Glass Half Full Draft Reflection
2011-06-26The draft is over, so this will be my last posting to Cavs:the Blog for a while. Writing these entries does take a lot of time. Lots of credit to John Krolik, for maintaining such a high quality blog for the last several years.
My “reaction” to the draft was a look at draft day from a “glass half empty” perspective. This will contrast that; reflecting on things that went well, as I want to end on a positive note. The negative reaction was based on spending a lot of time, as the Cavs: the Blog Draft Expert, thinking about the draft and having formed opinions on what the Cavs could do. I strongly preferred the Cavs to draft Jonas Valanciunas with #4. I preferred the Cavs do something like trade the #32 and #54 to the Spurs for #29, and take Jimmy Butler. Or at #32, draft Jon Leuer and keep him. Basically something to end up with a player from the 32 pick. At #54, I preferred a lot of players over Milan Macvan. I was unsatisfied with three of the Cavs four picks and dwelled on that. I still would have preferred different selections (and am confused about all the PF’s), but ultimately I’m just a fan with a computer. The Cavs have ways to quantify player contributions that I can’t begin to understand, and they like Tristan Thompson. Here are the positives I see in the drafted players:
Kyrie Irving – It’s folly to forget the Cavs’ good fortune of acquiring the #1 pick in the draft. The Cavs took on an extra $12 million in salary commitments to acquire a likely late lottery pick in a weak draft. Obviously this pick became #1 and has allowed the Cavs to begin laying a great groundwork for the future. Kyrie Irving is an excellent young point guard. The low end of his potential is considered as an above average NBA starter and the high end is as an All-Star. He’s everything a point guard should be; an efficient scorer, good shooter, quality distributor, hard worker, and intense defender. At 19; he is mature and confident, and appears to have a great NBA career ahead of him. On Thursday, the Cavs re-building process took a big step forward in acquiring Kyrie Irving.
Tristan Thompson – Going into Thursday, the Cavs had one player under 25 that was potentially a part of the long range plan (my opinion, see draft reaction). With Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson, that number has tripled. Thompson still needs to develop his offensive skills, but he undoubtedly brings a lot to the table on defense. He has good size and strength for a 20 year old and was the most agile big man at the draft combine. Thompson should be able to defend power forwards in the post, on the perimeter, and even cover some small forwards. Per 40 minutes, he averaged 3.1 blocks and 1.2 steals in his freshman year. He had very effective defensive games against two other lottery power forwards. In a narrow NCAA tournament loss, he held Derrick Williams to 17 points on 42% true shooting, and in a mid-season victory over Kansas, he had five blocks while the Morris twins struggled to the tune of 26 total points on 42% true shooting. As John noted in his post draft summary, the Cavs were very lacking in defense last year; and Irving and Thompson will both step in and begin restoring the Cavs commitment to defense. Finally regarding Thompson; I would be remiss to not mention that he rated as the third best prospect in John Hollinger’s 2011 draft rater. Hollinger’s draft rater is not perfect, but it historically has been good at picking top performing big men.
So there are definitely positives from draft day that I didn’t discuss in my “reaction”piece. Similar to the reaction though, I still am look forward to an interesting trade, a 2011 – 2012 NBA season, and the start of the Irving / Thompson era in Cleveland (complete with a championship where Thompson shuts down Durant).
I saw it on a comment on realcavsfans.com. Hopefully that isnt true but if it is hopefully we can have a full season. I would hate it to have no football or basketball next season.
I have enjoyed these posts and comments because my opinions have followed a similar trajectory. We all convinced ourselves JV was the guy b/c of where the scouts and opinions were trending – and we even suspected front office incompetence (in large part due to Woj’s reporting of our interest in trading down to get him). But I think most of us recognize that the “incompetence” scenario is extremely unlikely. Gilbert isn’t an idiot millionaire like the Maloofs. He is shrewd. He would not have a staff of gamblers and panickers. So I firmly believe they picked the guys they… Read more »
I was surprised by the TT selection. But upon further review, I like it. The Cavs are rebuilding only partly on the basis of talent — they’re also looking for the right kinds of guys. Think of it as an OKC Thunder or Dallas Mavs sort of thing, rather than an Celtics/Lakers/Heat model. They know that they must find high-caliber leaders and teammates who are also really good players to build this team in Cleveland. Not just raw talent alone. Because of free agency, history of the league, market size and geography, the Cavs brass knows that they are somewhat… Read more »
Hopfully (but not likely) they can reach an agreement before a lockout starts.
That is valuable knowledge. So the cavs need some games this year. I think the crazy part is, I am already looking forward to next year’s draft where there are at least 3 wing players in the top 10 worthy of a pick. I want the Cavs to get Irving and TT some time this year as nothing matters until 2012-13
We could also start thompson and jj as our 4s and 5s. That way, hickson will be the lone offensive weapon and could potentially score 18 to 20 ppg, thus increasing his trade value. Also, something that I just found out (although many people already knew this) is that if there is a full season lockout, you have to find the average of what your teams record was for the past 5 seasons. The cavaliers averaged out at 48 wins per season, so they will pick in the 18-25 range. Definitely not where you want to be drafting if you… Read more »
The problem with the draft is that you figure out who it is you want you team to draft and then you talk yourself out of everyone else and talk yourself INTO that (those) player(s). In this case I waffled back and forth between Irving and Williams and it wasn’t until I read all the advanced stats on irving that I was convinced that he has the potential to be as good as Chris Paul. (not saying he will ever be nearly that good – just saying he has the tools) I, too, talked myself into Jonas so TT was… Read more »
I completely agree with Cake and easy it?
TT and Andy can start together. Wanna know why? Cause the cavs are going to be bad this year (if there is a year). They can start and they can be active and they can learn how to play defense with one another and they can work on their fft within the offense and they can lose. It’s going to happen. We can accept it and we can embrace it. This is a multi-year project, and this year (if it happens) is about starting anew and getting our foundation down. Last year sucked, but it had to happen, we had… Read more »
I tend to think that TT being on the roster signals that JJ is on the way out. I’m assuming either TT or Andy will come off the bench, and we’ll get some other big to supplement the floor spacing. Andy’s better offensively than people give him credit for, he sets good screens, finishes well, and cuts off the ball very effectively. For the time being, it’s going to be about how Andy fits, we’ll have TT for a while, he’ll find his nice later. Regardless of if we play Andy @ the 4/5, he needs to be partnered with… Read more »
I’m also starting to like the tt pick, but if he is to start (which would be very possible if hickson is traded), there is no way we can start both thompson and verajeo. None of them know how to play offense (except if thompson develops a jump shot, which will not be happening in one season). So then we would need a good scoring 5 so andy can become the 6th man again and become the backup for both the 4 and 5. Marc Gasol anybody?
I too am coming to terms with the TT pick. Does anyone know what the chances are of us making a trade before the lockout??
It’s gonna be a realllyyy long summer if I’m stuck wondering what we are going to do with 6 PFs and 4 PGs :/
Kevin, Thanks for this. I know, as fans, we tend to expect the world from our teams and with the advent of the Celtics and Heat putting contenders together in a few short months, it’s easy to get ahead of ourselves get frustrated with the piecemeal approach that seems to be the best plan for long-term success of mid-market teams. I know even less about draft prospects than you, and admittedly was anticipating with the rest of the basketball world Valanciunas with the 4th pick. As much as it may be undesirable, this draft signals that the “pieces” we assume… Read more »
I really don’t think JJ is part of the long term plan. I fully expect him to be traded, or simply let go to the free agent market when the time comes.
TT actually rated A’s the top prospect in Hollingers rater. He was third on Hollingers personal board though. Overall I agree with this article MUCH more than the first one. I too wanted Johan at four, however I trust the Cavs and Hollinger much more than myself. It will def be interesting to see what they do with the rest of the roster now that our most talented players all play PG or PF.