There’s Plenty of Time for Rest for Cavs’ Big Three

It never ceases to amaze us on the craziness of Cleveland as a sports city.

We guess until we finally win the coveted championship we’ve waited for over sixty years, it will not change.

Usually, the insanity revolves around the Cleveland Browns, but today’s piece is about the franchise that clinched a playoff spot last night, the Cavaliers.

Making the playoffs is a bit anti-climatic, since the Cavs have won 26 of their last 32 games, and since the hot streak started, we all knew they were going to make the post-season.

But the craziness is about resting the team’s best players: LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love.

Love missed the last two games of the last trip the team was on, sitting out against the Magic and Heat, and when it was reported that James missed the shoot around prior to yesterday’s contest vs. the Pacers, the argument started again.

There is no doubt James is sore at this time of year, but he shares that along with most of the sport’s players. He’s 30 years old, and to be sure his back and knees probably feel much older than that at this point in the season.

However, yesterday, he had a cold! Most of us go to work and perform our everyday functions with a cold. We take some medicine and go about our day.

There were those who said James should sit out, and there were even callers on local sports talk stations advocating that James sit out the rest of the season to have him completely healthy for the playoffs.

That is ridiculous, and those people probably don’t own a calendar.

The regular season ends on April 15th, which for you non-math majors is 25 days away. That would be almost four weeks.

Do we really want LeBron James going into the playoffs having sat for four weeks?

Remember the 2008-09 playoffs, when the Cavs vanquished both of their foes in the first two rounds of the playoffs in four games, and had to sit for a week waiting for Orlando to advance?

The Cavs got a little stale and lost game one at home, and could never regain the home court advantage, nor the momentum they had going after sweeping the first two rounds.

Plus, despite LeBron’s protests, it is better for David Blatt’s team to get the #2 seed in the East and have home court advantage for at least the first two rounds of the playoffs.

And with Chicago just 2-1/2 games behind and playing well as of late, the wine and gold still need to win some more contests.

The guess here is the Cavs can accomplish winning the division, thus clinching one of the top three seeds, probably #2 since Toronto is now three games back, with at least a week to spare.

That means Blatt can sit James, Irving, and Love for a full week if they all want to before the playoffs get underway. That would be plenty of time to ease their collective bumps and bruises.

Plus, after this three game trip to Milwaukee, Memphis, and Brooklyn, the Cavaliers will be at home for seven of their next nine games.

Included in those home games are contests against the Sixers, Celtics, and Pistons. If Blatt were to rest James in any of those games, it would be understandable.

Look we all want the Cavs to win the NBA title this year, but locking LeBron James in a vault for the rest of the regular season isn’t the answer either.

We trust James and Blatt to work together to get the league’s best player the rest he needs heading into the playoffs. Let’s not forget the wine and gold still need to win some games in the regular season too.

Why Baseball’s All Star Game is Still The King

Last Sunday night as we were driving around northeastern Ohio, we checked in on what was going on at the NBA All Star Game, and we were soured almost immediately.

The game was late in the first half, with the score in the 70’s for both teams, and we heard the play-by-play man say there was only one foul called during the game. We thought that he had to misspeak, that it would be impossible for virtually no fouls to be called in the first half of a professional basketball game.

Sure enough, when we checked the statistics for the first half (mainly to see how LeBron James and Kyrie Irving were doing), we saw the announcer was accurate.

The lack of fouls indicates that a total lack of defense was in the game. Quite simply, no one was even trying on the defensive end.

We felt that the NBA’s star spectacular is now no different from the Pro Bowl and the NHL All Star contest, meaning it bears no relationship to the sport that gets played throughout the regular season.

That might be fine for the younger basketball fans, but what they are playing in that game isn’t basketball, much like the travesty that is the Pro Bowl is really no longer football.

And no one would complain if that game just went away.

No one is suggesting that players take charges, or hammer someone to the floor trying to stop a lay up attempt. But would it kill someone to get in someone’s way every once in a while?

Not to be showing our age, but in the 80’s and 90’s, the players did play some defense, Michael Jordan didn’t want someone scoring 40 points while he was on the floor, and while the players ran the floor and threw fancy, jaw-dropping passes you wouldn’t see in the regular season, there was still a competitive aspect to the game.

That’s why baseball’s mid-summer classic is still the king, and it’s because of the nature of the sport.

Baseball is the only sport where the defense (being the pitcher) has the ball. For Clayton Kershaw to show his skills on the mound, he has to keep a batter from showing what he can do.

It’s the essence of the sport, and that’s why their All Star Game is still the purest.

Imagine if this July, Corey Kluber made the all-star team and decided to lob pitches in so fans could see Giancarlo Stanton belt one in the upper deck. It wouldn’t happen, right?

Because Kluber would be there trying to show the fans why he is there. And to show his talent, he has to prevent Stanton from showing his.

In basketball, the players enjoy showing their creativity and skill set, but it would mean more if there was someone trying to prevent it.

What’s better? A breakaway dunk off a steal, or a player throwing one down in traffic.

The NBA needs to tighten up their product in terms of the All Star Game. You have the 24 best players in the world all on the court at the same time. Why not play the ultimate game one time a year.

Again, we don’t need to have people get hurt, but at least play passable defense, not what was on display Sunday night.

It would be a better show than what was seen at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. The league deserves a better showcase.

Cavs Are Improvising in Blatt’s Offense.

It has been said that basketball is to sports as jazz is to music.

The game has structure, but the players improvise, and they have to in order to be successful at it.

That’s why we think it is funny when we hear the Cleveland Cavaliers aren’t running the offense that coach David Blatt wants to run.

The wine and gold are getting more confident with Blatt’s system, which is designed to move the ball without a lot of dribbling, because we are seeing the passing game more and more each game. But the players still go back to one-on-one play from time to time.

Of course, that may be the coach’s compromise to the players, especially guys like LeBron James and Kyrie Irving who can probably break down the player guarding them at any point in the game.

Coaches want the players to be players, not robots. So, if a play is designed and the player sees someone open under the basket, good coaches want the man with the ball to make the right basketball play.

That was in evidence in the Cavs’ win over the Clippers a couple of weeks ago late in the game.

Blatt designed an inbound play late in overtime, with James as the inbounder. Apparently, the play was to get the ball to Kyrie Irving around the three-point line, so if someone was to be fouled, it would be the team’s best free throw shooter.

However, James saw Tristan Thompson break to the hoop, uncovered. So, we made the correct read and fired it to Thompson for a dunk, while being fouled. That’s what coaches want, break the play, especially if it leads to an easy hoop.

No coach wants to run set plays every time down the floor. It’s one way to get the players to carry a grudge against the guy in charge.

Of course, there are coaches who are control freaks and want to micro-manage everything their team does, but usually those coaches have a very short shelf life.

Most coaches probably don’t even want to call plays, because that would mean a lot of transition baskets, and their players would know where the ball should go and when it should move.

Take Wednesday’s win over Portland, which extended the Cavaliers’ winning streak to eight games. Irving was really the only player who had things going for Cleveland, and the coach and his teammates recognized that and got him the basketball.

The result was a 55 point night for the former first overall pick, and a win for the Cavs.

The previous game, only James and Irving were hitting shots vs. Detroit, so they carried the load.

To be sure, that wasn’t the coach’s design going into the game, but everyone adapted, and it led to a victory.

Blatt doesn’t want his team to have to depend on huge nights by his two all-stars to win every night, but right now, a few players are struggling to make shots (yes, Kevin Love is in a bit of a slump), so James and Irving are carrying the load. There is nothing wrong with that.

Tonight, perhaps J.R. Smith might get it going or Love can get hot, or Timofey Mozgov will be able to score inside, and the players will depend and feed off of them. That’s the kind of sport basketball is.

Early in the year, there was too much one on one play and too many players looking for their shots, and the offense struggled. That seems to be changing.

That means the Cavs are playing as a team, and selfishness is disappearing.

That’s a good thing and it could mean better things are yet to come.

Cavs Biggest Problems: Defense, Three Point Shooting

By the end of this week, the Cleveland Cavaliers will have played half of their NBA schedule, and no one thought they would be struggling this much.

They are currently sitting below the .500 mark at 19-20, far from the juggernaut many experts predicted before the season started with LeBron James returned to the team, and GM David Griffin traded for Kevin Love.

Yes, there are a lot of new players that started the season with the wine and gold, and the recent trades made by Griffin have added three more new players (one of whom, Iman Shumpert hasn’t played yet), and that makes continuity and knowing your teammates very difficult.

The biggest problems seem to be on the defensive end, where right now it appears there isn’t a consistent effort on a nightly basis.

Part of the problem is the lack of quickness on the players defending the perimeter. That problem means they play off of the opponent to stop penetration, and then cannot recover to contest the jump shot. This has led in part to allowing a 51.6% defensive field goal percentage thus far, second worst in the league behind only Minnesota.

It seems like teams hit an inordinate amount of three-point shots against the Cavs, but the wine and gold ranks 19th defensively against the long distance shot. That’s not great, but they are getting hurt inside the arc.

In terms of defensive efficiency, the Cavs rank as the sixth worst defense in the NBA. That needs to improve and quickly.

Yes, we understand that Love and Kyrie Irving aren’t good defensively, but you can cover that up by team concepts. Right now, the team scheme needs to be revamped because it’s not getting it done.

Cleveland allows the sixth most dunk attempts in the league, but don’t allow a lot of layup attempts. However, opponents convert a good percentage of those layup attempts, which Timofey Mozgov should help with.

Where the Cavs get killed is on jump shots of between 16 feet and the three-point line, as opponents are making 46.3% of their shots, two percent more than the next worst team Toronto. Besides the Raptors, no one else is giving up more than 42.6% of these shots.

That’s because the perimeter defenders are having a problem closing out on shooters.

Oddly, this ties into the other problem, the lack of three-point shooting. Cleveland ranks 18th in the NBA offensively, which is disappointing for a team with Irving, Love, Mike Miller, and James Jones on it. The thought before the season was with all the ability the Cavs have going to the basket, these guys would have plenty of good looks from beyond the arc.

Irving shot close to 40% in his first two years in the league, but shot just 36% last year and is sitting around that mark again this season.

Love came into the season hitting 36% of his shots from distance, but he’s dropped to 34% this season.

Miller has been over 40% each of the last three seasons, but he’s dropped to 35.3% in 2014-15.

Jones is a career 40% shooter that is making 36.8% of those shots this season.

The latter two are big problems because they don’t provide the perimeter defense the Cavs need, and they aren’t making as many shots as they have in the past. And quite frankly, if Miller and Jones aren’t hitting shots, there is no reason to put them on the floor.

David Blatt would be better served playing Joe Harris, who is a little better defensively, at this point in time.

At this point, the Cavs still seem to be using the roster turnover as an excuse, which it shouldn’t be half way through the season. They really need to just start playing hard, especially defensively.

One other thing. This team needs to get out and run, but if the other team keeps scoring, it’s difficult to get transition buckets.

The defense has to get fixed right now.

Cavs’ Defense Needs to Start With Guards

The most recognized weakness experts thought the Cleveland Cavaliers would have going into the season was on the defensive end, and to this point in the campaign, that has been the case.

The wine and gold currently rank 24th in the NBA in points allowed at 104.3, 7th from the bottom, and are third last in the association in defensive field goal percentage, allowing opponents to make 48.4% of their shots.

In regard to the points, the Cavs are scoring 106.7 points per night, meaning they are outscoring their opponents by 2.4 points a game.

In defending three-point shooting, Cleveland is in the middle of the pack, allowing a 35.8 % rate, meaning the bigger problem is inside the three-point arc.

Now, this is no question that the defense is definitely affected by the number of new people on the roster. Playing well on that end of the floor requires knowing where your teammates are and having the trust that if you leave your man to help, someone else will cover for you.

That comes from playing together, and there isn’t a question here that the Cavaliers will be a better defensive team after the All Star Game than they are right now.

However, any improvement to be made on the defensive end has to come with a better effort from the backcourt, particularly Kyrie Irving.

First, let’s remember that a good portion of defense is “want to”. Working hard on that end of the floor is half the battle.

Let’s also remember that Irving has plenty of quickness. He is a superb penetrator on offense with the ability to seemingly get to the rim any time he wants to. So, there shouldn’t be any reason why the likes of Ty Lawson and Rajon Rondo blow past him time and time again during a game.

When this happens, we all know what comes next. Either Tristan Thompson, Anderson Varajao, or Kevin Love have to stop the man going to the basket, allowing a player like Rondo to dish to the vacated teammate. Rondo wound up with 16 assists against the Cavs last Friday night, and Lawson had 12 last night.

What is puzzling is that Rondo is not renown as a good shooter from outside and Lawson was 0 for 6 from behind the arc last night. This begs the question, why not give either player a step defensively and force them to beat you from outside first?

It still comes back to Irving making a commitment to be a solid player on the defensive end. Yes, it’s still early in the season and to be sure, LeBron James has to be in his ear about getting better in that area, but the two-time all-star has to get better on that end of the floor.

David Blatt cannot continue to have to put James or Shawn Marion on the opposition’s point guard when Irving can’t handle the job. They will get worn out sooner than later.

When Matthew Dellavedova gets back, you may see him take that responsibility at the end of games.

The point is this, Kyrie Irving has too much ability to be this poor of the defensive player and any improvement in this area for the Cavaliers rests on him being able to stop the parade on opposing guard going toward Cleveland’s basket.

As Cavs’ announcer Austin Carr likes to tell the story of what Jim Chones would say to him when he didn’t keep his man in front of him. Chones would tell him he was going to let him score, rather than pick up a foul.

This edition of the Cavaliers can score the basketball, but they won’t be an elite team, a championship team until they can stop the other team. Irving is the key to making that happen.

One More Opinion on Getting Love

Since the return of LeBron James to the Cavaliers, the biggest speculation around town is whether or not the Cavs should deal Andrew Wiggins, the first overall pick in the draft to obtain Kevin Love, one of the league’s premier players.

Because Love is just 25-years-old, it really is a no-brainer. Love IS one of the NBA’s top 20 players, and that’s conservative. Wiggins MAY be one of the league’s top 20 players someday. It is just that simple.

Here is looking at it another way. James will turn 30 years old this December, meaning he will be the LeBron James he is right now for another 4-5 years. That’s the kind of window Cleveland likely has to win titles.

Now think of Kyrie Irving, the first overall pick in 2011, now entering his fourth year in the NBA. We can all agree that Irving is a very good player right now, but he’s not an elite one at this point.

Let’s say that Wiggins has a similar career path as Irving. He makes an impact his rookie season, and gets a little better each year in the league in his second and third seasons. As we just said, that would make Wiggins a very good player, but he still wouldn’t be an elite player.

Kevin Love is that right now.

Some fans have painted a picture of Love as a “stretch four”. To us, that is selling the big man out of UCLA short.

Rashard Lewis is a stretch four. Ryan Anderson is a stretch four. Yes, Love is a very good shooter with three-point range, but he’s also one of the top rebounders in the sport, capable of getting 20 in a game.

He also has the best outlet pass since Wes Unseld played in the league in the 60’s and 70’s.

He’s a lot more than a stretch four.

The other question about Love is his defense. He’s not regarded as a great defensive player. We say that the first thing about becoming a solid player when the other team has the ball is desire. And don’t you think that Love, and Irving for that matter will pay more attention on the defensive end of the floor, particularly when the game’s best player is on their team and demanding everyone give maximum effort on that end of the floor?

Also, coaches can scheme defensively to hide weaker defenders or provide help to those players. Good coaches teach a sound defensive philosophy that will help any player who wants to get better on defense.

A team led by James, Love, and Kyrie Irving would become an instant championship contender. All three can score, and James and Love are both very good passers. James and Irving can get to the rim with the best in the league, and a defense that collapses on them will have to deal with Love on the perimeter and near the basket.

However, the real point is this. The Cavaliers can be a title contender by getting another of the league’s elite players in Love, and if you have to give up a player who has never played one minute in the NBA, the question is why wouldn’t you do it.

Outside of James, who was the last first overall pick, or any rookie for that matter, who stepped right in to the league and was a force immediately. Even if Wiggins is someday going to be a great player, it likely will not be for three to four years, at which time LeBron James will be nearing the end of his dominance.

It really shouldn’t even be a question. If you have to give up Wiggins to get Kevin Love. You have to do it.

Another Good Week for The Wine and Gold

When the NBA free agency period kicked off on July 1st, the front office of the Cleveland Cavaliers made news immediately, even though they didn’t add a player.

Instead, they kept one of their own, signing Kyrie Irving to a five-year contract extension which will keep him in the wine and gold through the 2019-20 season. No shorter deal like the one inked by LeBron James following his rookie contract.

Thus ends the speculation that Irving was not happy in Cleveland and wanted out as soon as possible.

We believe Irving wasn’t happy during the last season, and his disenchantment had every thing to do with the lack of respect he had for his coach, Mike Brown. The hiring of David Griffin as general manager and David Blatt as coach changed the two-time all-star’s mind. He now has a good feeling for the future of the franchise.

We have said this before, when coaches don’t play the right people, or design plays that do not work, the players lose confidence in them. To be sure, the total focus on defense in training camp which limited the offense early in the year did not sit well with Irving, and we suspect other players as well.

Remember, Irving played at Duke, coached by the legendary Mike Krzyzewski, who has won three national championships while there and is also the coach of the US National team, piloting two gold medal squads at the Olympics.

In short, he’s one of the most accomplished coaches in the history of the sport.

Imagine what the point guard thought when he saw Brown’s simplistic offense with little or no movement and totally designed on Irving’s (or someone else’s) ability to take his defender off the dribble.

You get the picture.

Remember when there were reports shortly after Luol Deng was traded to Cleveland regarding how Deng couldn’t believe the mess here. Deng played for Krzyzewski at Duke and then was coached by Tom Thibidoux in Chicago, two excellent coaches.

This is not to denigrate Brown, who by all accounts is a great guy and has paid his dues in the sport, but he’s not cut out to be a head coach in the NBA, and probably will not get a chance to be a head coach in the association again.

And this criticism of Brown doesn’t excuse the poor roster construction put together by former GM Chris Grant.

His roster was a collection of guards who like to have the ball in their hands (Irving, Dion Waiters, Jarrett Jack) and players more suited to play power forward in the NBA (Anderson Varejao, Tristan Thompson, Anthony Bennett, Earl Clark).

And he seemed reluctant to deal with strength, trading one of those players to fill obvious needs at small forward, shooting guard, and center.

From Irving’s point of view, he now sees a GM willing to make moves to improve the roster. He sees Andrew Wiggins, the first overall pick, who can play the #2 or the #3, and is an athletic freak, a guy who can run the floor with him.

He sees a coach who has won everywhere he’s been, and has a feel for both ends of the floor.

He sees a plan for this franchise going forward and he saw a chance for success.

That’s the reason for his change of heart and the reason he will wear the wine and gold for a long time.

On Surface, Choice of Blatt is Outstanding.

The Cleveland Cavaliers made a bold choice yesterday and we love it.

They hired David Blatt as their new head coach despite the fact that he’s never been a head coach on American soil. He has however, been very successful in the European circuit and on the international level.

Now, no one can be totally evaluated until he starts coaching games in the regular season, but there is no question that he is able to handle professional players and he has coached men, not college kids.

And as for the argument that he will have a lot to learn because he’s never coached in the NBA, not many people made that argument when the Celtics hired former Butler University coach Brad Stevens last season, and let’s face it, there isn’t a lot of imagination in the NBA game anyway.

Most teams run isolation and pick-and-roll based offenses in the association, and defending that is something that every basketball coach learns early in their career. It’s more about getting players to want to play on the other end of the floor.

But what has us excited is Blatt’s reputation as a superior offensive mind. The new coach’s system is predicated on ball movement, much like the Spurs, and that is the way the game is supposed to be played.

Many have speculated that his approach will not mesh well with Kyrie Irving, but we disagree. Irving has grown frustrated in the past two years because in his second season, the whole burden was put on him, and last year, there basically was no offense.

It has to be frustrating when there is no movement away from the ball to free players up for good shots. In Blatt’s system there will be constant movement of the ball and players who don’t have it won’t be standing in one place, making it easy to be defended.

If Irving doesn’t love playing in that system, then we know what kind of player he is, and he can be moved on while he still has a tremendous amount of value.

The other reason hiring Blatt is the correct move is that it has everything to do with moving with the future. GM David Griffin hired a coach who is an actual coach, meaning he will try to make everyone better and will develop young talent.

They didn’t try to do anything else with the hire, and by that we mean trying to kiss up to LeBron James, which we think the Mike Brown hire was partially about, and the pursuit of John Calipari was all about.

If James wants to return here, great. But the Cavaliers needed to start moving forward and needed to stop making moves designed to lure the four-time MVP to come back.

We still believe that Blatt’s hire is just the first step in trying to get the wine and gold back to the playoffs. Griffin needs to restructure the roster and get away from the point guard/power forward heavy group assembled by former GM Chris Grant.

That means we will likely see a busy couple of weeks on the basketball front in Cleveland, as we think about one-third of the current 15 man roster will be turned over before training camp opens in October.

That’s because the way Griffin envisions his team and the way Blatt coaches is a match. That’s another thing to like about this hire.

Finally, there is a direction at Quicken Loans Arena.

Lost Season With Brown Hurting Cavs Now

New Cavaliers’ GM David Griffin has a very difficult job. We aren’t talking about how his boss seems to want to be involved in the basketball operations, including trying to hire a coach behind his back.

His real problem is evaluating the talent on this team after last season.

We really believe that you have to throw away the seasons that some of the players who have been on the roster for more than two years, particularly Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson.

You also have to discard any evaluation of last year’s first round draft pick, Anthony Bennett.

Irving and Thompson weren’t helped by Mike Brown’s coaching and it was obvious to everyone that the point guard didn’t trust his coach, and it affected his attitude.

That’s why talking about moving Irving is premature, unless he doesn’t sign a contract extension with the wine and gold.

We feel that Irving’s attitude will be much better with a new coaching staff this season. Thompson also leveled out under Brown’s tutelage.

What happens when a coach puts together sets and plays that don’t work, the players lose confidence in him. We all saw the difficulty the Cavs had last season with in bounds plays and plays at the end of games.

It’s easy to see why players like the two third-year players tuned out the head coach, and because of that, it is difficult for Griffin to evaluate both players going forward.

As for Bennett, yes he came to training camp out of shape due to off-season shoulder surgery, but since Brown found little time for Bennett to play, and when he did, he was put into schemes that didn’t put him into situations where he could succeed.

So, that’s three players that the new GM really can’t get a good read on. And he also doesn’t have a good gage on whether or not Dion Waiters can play with Irving because of last year’s coaching staff.

Tyler Zeller? Who knows? Brown hardly played him last season.

Outside of Waiters, what player who was here in 2012-13 made any progress in their game? You can’t name any. That’s why it is a difficult job for Griffin.

He does have to hire a coach soon, if only to get the new headman’s opinion on possible moves in free agency and in the draft. Whatever personnel moves they are considering, isn’t it better to find out what the guy who will be dealing with the players on a day in, day out basis is thinking?

We would support the hiring of either David Blatt or Lionel Hollins, who hasn’t received a second interview as of yet.

Blatt appears to be a true coach, a teacher, someone who will put players in a system that will take advantage of their abilities. That’s what this group needs. If his stuff works, the players will have confidence in him and play for him. That’s how it works.

As for Hollins, he would bring an attitude of winning. He would make it clear that losing is no longer tolerated. That change in culture is also needed. In the past few years, winning hasn’t been the first priority for the Cavs.

To be sure, Griffin didn’t take the gig because he thought it would be easy, he obviously loves a challenge.

However, what happened last year probably set the franchise back a year in the rebuilding effort. That’s something he has to overcome.

Three Thoughts on the Cavs

Over the past couple of weeks, since they won the NBA draft lottery, there has been much discussion about the future of the local professional basketball team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Some of the discussion has come from national sources and some from the Cleveland media. Here are our thoughts on a few issues regarding the wine and gold…

Kyrie Irving’s contract. Should GM David Griffin offer the former Rookie of the Year a maximum contract extension or not, that is the question?

The problem here is the monumentally horrible decision to bring back Mike Brown as head coach last season. It is almost as if you have to treat last season as a throw away for Irving and several other young Cavaliers.

We don’t know what to think about the MVP of last season’s All-Star Game. Is he selfish? Is he willing to play defense? Can he co-exist with Dion Waiters?

Brown didn’t do anything to help any young players on the Cleveland roster, so we think we need to see how Irving plays under a new coach, one that can put the players in an offensive system where he can thrive.

However, if he doesn’t have any inclination to sign here long-term, then Griffin should look to get what he can for the former first overall pick.

Getting Kevin Love. Love wants out in Minnesota, and the Cavs certainly have the assets to get the all-star forward. However, fans should temper the idea of getting the power forward.

Why? First, because unless Griffin can get Love to agree to a contract extension, it doesn’t make sense to deal a whole bunch of assets for one year of Love, even as good as he is. And we don’t think Love will do that for a couple of reasons.

One, he can probably get more money by going out on the open market as a free agent. Second, this isn’t a basketball decision for Love, it’s a “brand” thing. Love wants to be famous and be someone who can get huge money in endorsements.

He can’t maximize that earning potential in Minnesota, nor can he do it in Cleveland.

If it was strictly a basketball move, why would he be talking about going to the Lakers, a team currently in shambles?

This is the new NBA, which is starting to resemble the WWE. It’s more about other things than basketball.

The Search of a New Coach. It appears Griffin is talking to a lot of people, which is good. The disturbing thing is that their are reports that the GM and owner Dan Gilbert want to be “involved”. That will probably restrict who will accept the job.

George Karl would seem to be a great candidate, with proven success and a great basketball mind, but it is doubtful with that track record that he would want to have the GM and owner quizzing him daily.

The same is likely true for any high-profile coach, and we are putting Lionel Hollins in that category as well.

That means the Cavs are probably looking a current assistants and others who can’t wait to get back in the head coaching gigs in the NBA, like Alvin Gentry and Vinny Del Negro. Do either of those people excite you?

The Cleveland Cavaliers have talent, it just doesn’t fit together. Bringing in the right coach, and trading some talent and/or draft picks that don’t fit for ones that do, and they should be in the playoffs next season.

After a few seasons of moves that don’t make much sense, it’s time to start a new streak of decisions that will work.