Cleveland Management -- Yikes!

I don't understand the point. A team owner should be commended for paying over the luxury tax, to treat it like it is no barrier at all.

Yeah Cleve has some bad contracts-Snow, Jones, Hughes--but they are not as bad as say Indiana. Besides, Cleveland is the #2 seed and about ready to make the ECF--James and the fans should be real pleased.

Further, it is possible we may have to pay lux tax to sign Hayes and Deke and use our full MLE and LLE. I hope our owner is willing to do it.

 

I find it funny that any fan of the Houston Rockets would condemn another team for playing a "disgusting brand of basketball."

 

Cleveland will end being the next NY Knicks. Saddled with marginal talent and bad contracts.

Dallas learned from their mistakes and focused on developing their young talent into good roleplayers.

 

You don't understand. Rox basketball is ugly, but it is not displayed nearly as often as Cavs basketball on national scale.

Cavs, or the entire eastern conference, is super boring to watch and yet those national TV force fans to watch them again and again and again...

 

Varejo is worth a little north of the MLE, probably in the $7-8 mill range. He's a poor man's Camby, but big men simply come at a premium.

Pavlovic has been coming around as of late and seems to have entered a comfort zone in the NBA. Dependable shooter and is showing some damage putting the ball on the floor. Still, is he going to be a 6th man candidate? With him, it smells like paying someone starter money on the merits of not being a bust. I wouldn't offer him more than $3 mill.

Evan

 

..? It may be unpleasing to the casual fan, but we have very well-defined plays and execution. I don't want as many Cavs games, but they don't seem to have very good offensive (or defensive) sets. Mike Brown is known to be a very uncreative coach.

 

Cleveland has to get rid of Ilgauskas. He's getting worse by the year and makes nearly $1M for every PPG he averages. Add to that his average at best rebounding and poor interior defense you have a player that needs to go.

I would also look to move Larry Hughes as well. He's probably not the best fit to play alongside LeBron at the two, however they have experimented with Hughes getting minutes at the point and that has worked relatively well.

Maybe try to pull off a Hughes for Kirilenko swap? The Jazz obviously need a SG and will look to move AK this offseason. The Cavs would essentially duplicate our SG/SF model of pairing the dominant perimeter player with a versatile, smart and efficient defender to chase the opponent's best perimeter player.

 

Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall, Big Z and their contracts are like millstones around the neck of the Cavs. All 3 can be considered as busts. As last summer proved, it will be tough for them to get much better in the near term. I'm definetely not sold on Varejao. "Hustle" is only worth so much. At some point he needs to start developing offensive skills. Pavlovic is intriguing. I can see him at some point becoming a very good role player. But now, his accuracy varies so much from game to game you can only guess how much better he's going to get. But when his shot is on, he's the kind of guy with nerves of steel who can hit a clutch jumper like it's a layup. He's the only teammate LeBron has that isn't a mental weakfish on offense when games get tight and tense.

 

First, the Cavs may be oversaturated, but definitely not overrated. No one in the East is overrated. Everyone is well aware that they are 1/2 a league below the West. As for getting tons of TV time, that's what happens w/ marketable superstars, and believe me they would not keep showing them if other teams would gain more ratings. I've been a Cavs (and Browns) fan all my life, and at best between the 2 teams they would nationally televise maybe ONE game a year in the past. I kid you not. So I'll take all the Lebron love the media gives us now.

As for ugly basketball? The Cavs do play ugly. Quite frankly I don't think this team has much chemistry either. But they get wins. If you want to complain about watching ugly, winning basketball, then go watch And1.

To the point of the article: besides Lebron I think Varejao and Pavlovic are keepers. Varejao is like our Chuck Hayes. Pavlovic is still rough around the edges. But he's been improving steadily, to the point where we're past 'potential' and now a matter of how long it takes him to be more consistent. The rest of the entire team is expendable. Everyone else has dropped off tremendously. Big Z most of all, which is a shame because I liked how he USED to play. Yeah, soft, but a sweet jump shot and he still got his rbs. Now, not so much. Hughes doesn't mesh well w/ Lebron. The rest of the team seems lackluster and just seem to do enough to collect their paychecks. Maybe they've gotten too comfortable w/ Lebron carrying the load. Unfortunately this mess is still good enough to get the second seed in the playoffs so the urgency to make major changes may not register w/ management.

 

professorjay, I think a big part of the problem is Mike Brown. I admit to not following the Cavs and reading up on them regularly, but sometimes it seems like the players don't fully respect him. Their offense is the true definition of ugly & purposeless. I have never been able to figure out exactly what they are doing when LeBron isn't dominating the ball completely. Your comments on the players are correct, but Brown isn't ready at this time to take the Cavs to the next level IMO. Maybe he'll be better at his next coaching gig.

 

Well, that 'mediocre' Cavs team is set to be in the ECF. They've not only lucked out in playing a crappy Wizards team without their top 2 players, but they will also be rewarded with either a crappy Nets team or a 'not-so-solid', overachieving and inexperienced Raptors team in the second round.

They've been handed an absolute gift this season with the way the seedings worked out. Basically, they get to stay home and watch the three best teams in the East (regardless of seedings) in Detroit, Miami, and Chicago beat each others' brains out on the court and will eventually meet only one of them in the conference finals.

It's great to be the Cavs this season...

 

How could I forget. You're totally spot on here. I have no idea what kind of offense we run. I imagine Brown's clipboard looks like 4 arrows pointing towards LBJ, in permanent marker. It's all one-on-one ball (mostly LBJ of course), w/ the occassional LBJ making a nice pass to set someone else up. I agree w/ the motivation too. Right now it looks like we're playing like the Lakers. Lifeless.

BTW, nice to talk to someone who has some Cavs knowledge, which I remember from past threads.

(I DON'T HAVE NBA TV AND CAN'T FIND AN ONLINE STREAM OF THE CAVS GAME 2 RIGHT NOW )

 

The East being horrible has apparently made the Cavs owner unable to evaluate sensible salaries for his players. If his team was in the West, they'd likely be a lotto or near-lotto team and he wouldn't have overspent to keep them together. Forget what he will pay Varejao (who is actually a decent big guy) and Pavlovic, just look at what guys like Marshall, Gooden, D.Jones, Hughes, Z, etc got paid.

This may be heading down the Vince Carter's Raptors scenario: trying to keep a promising young star happy by overpaying semi-decent role players around him so they can keep a mediocre team together...

In a few years, the role players will age, the star will lose his enthusiasm, and will leave the team in shambles.

 

There are a lot worse teams in the league, I don't know why you'd single out a #2 seed out of all the teams out there.

 

bigz and hughes will hold that team back.

hughes is a good player, but paying him max money was just a dumb move

 

say no to deke...unless he takes another trip to the fountain of youth this summer

 

#2 only by default. but this is why i wish Zero wasn't hurt. i wanted him and the Wizards to give the CAvs a good fight and eventually take them out.

 

Worst uniforms in the history of the league. Whatever colors Golden State is wearing this week are a close second.

 

Aren't they are like 40 million dollars over the cap.