Cleveland: Is Management/Mike Brown Good

In Cleveland Lebron is the Messiah. He gets what he wants and Brown is smart enough to know that. That makes him a good coach in Cleveland. Not saying he doesn't have any basketball knowledge, and doesn't deserve alot of the credit for this season. Surely he does, only if Lebron didn't like him or give him the okay he'd be gone in a second no matter how smart. Coaching is not always about the players but in Lebron's case it is for now.

 

danny ferry has done a decent job. i say decent because building a team with loads of capspace and lebron isn't hard.

every FA on the market wanted to sign there.

- he lost out on boozer.
- made a great trade for gooden, but that doesn't replace boozer.
- signed an often injured houghs to a large contract.
- signed damon jones to a full MLE contract.
- made a nice move for snow, but he's on a large contract too.
- signed donyell marshall to a good contract. nice move here.
- drafted verajao. great move, but could be lucky.

he did a good job overall but i think anyone could've done a good job with those conditions. a better-than-average GM could've done better. especially with the amount of large contracts ferry added to the cap.

as for mike brown: i think he's a great assistant, but not a good head coach right now. the cavs do well in the post season because of lebron and the rest of the east being so bad.

brown hasn't outcoached anyone in the playoffs yet. not even in one game. an extention for him would be wrong.

 

Not really and no. LeBron does a good job of making people look better than they are. Ferry saddled up a lot of bad contracts, overpaying to try and build quick. Hughes, Z, Marshall, Snow, and Jones are barely worth half of what they make (combined $40 mill this year). And now they have to find a way to keep Varejao around when he's probably going to get no less than the MLE, if not a $7 to $8 mill offer from someone (never underestimated the dollars a PF will see). He also fumbled away draft picks needlessly in trades.

I believe the Boozer incident happened before the Ferry tenure began, but I could be mistaken.

Brown's coattail rider like the best of them. But if he keeps LeBron happy, they win. All a Larry Brown type would do is run LeBron off or get himself fired.

I'd give them both a C.

Evan

 

Cavs have the easiest path to the finals. If you watched their round 1 (vs the Wizards) & 2 (vs the Nets), you know what I mean. Pistons helped them by playing poorly in the ECF. In the WC, Cavs would be bearly the 8th seed.

Mike Brown has done a good joob to make the Cavs into a good defense team. But the Cavs are not good in offense. Mike Brown didnt even know how to manage TOs. Other than that, Mike Brown makes me throw up everytime in postgame interview when he tries to kiss every inch of LeBron. May be Brown should change his last name to LeBrown.

Everybody now jump out to say Dan Ferry and Mike Brown have done a terrific job. But look at their signings - Larry Huges, Damon Jones, Donyell Marshalls ... those are all so-so signings when you count against $$$. However, the Cavs did find some good young prospects from the drafts and are willing to play them. The Cavs' management has done a good job in some aspects. But to think LeBron and the Cavs will dominate the East in the coming years is a joke.

The East is so wide open, there are many teams that can break out with some right tweaks or luck. The Cavs is only one the those teams. So, it's always better lucky than good.


I

 

Dan Ferry didnt lose out on Boozer. It's Paxson.

 

They kind of remind me of Toronto a few years back, when they re-signed Alvin Williams, Antonio Davis, etc because they had a decent team and their young superstar Vince Carter wanted them back.


The differences between the situations are:

1. Lebron James is a better star than Vince Carter.
2. Cleveland had a little better luck with the guys they spent on... sure Hughes is injured and D.Jones is pretty useless, but remember Alvin Williams' career basically ended soon after his new contract, and Tony Davis aged rapidly.
3. The Eastern Conference got crappier and crappier. I'm not so sure the old Vince Carter Raptors wouldn't have made it to the Conference Finals at least in today's Eastern Conference.

 

Mike Brown is very good at getting his players to play hard-nosed defense.

His only offensive strategy seems to be to allow LeBron to create something on his own. They are extremely limited offensively.

 

ah, my mistake.

still, the overpriced contracts are terrible. the talent that was added is nice, but anyone could've added talent with capspace and lebron. the difference being that most GM's wouldn't grossly overpay.

 

I think Coach Brown is average overall, but very good on defense. He knows who the king is . Any coach who tries to be numero uno will fired . The Larry Browns and JVG wouldn't last half a season.

 

Everyone's already picked out the major points. Brown is a great defensive coach, absolutely zero on offense though. He'd be better as an assistant right now. As for GM issues during Lebron's tenure, they've paid too much for too little. On paper they did what they were supposed to: get the best wingman for Lebron (at the time Hughes was the best one left), surround him w/ 3 pt shooters (Marshall, Jones), and get a banging PF (unfortunately he left). W/ Big Z, although he's been up and down and generally gotten softer, there's still not many better centers and even then it's not worth the price for a marginal improvement.

I'm surprised how well the Cavs have done w/ the young guys: Varejao, Pavlovic, and (lately) Gibson though.

On an unrelated note, I am really happy for Z to experience this moment. For better or worse he's been the face of the franchise and the best player in Cleveland until Lebron came. The best guy he's had before LBJ was probably Andre Miller. Besides that it's been a revolving door of people who shouldn't be starters on any team (including super cancerous Ricky Davis, and father of the year Shawn Kemp). I can't help but think his frequent foot injuries have hampered him much like Sabonis: could've, should've, would've. Combined w/ the unfortunate miscarriage of twins his wife had recently, seeing him and James hug after game 6 was seeing the Cavs come full circle.

 

Don't expect Brown to get any credit. He's not a high-profile guy. He does what he should and lets James play his game, create and take over. People too often mistake over-coaching for good coaching. Over-coaching sucks.

I guess a "better" coach would have had the Cavs sweeping the Pistons. Sure.

 

To me, Mike Brown reminds me a lot of JVG, even Greg Popovich. You give Mike Brown the Spurs, just as you give JVG the Spurs, they'd easily be champions. They're all about defense first, and then run your offense through your stars. Get out and run if it's there, otherwise set up the crappy half-court offense. It might suck, but it wins. Mike Brown = black JVG.

 

It's too bad Brown doesn't know jack about offense. I'd love to see Lebron in a run and gun system. Just imagine Magic with more athletic ability.

 

so who's better at offense: JVG or Mike Brown? Where do Larry Brown, SVG, Popovich, and Riley fit into the equation, because without All-Star teams, they're not very good at offense either?

 

I'll give credit to Mike Brown, he's got them playing hard nosed defense exactly the style needed to be successful in the playoffs. For Brown San Antonio was a great place to learn that style of play. Didn't I see a piece about his half time prep where he has the video team break down the first half and takes it back to the players to make adjustments for the second half, not sure how many teams do that but its an indication of his organizational ability.

Danny Ferry has done OK. The players he's surrounded LBJ with are solid role players but none of them is another bona fide star like LBJ.

LBJ has to be given credit for carrying that team, he is the real deal, 4 year player that had this vision of getting the Cavs to the big show and he has backed it up. The Cavs beat the Spurs twice in the regular season so you have to give them a chance to compete in the finals. Yeah the Spurs are peaking now and should beat the Cavs handily but LBJ has an aura about him that tells me they have a chance to shock the Spurs. If they can steal one of the games in SA, I think a lot of people are going to take notice.

 

Good thread with good questions and good answers.

I agree with the consensus:

Ferry = average to bad. Too many bad moves/contracts to give him much credit. Big Zero, Donyell "The Bust" Marshall, Damon "Totally Worthless" Jones, Larry "I'm Hurt" Hughes can all be pinned on Ferry. Paul Silas was why Boozer wanted out of Cleveland.

Brown = mediocre. Great defense; horrific offense. Maybe he will grow into the job and improve on offense. Their intensity and effort on defense proves he can motivate the players to do what he wants. Why he can't whip them into being more disciplined on offense is a mystery. 99% of the time they start running a set play, if the defense even tries to stop them they abandon it and LeBron ends up freelancing. Pop isn't a great offensive coach but he has a full playbook and the Spurs methodically run plays that get decent shots no matter what the defense does.

To answer your last question: The Cavs are lucky to have such a creative player like LeBron. Without LeBron's magic on offense, Mike Brown may be nothing more than a likeable version of Dwayne Casey (formerly of the T-Wolves).