Raptors Did What Cavs Couldn’t

Four years ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers lost LeBron James to the Miami Heat via free agency and the team went from a perennial NBA power to a team that has been in the draft lottery every year since.

That same season, another team lost a premier free agent to the Heat and that team has recovered very nicely despite not having as good of a record as the wine and gold had the year before James left.

That would be the Toronto Raptors, who lost Chris Bosh, and yet they will enter the playoffs as the #3 seed in the Eastern Conference. And they did it despite not having the top pick in the draft twice since Bosh departed.

The Raptors won just 22 games the first year after their star free agent left, compared to the 19 games the Cavaliers won in the first season of the post-James era. So, there wasn’t much difference that first season.

The following season, Cleveland added first overall pick Kyrie Irving and the fourth choice in Tristan Thompson, who was selected one pick ahead of Toronto, who picked center Jonas Valanciunas, who sat out the following season because of a contractual situation in Europe.

The Raptors went 23-43 in the strike-shortened season, while the wine and gold were just two games behind, finishing up at 21-45.

In year two of the post-superstar era, Toronto traded for guard Kyle Lowry and drafted Terence Ross with the eighth overall pick in the NBA draft. Cleveland chose Dion Waiters with the fourth overall pick.

The Raptors also traded for Rudy Gay using Jose Calderon and former first round pick Ed Davis, and saw a player picked before Bosh’s last season with the team, DeMar DeRozan, blossom into a budding star.

Toronto jumped to 34 victories last season, while the young Cavaliers went 24-58, mostly because they won just four games the last two months of the season.

This past off-season, led by new GM Masai Ujiri, the Raptors traded former first overall pick Andrea Bargnani to New York for Steve Novak, some expiring contracts and draft picks. They also added Tyler Hansbrough as a free agent.

With DeRozan’s emergence, they were also able to deal Gay to Sacramento during this season, for John Salmons, Greivis Vasquez, Patrick Patterson, and Chuck Hayes, who have contributed greatly to the team’s success this season.

Cleveland also added some veterans to the roster this year in Luol Deng and Spencer Hawes, and the team improved over the second half of the season, playing .500 ball, but a horrible first half of the season has them currently with 12 less wins than the neighbors to the north.

The key move for Toronto looks to be trading a starter and a first round pick for Gay, and then swapping him out for some key role players once DeRozan replaced him as the primary scoring option.

That is to say, they traded from strength. They had Lowry, meaning Calderon was superfluous, and DeRozan’s play made Gay expendable as well.

The Cavs had plenty of talent tied up in two positions (point guard and power forward), but hasn’t used it to their advantage.

Hopefully, even though they started rebuilding at the same time, the Cavaliers are a year behind the Raptors and the 2014-15 season will signal the wine and gold’s return to Eastern Conference prominence.

However, the Cavs can tell you about the “process” all they want, but another team went out and started winning games.

It’s another reason to take a good hard look at the organization this summer.

Forget Last Ten Games, Cavs Need to Examine Organization

With the recent surge of good play over the last week or two, many basketball fans around the area have thrown out the idea that enough progress has been shown by the Cleveland Cavaliers to keep the status quo.

That would mean keeping acting GM David Griffin is his position and bringing back Mike Brown as head coach.

Those people are also ignoring the first 65 games of this NBA season, and focusing instead on the last ten.

That is a dangerous mistake.

Remember where most experts thought the Cavs would be when the season started, and that is the playoffs. Instead, the wine and gold will be watching the post-season again, and will once again be a part of the draft lottery, although not with the probability of getting one of the higher picks.

With the maturation of third year players Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson, and the experience gained last year by Dion Waiters and Tyler Zeller, along with the return of Anderson Varejao and the signing of Andrew Bynum, most people had the Cavaliers ready to make a decided leap in the standings.

Bynum didn’t work out here, but then-GM Chris Grant dealt him to the Bulls for two-time all-star F Luol Deng, and Griffin added another quality big man in Spencer Hawes at the trading deadline. Still, the wine and gold will be on the outside looking in when the playoffs arrive.

And you can’t forget the embarrassing losses to Sacramento and New York on the road, and to the Lakers at home, when Los Angeles had to play with a player who had already fouled out to end the game, and the Cavs still lost.

This is not to say that owner Dan Gilbert should clean house, but he should do an overview of the entire organization to see what the front office should be and should do going forward.

The first step would be to hire a basketball lifer and let him run the operations of the franchise, and it turn let that person decide who should be the GM and the coach. This is something the owner has proven to be too emotional to handle.

Our suggestion would be George Karl, who learned the game from Dean Smith and has spent an eternity in the professional game. But, anyone else with that type of background will do, and preferably no one with Piston ties (there is that emotion again).

That person should pick the GM, maybe Griffin, maybe not and let the GM pick the head coach.

We have been critical of Brown since he was hired, and let’s face it, he’s not an elite NBA head coach. The organization needs to at least look and see if there is someone more qualified to be on the bench guiding this young team.

Let’s face it, outside of Waiters, has any of Cleveland’s young talent thrived under Brown? There is no question that Irving, Thompson, and Zeller aren’t better than a year ago, and at their ages, they should be getting better.

Out of the rookies, only Matthew Dellavedova has seen significant playing time, while first overall pick Anthony Bennett and fellow first round choice Sergey Karasev will really be spending their rookie season in year two. Their development has been delayed by one year.

No matter what happens the rest of this season, the worst thing Gilbert should do is overlook the first half of the season because of the last month. That’s what bad organizations do. They take one good thing and project it over everything else.

Yes, it is difficult to make changes after one year, and Gilbert will set him up to look foolish by making a change. However, if in the end it makes the franchise better, then it will be the right thing.

That’s why you bring in a basketball person (again, not Isiah Thomas or Joe Dumars) to run things. Then, it is their decision to make changes to move the team forward.

That’s the wisest course of action for the Cavaliers.

Hopefully, Kyrie Learned While He Observed

A couple of weeks ago, Kyrie Irving injured his bicep and there was speculation that he would miss the balance of the season. The prevailing thought was the Cavaliers’ slim playoff chance went out the window.

Then, the team started winning and currently sit just three games out of the #8 spot in the Eastern Conference with the team sitting in that spot, the Atlanta Hawks, in a free fall.

Now, Irving is ready to return and the hope here is he learned while he has been sitting and watching his teammates win four of the last five games.

What has been clear to everyone watching the wine and gold over the past week is that the offense has better ball movement. No longer is the ball dominated by one player eating up the shot clock, instead everyone is getting involved.

And players who were thought to be underachieving are getting more results.

Jarrett Jack has been a whipping post most of the season by fans, but suddenly, he been very productive, averaging 15.0 points and 5.8 assists per game since Irving went down.

Luol Deng, another veteran who fans have felt hasn’t been as good as advertised, is shooting 48% in the last six games (he missed two games with a sprained ankle), compared to the 42% field goal percentage he has compiled since coming to Cleveland.

The simple answer is that suddenly the Cavs are a better team without Kyrie Irving, but that’s ridiculous.

Irving is most definitely a talent. He’s made two All-Star teams and was the MVP of the game this year.

However, at times, talented players need to understand that he has to trust his teammates. The biggest thing Phil Jackson accomplished in Chicago was getting Michael Jordan to understand this.

When Irving arrived here as the first overall pick, he was without question the only true offensive player wearing the wine and gold. If he didn’t make things happen when the Cavs had the ball, then no one did.

Now, Cleveland has some other options to score. Dion Waiters is showing he is capable of running the team and can certainly score. Jack can put the ball in the basket, and Deng is an all-star talent as well.

Newly acquired Spencer Hawes is a threat from behind the three-point line.

Irving has some players to run with and he has to make sure they get the ball where they need it to be effective and he has to understand that it is a hindrance to the success of the team to dominate the basketball. He has to get everyone involved.

When he takes the court this week, he needs to show his teammates that he wants to be part of the recent success the wine and gold has had.

That means showing that he and Waiters can not only co-exist, but start forming a very formidable backcourt tandem for the organization.

It also means deferring to Jack at times, and making sure that not only do Deng and Hawes get shots, they get the ball where they feel comfortable.

That’s called being a point guard and a team leader.

If Kyrie Irving does that for the rest of the season, it will go a long way toward the ultimate success of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and also show he is willing to pay the price it takes to be a winner in the NBA.

Brown Not Right Guy to Lead Cavs in Future

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ slim playoff chances seem to be dwindling everyday, meaning soon it will be time to look forward to the 2014-15 season, and another appearance in the draft lottery.

It also means the organization has to look within, examining whether or not they have the correct people in place.

Has acting GM David Griffin done enough to keep the job going forward? His deal for Spencer Hawes looks good, and here’s hoping the wine and gold can keep the big man for the future because he can do one thing desperately needed on this squad, he can shoot.

Whether or not Griffin stays, one thing is clear: The Cavaliers need to find a new head coach next season because Mike Brown isn’t the guy to change things around here.

Brown is a great guy, but he came here with a reputation as a defensive coach, but so far the results aren’t there. Cleveland ranks in the middle of the pack (16th) in field goal percentage against, and 17th in the league in scoring defense.

That hardly speaks to a great defensive mind.

While some will say that this is his first year with this group of players, why have other new coaches have success around the league?

Memphis hired Dave Joerger to replace Lionel Hollins after a successful season last year, and Joerger still has the Grizzlies third in the league in points allowed and 10th in defensive field goal percentage.

Charlotte hired Steve Clifford, an obscure NBA assistant, and he has turned the Bobcats into one of the league’s better defensive squads, ranking 5th in points allowed and 7th in shooting percentage against.

The Cavaliers have played 64 games already this season and they are still trying to figure out how to play effective defense? That doesn’t reflect well on the relationship Mike Brown has with his players, who obviously haven’t bought in to what he is teaching.

The Cavs still give up too many easy shots, allow players to get to the basket with ease, and have lapses at inopportune times on the defensive end.

And as the old saying goes, you can’t fire 15 players, so it’s the coach who has to go.

Besides the lack of progress on the defensive end, Brown’s offensive game plan is highly simplistic and is based pretty much solely on having players takes their man off the dribble. When the defense takes that away, there is no alternative.

And Brown has no history of developing young players either, and the Cleveland roster is full of them.

First overall pick Anthony Bennett hasn’t contributed much this season, but in the team’s recent six game winning streak, he was getting some minutes and averaged eight points and 6.5 rebounds per game.

Since, he played more than 15 minutes in a game just twice.

In last night’s loss to the Knicks at home, second leading scorer Dion Waiters played a grand total of 14 minutes. How does that happen?

Tristan Thompson hasn’t improved, Luol Deng, a two-time all-star in the NBA looks lost on the court, and even the Cavs’ franchise player, Kyrie Irving’s numbers are down across the board from last season.

One of last year’s first round draft picks, Tyler Zeller, has his minutes fluctuate on a nightly basis.

Mike Brown has had success in the NBA as a head coach, but in every year but this one, he has coached one of the sport’s best players, be it either LeBron James or Kobe Bryant. Without one of them on the team, he looks like just another guy.

The 2014-15 version of the Cavaliers needs a head coach who will demand and command the respect of the young players on this roster. If Dan Gilbert wants this team to move forward, he needs to find that man.

It won’t happen with Mike Brown.

This Off-Season, It’s Time for Cavs to Deal Andy

The Cleveland Cavaliers probably won’t make the playoffs this season because they have too much of a deficit behind Charlotte and Atlanta and a tough March schedule to maneuver.

Still, it was the right move to try to get in the post-season, and the trades obtaining Luol Deng and Spencer Hawes were worth making, and an effort should be made to keep both for next season.

After all, the Cavs are still a very young team with Kyrie Irving just turning 22 years old, Dion Waiters just reach that age in December, and Tristan Thompson will hit 23 years of age later this month.

All three players have plenty of improvement which will be made by experience and getting stronger with age.

Even Hawes won’t turn 26 until just after the season ends, and he has played well in a Cavs’ uniform thus far, averaging almost 14 points and nine rebounds since coming over from Philadelphia at the trade deadline.

Keeping the free agent would give the wine and gold depth so they can finally make the move they should have made the season after LeBron James left town for Miami.

It’s time to deal Anderson Varejao.

Every year, the Cavaliers trick themselves into thinking “Wild Thing” will be healthy, because when he is, he is a quality NBA big man, averaging almost 8 points and 8 rebounds per game, mostly due to a highly active style of play.

He takes charges, dives for loose balls, and keeps plays alive and does so with relentless effort.

Because he’s been the best big man on the team since James left, he has often been overexposed, playing too many minutes. When that happens, the Brazilian gets hurt, thus having no impact on the team.

This has been a trademark of Varejao’s career. He misses a lot of games, playing 75 games or more just three times (’06-’07, ’08-’09, and ’09-’10) in his ten-year NBA career.

Yes, injuries are a part of sports, but when it happens to the same players year in and year out, it is not a coincidence. They are injury prone, thus no longer reliable to the team they play for.

The same thing happened with Courtney Brown for the Browns, and Grady Sizemore for the Indians. They simply couldn’t stay on the field long enough to make a contribution.

In those four years since he appeared in 76 games in 2009-2010, Varejao has missed 162 out of a possible 291 games, that’s more than half of the contests played by the wine and gold.

He has currently missed the team’s last 10 games with a back injury.

Assuming he will be back soon, the acquisition of Hawes means Mike Brown can play Varejao less minutes, meaning he will have a better opportunity to stay in the lineup, and off of the training table.

The Cavs need to establish Varejao’s health for the rest of the season so they can use him as a trade chip this summer in an effort to help the organization. The last few years, his injuries were season ending, so nobody was willing to deal for him until he showed he could get back on an NBA floor.

His skill set would be very important to a team trying to make a push toward a title, so however the GM is this summer, should be able to make a favorable deal for Cleveland.

It will be a bittersweet day, because Varejao is the last link to the glory teams in Cleveland, including the one that made the NBA Finals in 2007. But the time has come to make the move.

What is needed is for Varejao to get back on the floor this season.

Tribe’s Success Doesn’t Help Dolan’s Image With Fans

There is no question that in the past few months, both the Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Cavaliers’ organizations have shown to be less than stable.

Browns’ owner Jimmy Haslam has replaced his head coach, his CEO, and his general manager in a six-week span since the end of the season. In addition, his football has lost ten games or more (the baseball equivalent of losing 100 games) six years in a row, and ten out of the last 11 seasons.

The Cavaliers have been a mediocre franchise ever since LeBron James departed, qualifying for a lottery pick each and every year, and not a low pick either, the wine and gold have had one of the NBA’s worst five records each season.

And recently Dan Gilbert fired his GM and replaced his head coach following last season.

Yet, the least popular owner in the city happens to own the franchise that has had the most success. That would be Indians’ owners Larry and Paul Dolan.

There are several reasons for the lack of popularity, the first being Gilbert and Haslam come off pretty well in press conferences, showing people, whether or not it can occur, that they are determined to bring a championship to Cleveland in their respective sports.

The Dolans probably shouldn’t talk to the media because when they do, they say things like the best fans can hope for is contending every once in a while due to the economic restraints in baseball.

That really doesn’t give fans a great deal of confidence.

To be fair, the Indians have the most stable front office in team president Mark Shapiro, who has been here for 23 years, and GM Chris Antonetti has been with the Tribe since 1998. And they lured Terry Francona, a two-time World Series champion as manager to the same post with the Indians.

So again, why the lack of love for the Tribe ownership, particularly in comparison to the other woebegone franchise on the North Coast?

There is a lack of trust for the Dolan family, even though they are from here, while Haslam and Gilbert aren’t.

Part of that comes from the article in Forbes showing the Tribe was making large amounts of profit. While the number may not have been accurate, the magazine should be regarded as a reliable source. After all, the figure didn’t appear in the National Enquirer.

Fans should understand that owners need to make a profit, but they would still like to see more money poured into the product on the field too.

The fans don’t feel like it’s a priority for the ownership to win a World Series for the city. The other owners talk about it, they may not really mean it, but they have enough sense to communicate the desire to the fan base.

This off-season is a perfect example of what we are saying.

Interest in the Tribe, dormant for a while, picked up in September as the ballclub was making a push for the post-season. The wild card home game sold out very quickly.

Yet, some of that momentum has been subdued due to a relatively quiet off-season in which the Indians have lost more (starting pitchers Ubaldo Jimenez and Scott Kazmir) than they added.

That’s the problem in a nutshell.

Had ownership opened up the purse strings even a little and allowed the front office to make a good acquisition, and there were some decent values out there, some trust would have been gained.

Instead, Tribe fans are muttering “same old Dolans”, and counting on Francona’s expertise to return to the post-season.

If they accomplish a playoff spot again, it will help the ownership’s cause. If they don’t, the anger toward them will like get more intense.

Grant’s Flaw Was Not Building A Team

Over the past few weeks, we have been critical of the roster mix for the Cleveland Cavaliers, calling them and their roster of point guards and power forwards the “island of misfit toys”.

Today, GM Chris Grant paid for that roster construction with his job, being fired by owner Dan Gilbert after another disgusting loss to an undermanned Los Angeles Laker squad last night.

The question now is who is running the show going into the trade deadline, which figured to be the first step into reshaping this roster. It looks like assistant GM David Griffin gets the gig for now.

You also have to wonder what Grant’s firing means for Mike Brown, because you would have to imagine the new GM would want to hire his own coach, unless someone is promoted internally.

Grant made some solid trades in his tenure, getting a first round choice from the Lakers for Ramon Sessions, trading Jon Leuer to Memphis for three players and another first rounder, and getting Luol Deng from Chicago for Andrew Bynum, a player the team had suspended.

However, it will be questionable draft picks that sealed Grant’s fate.

He operated out of the box on his picks, taking Tristan Thompson at #4 three years ago, which was surprising, and he selected Dion Waiters in the same spot the following year when it appeared he would be picked later.

This year’s use of the first overall pick on Anthony Bennett didn’t help his cause.

The issue isn’t the talent level of Thompson and Waiters, both have shown they can play in the NBA, the problem is the Cavs have become a puzzle whose pieces do not fit together.

Thompson is the same type of player as Anderson Varejao, and Bennett is a power forward, the same position Thompson primarily plays.

Waiters is a player who likes to have the ball in his hands. Unfortunately, so does one of the team’s best players: Kyrie Irving.

So, those two have a problem playing together.

We get that Grant took who he felt were the most talented players at that spot, and really that is the purpose of the draft.

However, a good general manager needs to see that he has duplicated talent and use the excess assets to get people who can play positions where they have needs.

Grant tried by getting Deng, but he didn’t seem to value shooting the basketball as a skill set needed to win basketball games.

Looking at the roster, the closest the wine and gold have to a pure shooter is swingman C.J. Miles, who Grant signed as a free agent.

His coaching hire doesn’t seem to have worked out either, although there didn’t seem to be an exhausting search. Whether that was Dan Gilbert’s decision or Grant’s, we just don’t know.

Mike Brown was a curious choice, not only because he used to coach here, but because he seems to favor veteran players, and the current Cavaliers are a very young basketball team.

Now, where does this franchise go?

The obvious answer is the dreaded “tank” word, but unless the new GM is predisposed to deal a high draft choice, all that will do is bring another “project” onto a team replete with them.

Does the reformation of this basketball team start with another deal before the NBA trading deadline? It’s pretty clear a change needs to be made because they can’t go through another 30 games playing like they have the last two weeks.

However, the new GM will have to act quickly to start getting the Cavaliers on the correct path. He also has to make a decision on who will be the coach.

Firing Grant was a tough move to make, but the direction of this team had to be changed. The guess here is this was just the first shot fired.

Cavs’ Woes Rooted in Several Areas

Proof that the Cleveland Cavaliers have become out-and-out dysfunctional is that you can make a case that the problems lie with GM Chris Grant, coach Mike Brown, and the players.

If it were just a matter of not having talent, then you can blame the GM. However, there is talent, but it is duplicated at certain positions. For the Cavs, it seems to be centered at the point guard and power forward spots.

While Grant may have picked the most talented players that were available at the slots they were taken, and you can make that argument at the time of the draft, he didn’t follow through on dealing the excess of talent at one spot to fix a hole at another position.

There is no question that Kyrie Irving, Luol Deng, Anderson Varejao, Dion Waiters, and Tristan Thompson can play in this league. Unfortunately, they clearly do not fit together on the court, and dealing one of them for a shooter would be in the best interests of the wine and gold.

When Byron Scott was fired as Cleveland’s head coach after last season, Grant brought back his friend, Mike Brown to handle the reins.

Brown got the job despite having no real track record of developing young talent. The teams he coached in Cleveland and Los Angeles were veteran laden squads.

He returned to the north coast based on his reputation as a defensive minded coach. His offensive schemes were poor in his first go-round here and there is no evidence that anything has changed.

So, predictably, none of the Cavalier young players, most of the roster is made up of second and third year players, have shown any progress from last season. Even Irving, rookie of the year and an all-star in his second season, has seemed to have plateaued this year.

And remember, the Cavs had the first overall pick in last summer’s draft. Brown has never showed any inclination to play rookies, so Anthony Bennett has been anchored to the bench for much of the season.

Brown’s offensive set is for players to take their man off the dribble and force the opposing defense to help. That worked when the best player on the team is LeBron James or Kobe Bryant, both of whom are significantly bigger than Irving.

There is little screening away from the ball and virtually no movement away from the ball on many possessions.

This morning, The Plain Dealer’s Bud Shaw opined that the front office needs to show Brown is in charge. While that’s true, it would also help if Brown showed he was in charge.

We wrote earlier in the season, that with the coach being fired twice, he should have come in with a “doing it my way” approach. He seems too nice of a man to be the hammer the young Cavs need.

Which brings us to the players. Yes, they are young and inexperienced for the most part, but it doesn’t appear they are all that upset with all of the losing. It has come to light that this upsets newcomer Deng, who must be shaking his head at the lack of interest his teammates show from night-to-night.

The players are feuding in the locker room, and there seems to be an individualistic approach to the game for many of the young players.

Shouldn’t that have been thought of when they were drafted?

That brings us back to Grant, the beginning point of this vicious circle.

There is plenty of blame to go around for this edition of the Cleveland Cavaliers. How it gets fixed will be very important for the future of this franchise.

There will probably be changes in all three phases of the organization.

In Retrospect, Cavs’ Problems Started in Summer

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.

Now, On to The Cavs’ Mess

Two weeks ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers traded a suspended Andrew Bynum for two-time all-star Luol Deng and basketball fans on the north coast were optimistic.

Deng started playing with the wine and gold at the beginning of a five game trip to the west coast, and although they took a horrible blowout loss at the hands of the Sacramento Kings, they went 3-2 on the road (despite going into the trek with just two wins away from The Q), and basketball fans here were optimistic.

Then the Cavs came home for a five game homestand, and promptly lost the first two games, both with disappointing efforts.

That slapped fans of the wine and gold back into reality.

Why this basketball feels it can just show up and win games despite the fact they are 15-27 on the season is baffling. Yet, night after night, they appear to be lackadaisical, fall behind, and then lose to teams they should beat, especially at home.

Something needs to change and quickly, because the season is more than halfway complete.

If the Browns are considered a mess, the Cavs aren’t very far behind.

The playoffs can still be attained, but it is very clear at this point that the roster GM Chris Grant put together and the coach Grant hired do not mix well.

And since the Cavs had the same problems last year under Byron Scott, it looks to be a more player related issue. Although we didn’t like the Brown rehire when it was made, and his offensive concepts are deplorable, it doesn’t seem to be on the coach.

The ridiculous notion that it would be more beneficial to miss the playoffs and re-enter the draft lottery makes you shake your head. It is typical of the “we’ll be good in the future” attitude that surrounds the Browns and permeates the city.

What you will get in the lottery is another player who will need time to develop his game. Yes, it’s a deeper draft, but how many players projected to come out can be expected to start on an NBA team, particularly the Cavaliers, next season?

There will be a couple for sure, so you could make the comment that unless you get a top three pick, you will get another project. And isn’t the Cleveland roster full of guys who need to develop and play better?

That’s another reason Grant should have considered another coach, because Brown has no track record of developing and finishing off players. Have any of the young Cavs improved over last season?

You can’t make a case for any of them.

And the young players don’t seem to be showing a great deal of respect for Brown either, because they clearly aren’t working hard, particularly on the defensive end, which is the coach’s forte.

Look at the way Cleveland’s opponent last night, the Bulls, played. Granted, their roster isn’t filled with young players like the Cavs, but they went out and played hard, played defense, and won even though they were without two starters, and had traded Deng here two weeks ago.

Grant and Brown need to take a good look at the roster and see who fits what they are trying to do, and who doesn’t.

The players who don’t should be moved elsewhere for players who will fit the system. And this needs to be done quickly.

The Cavs aren’t playing any rookies this season. Everyone has been in the league now for at least a year and a half, so the front office should be able to identify whom they can build with.

We understand that with young teams comes inconsistency. But that shouldn’t pertain to effort and defense.

That message isn’t getting through to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Something has to change to make sure it does.