthy bodies the coach can field right now. The Cavs, still smarting from the season-ending loss of Anderson Varejao, are down Kevin Love and Shawn Marion — and only recently got Kyrie Irving back. So, Cavs fans, welcome back to last season’s roster, only with the stiffer bodies of Mike Miller and James Jones subbing for C.J.  Miles and Alonzo Gee. That roster, in case you forgot, missed the playoffs.

Blatt’s position is far from enviable, but this is a chance for him to possibly show some of the coaching chops we’ve all heard so much about. He has got to break this team’s funk — whatever it’s cause — and coach the guys who are healthy to a surprising victory or three while James is out… and more if Love comes back sooner than later.

So, for the record, that’s not fully off the rails. That’s not January 2014 thinking. Not yet anyway. And hopefully we don’t get to that point.

But…

3.) Over the weekend, I got to talking to a Celtics fan about possible Cleveland/Boston trade scenarios. This was based on the recent reports that the Cavs have been in contact with the Celtics to express their interest in helping the Cs facilitate any trades, possibly as a third party, while the green and white continue to accumulate assets as part of their rebuild. Furthermore, the Celtics’ newly acquired big man Brandan Wright is considered one of the better trade targets for the size-starved Cavaliers and the Celtics have shown little interest in keeping him around for the long haul.

Wright doesn’t solve everything for the Cavs. At 6-9, he can play power forward and center, but he’d keep the Cavs as small-ish in the middle as when they roll out Tristan Thompson in the pivot. He is blocking nearly a shot and a half in under 18-minutes a game this season, though, and his contract is a Cavalier realistic $5 million and expires after this season. Could Wright help the Cavs? Yes, absolutely. But I’m not sure that he solves so many issues immediately enough to jump on him just because he’s available. Call me gun shy after watching Tyler Zeller this year, but I still dislike the Celtics enough from 2008-10 to step lightly around the prospect of giving them, say, a first rounder for four months of a guy they don’t want anyway and I told the Celtics fan as much.

But it got me thinking. I came back to him with this: Given the Celtics’ long-rumored affection for Love, I asked, what would he, speaking strictly as a Celtics fan, mind you, be willing to part with if the Cavs decided to cut ties with Love and send him to Boston. I expected a good deal more hemming and hawing than what I got which was an immediate “Marcus Smart, Jeff Green and the Celtics’ 2015 first round pick.” If you are the Cavs, do you make that trade? It would, at least, make the Cavs think. Based on what we’ve seen from Love this year, it’s not an entirely unfair return.

4.) That shows a lot about how much opinion of Love (even just the popular kind) has dropped off. I never thought I’d be claiming that Green would be a better fit for this team, but Love’s been so ineffectual when he’s not raining threes. His physicality hasn’t been there, so you’d almost give Green’s superior athleticism the edge, even if his rebounding numbers are well below Love’s (though, to be fair, Green has played more SF in Boston than he would on the Cavs) just because you’d always expect less of Green than you would of Love. As Tom and Nate pointed out in their recent podcast, there was talk before the season that Love was an All-NBA first teamer and the best power forward in the game. He is not that. He is far, far from that, right now.

This is how much work the Cavs have to do. They have to convince me that Love is better for this team than Green would be. That’s where we’re at.

But mainly I’d just like to see Smart on this team. Or. barring that, the return of a Will Cherry.

Happy New Year, Cavs fans. 2015 can’t be any more screwy than ’14 was, can it??