The Cleveland Cavaliers are not only a mess on the court; their front office is now sticking its collective head in the sand.
Yesterday, GM Chris Grant met with the media (a noble thing because it’s easy to meet with them when things are going well) to talk about his basketball team, who came off a 3-2 west coast trip for a five game home stand, and went just 1-4.
However, Grant identified the five game trek away from Quicken Loans Arena as the real Cavaliers, not the 13-27 record they have in all games outside of that trip.
Here’s hoping the GM was just doing media lip service with that comment because right now this season has been a comedy of errors.
First, after firing Byron Scott, presumably because the Cavs blew several huge leads and had a problem defensively, Grant hired his old friend and former Cleveland coach Mike Brown, a guy with a strong defensive reputation.
The fact of the matter is the wine and gold still aren’t playing any better on the defensive end, and Brown’s trouble on the offensive end are once again rearing their ugly head.
Second, Grant used three picks in last summer’s draft on players who aren’t helping the team, including the first overall pick, Anthony Bennett.
Bennett was out of shape in training camp due to off-season shoulder surgery, struggled early, and then fell out of Brown’s rotation.
Sergey Karasev, who has the reputation as a good shooter, is simply too young and inexperienced to play yet at the NBA level, and Carrick Felix, who came with a good reputation as a defender in college, were the other two picks.
For a team who finished in the lottery last season to get nothing out of the draft is a crime, even if it was a weak draft.
Bennett has some ability, but the pressure the coaching staff felt to win right away put him on the bench, or perhaps it is Brown’s inclination to not ever give rookies playing time.
Based on his history, he tends to leave inexperienced players on the bench.
Wasn’t that taken into consideration when he was hired?
The next moves were to bring in some veteran free agents, G Jarrett Jack, F Earl Clark, and C Andrew Bynum. The former’s primary position is point guard, which is manned by the Cavs’ best player, Kyrie Irving.
Jack can play the shooting guard spot too, meaning he does the same things as last year’s first round pick, Dion Waiters.
You can make the conclusion that this acquisition didn’t fill a need it just added a body.
The same is true of Clark, a power forward by trade who plays the same spot as two of the Cavs’ better players: Tristan Thompson and Anderson Varejao.
Bynum did fill a need, a quality NBA center, but he was coming off a knee injury that caused him to miss all of last season. It was a gamble, so it’s difficult to be critical of this move, particularly because Grant moved the big man to get a quality player in Luol Deng.
It’s been a sad, slow trip through the off-season to get to this point in what has been a horrible basketball season.
Pretty much every move Grant made has blown up in his face.
Yes, we agreed with some when they were made (signing Jack) and disagreed with others (hiring Brown).
When you look back, none of them have worked. Now, Grant is faced with fixing the mess he created in order to save his job.
JK
Cleveland Sports Perspective 