The Point Four-ward: A Personal Blatt-ack?

If you haven’t read David Wood’s excellent recap of last night’s loss to the Suns, get on it!

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

1.) The fallout over David Blatt’s comments after the Cavs loss in Sacramento that Kevin Love is “not a max player yet” should come as a surprise to no one. Blatt has always been known as a fiery guy who, thus far in his career (storied abroad, though it may be) hasn’t had to deal with as many of the finer points of player ego-massaging as he has this season, his first in the NBA. While he has ladled freely from the soup of praise when talking about his players, Love, LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, in particular, there was bound to be a moment when Blatt, understandably frustrated following a 19-point drubbing by a Kings squad where his team played unengaged, uninspired and… well, basically un-anything-good, would release a little steam. Unfortunately, his pressure check was in front of the media and at the apparent expense of the player who, should he leave after just one season in wine and gold, would leave the team with a lot of gold — from the yolk running down their collective face — to show for it.

Do I think Blatt thinks Love is a bad player? Absolutely not. I think Blatt believes his starting power forward is a very talented offensive player — one of the more versatile offensive bigs in the league — but to say that Blatt, in his most private moments, is without criticism of Love is probably unrealistic, as well. Blatt later backpedaled saying that what he meant was that Love has not yet signed a max contract with the Cavs and didn’t want to be accused of tampering by suggesting that those kind of discussions were had with Love.

Now, I don’t believe that’s what he meant, either, especially given the testiness attributed to his “Kev’s not a max player yet, is he?”

I think that Blatt, feeling the sting of still being unable to solve the Rubix Cube of how to get consistent effort from this team, thought that he’d caught the reporter in an error in suggesting that Love is playing on a league maximum level contract. This reporter — who, in Blatt’s mind, when writing about the game would no doubt raise questions about Blatt’s job security… yet again — was technically right, as Love’s deal was the maximum that Minnesota could have signed him to over four years at the time. Just not for five years, like Irving, and not at levels commensurate with today’s cap figure, like Irving and James. But, in Blatt’s eyes, likely, he had the chance to steal back a little of his authority from this person who would be questioning his own.

Unfortunately, for Blatt, he wasn’t technically right in his statement and he had to immediately smooth over whatever damage this may have done to his relationship with Love. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why we are all told to think before we speak and not respond out of anger or frustration. Of course, for most of us, avoiding those situations is a bit easier than it is for the head coach of a floundering, high-profile NBA team.

But you also have to feel bad for Blatt in the way that the comment was run with, sans context.

To Love’s credit, he seems to understand that no offense was intended. Hopefully, this chapter is now closed.

But chapters have an annoying way of popping back open on the Cavaliers these days… Like when Love is planted firmly on the bench during crunch time of a winnable game against the Suns last night.

2.) Following the Cavs loss to the Kings, Fox Sports Ohio’s Sam Amico came out and said what should be alarmingly apparent to Cavs fans. “It just looks like without LeBron James, young stars such as Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love don’t yet know how to win,” Amico wrote in his post-game blog.

Learning to win is the big mystery in the NBA, isn’t it? When does it happen? How exactly? Is it something that is actually learned or are some players more predisposed to it than others?

In Love’s previous six NBA seasons his team went for a combined 153-476, a winning percentage of 32.1%. His teams’ high-water mark was last season’s 40-42 record which, given its tough Western Conference slate, is respectable. Still, as last year’s Wolves carried playoff buzz into the season, 40-42, good for 10th place in an admittedly loaded Conference on a team that experienced fairly good health for the first time in years, suggests that, perhaps, the team’s key players didn’t know how to win.

And we’re all well aware of how Irving’s seasons have gone. His teams carried a 78-230 record, narrowly edging Love’s T-Wolves (if you can believe) by winning 33.9% of their games. And, funny story: last year, the Cavs carried playoff buzz into the season, only to suck the air out of every Cavs fan’s bubble and waddle their way through a season so mind-numbing, it inspired its own hashtag, the #SeasonOfHuh. One of the team’s main problems, not surprisingly, was that its key players didn’t know how to win.

Both Irving and Love had played well on Olympic teams, where they were surrounded by other All-Star caliber players, so it’s not like they are incapable of achieving high-level team success on the basketball floor.

Veterans who know how to win are supposed to help teach players who do not yet know how. The Cavs brought in ring wearers like Shawn Marion, Brendan Haywood, Mike Miller, James Jones… and, of course, LeBron James to help transform the culture of this team into that of a winner.

Something’s still not right, though. It’s as if, even while the Cavs young players still do not know how to win, its veterans may have forgotten too.

3.) It’s telling about this team and this season that when I turned on last night’s Cavs/Suns game late in the first half, with the Suns shooting near 60% from the floor, I made the bargain, “Okay, just get the Suns lead down under 10 and keep them from scoring 60 points and I’ll be happy.”

At the end of the first half, the Cavs were down nine and the Suns had scored 59 points. There’s your moral victory right there, folks.

4.)  Hopefully the Cavs will find a way to out-defend Byron Scott’s Lakers on Thursday night, which would be… you know, something. But it’s tough to see a team as out-of-sorts as the Cavs are right now giving the Clippers much of a fight.

The key for the Cavs clawing their way back toward respectability (and over .500 basketball) is the four-game home stand that follows. The Cavs will have tough games against the Bulls and Thunder at The Q and a winnable game against the Hornets, but then spend the rest of the month with the chance to avenge some of the season’s more embarrassing losses: next Wednesday when they host the Jazz, then the following week when they travel to the Pistons and host the Trailblazers and Kings.

The Cavs have officially entered the “pride” section of their schedule. Let’s hope they start showing some…