Tag: chris bosh

Will Bosh’s Feelings Affect Love?

We have always had the thought that everyone likes to win, but we’d rather have players that hate to lose.

We will find out this season if the Cleveland Cavaliers have enough of the latter.

All of the holdovers from last season’s team have to be thrilled to have players like LeBron James, Kevin Love, Mike Miller, and Shawn Marion join the roster, because the days of finishing under .500 are over.  The sheer talent brought in this off-season pretty much guarantees that.

However, if all of those players loathe losing, then the Cavs have a chance to be something special.

We bring this up because of Chris Bosh’s comments today about playing with a guy like James, more specifically the adjustments that Kevin Love will have to make coming from being the best player on a also-ran to being the second or third best player on a great team.

We agree with Bosh that some guys can make that transition and other guys can’t.

Going back in NBA history, we can think of at least two times where a superstar player subjugated his game for the good of the team.

The first is when Wilt Chamberlain did it twice, first with the 1966-67 Philadelphia 76ers, and again with the Lakers in 1971-72.

In the first case, The Big Dipper’s scoring average dropped from 33.5 to 24.1 and his assist total jumped from 5.2 to 7.8 playing with the likes of Hal Greer, Chet Walker, and Luke Jackson.

With the Lakers in 71-72, Chamberlain’s scoring average dipped drastically again from 20.7 to 14.8, allowing Jerry West, Gail Goodrich, and Jim McMillian to do the heavy lifting in the scoring department.

Earl Monroe made a similar transition when he went from prolific scorer with the Baltimore Bullets (20.0 plus average) to fit in with a very good New York Knicks group.

In recent times, we saw the Boston Celtics put together Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen to go with Paul Pierce, and win a title in their first year together.  All three had to change their games for the greater good.

If you think that is normal, think about how many titles Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant could have one if either decided taking a step back was worth it to collect more hardware.

The fact that the situation in Miami the past few seasons seems to irritate Bosh slightly is probably the reason it didn’t work in the long run.  And if Bosh hated losing, he wouldn’t have cared how many touches he would be getting, as long as the Heat kept collecting Larry O’Brien Trophies.

Comparing Love to Bosh, remember that Love wanted to come here once James announced his return because he wanted to escape the losing.  He didn’t come to Cleveland as part of a plan devised by friends while playing together on the US National team.

Plus, passing has always been a part of Love’s game, going back to his college days.  We were struck watching him at UCLA the good court vision he had, and that was before he became an outside shooting threat.

Only time will tell of course, but it seems that Love has the disdain for losing that is needed to play with James.  There is no question that players like Love, Miller, Marion, etc. came to Cleveland not only to play with LeBron, but to play with him knowing a title was very much possible.

The bigger question is can they all, including James, sacrifice individual stats to accomplish that goal.

Another huge question is how the holdover Cavs handle the culture change as well.  With the youth in that group, that could be the bigger challenge.

JK

 

Some Random Opinions

School’s out for summer as Alice Cooper so famously sang, and people will start vacationing soon.  Father’s Day is next week, and the guys at Cleveland Sports Perspective had some things to get off their chests.

The Heat Thing.
Tonight is Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals (apparently now called the ECF by the NBA marketing folks), and most people in this town are hoping for an elimination of the Miami Heat.

Most people nationally (read…ESPN) think folks in Cleveland feel that way because LeBron James left the Cavaliers in free agency.  At least for us, that’s not the case.

That is still a sore subject, but it’s more than that.  It’s the way the Miami players carry themselves.  They act like rock stars, even though, they’ve won nothing as of yet.  The whole party after the signings of James and Chris Bosh was gauche.

The four letter network’s Doug Gottlieb, who is an excellent basketball analyst said yesterday that fans should “get over it”.  Why?  When people act like jerks, and never acknowledge it, why should we forget.  Because they are good?

It’s the old school people who can’t stand the Heat, because they represent the “AAU mindset” in basketball.  All purists who love the sport, not just those from Cleveland, hope either the Celtics or Thunder deprive the Heat, with the love they receive from ESPN, a title.

Those teams have great players, but they arrived via trades or the draft.  It’s the same reason most baseball fans hate the Yankees, no one likes the perception that you can buy a championship.

Interleague Play in Baseball
If one more person tells you there is more strategy in the National League game, please feel free to slap them in the face.  It’s simply not true.

If there is less than two out and a runner on base when the pitcher comes up, the manager is going to have him bunt.  What’s the strategy there?  It always happens.

Oh, and the argument that when to take the pitcher out of a game doesn’t hold water either.  An American League manager has to make a decision, the NL skipper is forced to pinch hit late in a game he is trailing in.  That kind of makes the decision for him.

Fans of the Senior Circuit seem to think you need a PhD from M.I.T. to pull of a double switch.  In reality, you just take out the guy who made the last out and put him in the pitcher’s spot.

It’s not rocket science, and watching a guys who have batting averages of around .125 hit instead of a legitimate hitter isn’t entertaining.  The whole world of baseball uses the DH except the National League.  Why should everyone else conform.

The Leadoff Man
Heard some people arguing today about whether or not Michael Brantley should return to the #1 spot in the batting order, now that he’s hitting.

Why?  Because he’s fast and plays centerfield?

The job of the leadoff hitter is to get on base.  Shin-Soo Choo does that almost 38% of the time.  Brantley does it 32.5% of the time.  Why would you make a change?

The argument would seem to be the Choo can hit homers and drive in runs.

However, Brantley’s slugging percentage is three points higher than Choo’s, and he has 11 more RBI’s than the rightfielder.

Traditional baseball people might flip-flop the pair in the batting order, but right now Manny Acta has it correct.  Shin-Soo Choo should hit first, and Brantley in the middle of the order.

JK/MW/KM