The NBA MVP “Ladder” And Should Mitchell Be On It

One of the dumber things we see in sports is the “MVP Ladder” listed weekly by one of the NBA’s sponsors. It starts in the second week of the season, for goodness sakes. Why not wait until say, the All-Star break to start talking about the award.

We feel like in the NBA the media tries to give the award early and then spend the rest of the season justifying it. And usually, it’s because it is a specific player’s “turn”. For example, Jayson Tatum’s name always comes up early in seasons, but by the end of the year, others have passed him up.

What’s worse is other sports have started the same nonsense. But we digress.

We bring it up because the Cavaliers’ Donovan Mitchell has started to come up in conversations about the league MVP. Charles Barkley even said Mitchell should be discussed for the honor.

Mitchell is having an incredible year. In scoring, he is even with last year’s career high of 28.3 points per game, but it’s the other numbers that are more impressive.

He’s dishing out assists at a career high pace, with 6.3 per contest, beating his previous best by one assist. His turnovers are consistent with the rest of his career.

His rebounding has also increased over his career best, as he is grabbing 5.4 boards per night. And his shooting percentage has increased since arriving in Cleveland, as he shot 44.1% with Utah, and in his two years here, that is up to 48.4% last year and 47.5% this season.

Most importantly, when Darius Garland was injured, and J.B. Bickerstaff essentially put the ball in Mitchell’s hands, the Cavs have won 22 of 27 games, roaring to the 2nd seed in the Eastern Conference standings.

He has boosted his numbers since the day Garland went out to 29 points and 7.3 assists per contest. And it is not like he has been on the floor too much. After the first two games in this stretch, he’s played over 40 minutes just once, partially because of all the blowouts the team has played.

There have been games were he flat out carried the wine and gold. He had 45 points and 12 rebounds in the Paris game against the Nets. We woke the team out of a malaise against Detroit on January 31st, scoring 45 with 8 assists and 6 rebounds.

He’s likely also headed for his second all-NBA appearance in two years with Cleveland, which would make him only the third Cavalier to receive that honor more than once. The other two are LeBron James, who was named ten times (8 first team, 2 second team) and Mark Price, who received the honors four times (1 first team, 3 third team)

Mitchell made the second team last season.

He finished sixth in the MVP voting last season after leading the Cavs to a 50 win season, and they are on pace to surpass that mark in 2023-24.

Mitchell isn’t likely to win the award. Since the turn of the century, the only guards under 6’5″ to win it are Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Steph Curry, and Russell Westbrook. But if the Cavs can finish second in the East, perhaps he can get to the top five.

Either way, he’s having a heck of a season. People who know the game know it, even if the national love isn’t there.

Giannis’ New Deal Is Good News For NBA.

We love basketball. While we are a fan of the Browns, our favorite sports are baseball and basketball, which makes us a strange sports fan in Cleveland, Ohio.

However, the NBA is getting stale for us, which is painful. It’s a great game played by the best athletes in the world. We were a season ticket holder for the Cavaliers for many years, mostly with mediocre teams, but it was a joy to go to The Coliseum when Brad Daugherty, Mark Price, Larry Nance, and Hot Rod Williams led the Cavs to the playoffs.

They just couldn’t get past Michael Jordan.

The staleness comes from the style of play, which most teams are playing. The three point shot has become over emphasized, and the sport has legislated perimeter defense out of the game, meaning the guards are ruling hoops. It’s difficult to stop a skilled point guard.

And while we understand the analytics in sports and embrace some of it, it can have a negative effect. Teams are being built around taking three point shots, which is actually the most difficult shot in the game. This is based on the theory of making four out of ten from behind the line is equal in points to making six of ten inside the line.

Despite all of this, we did hear some news about the league that made us smile this week.

Giannis Antetokounmpo agreed to a five year super max contract to remain in…Milwaukee, one of the league’s “flyover” cities.

We’ve had a theory for years that smaller NBA markets should look for the best non-North American players for sustained success. Why? Those players don’t grow up hearing about the merits of playing in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Miami, the glamour spots of the NBA.

In Cleveland, we’ve experienced this twice with James leaving for Miami and then Los Angeles. It’s his and every other player’s right to go where he wants when free agency hits, but name a top free agent that signed with a new team that wasn’t located in one of these cities in say, the last 20 years?

We had this theory in our mind since Dirk Nowitzki retired with Dallas, spending 20 years with the franchise. Certainly, Dallas has better weather than a northern city like Milwaukee, Detroit, or Cleveland, and a dynamic owner in Mark Cuban, the Mavericks haven’t been a destination city for the star free agents.

It will be interesting to see in Luca Doncic will also play his entire career in Dallas as well.

Player movement will always be a part of sports, especially in the free agent era. However, of the top 15 active players in Win Shares, only Stephen Curry has played his entire career for one team, and only three others, James Harden, LaMarcus Aldridge and Anthony Davis, have played for two organizations.

And if reports are true, that latter list could consist of just two soon as Harden wants out of Houston.

The player movement is great for the off-season headlines and jersey sales, and the younger fans love the opportunity to see star players on the same team, but it’s tough for longer term supporters who buy season tickets.

Hopefully, Giannis fulfills his contract in Milwaukee and leads the Bucks to some titles. It would be nice to see another smaller market team joined San Antonio, led by another superstar who didn’t grow up in the US in Tim Duncan, be a consistent contender.

Cavs’ Team That Lost By “The Shot” Were No Doubt Good Enough To Win Title

With “The Last Dance” documentary currently airing on ESPN, those Cleveland Cavaliers teams of the late 1980’s have come under scrutiny. After all, it was the 1988-89 version of the team that fell victim to “The Shot”, Michael Jordan’s first playoff success (as a team).

When examining those teams, you have to remember there were really two iterations of that group. The first team featured the three rookies from the class of 1986-87: Brad Daugherty, Ron Harper, Mark Price, and John “Hot Rod” Williams, who was drafted the year before, but sat out due to a legal issue.

That quartet’s rookie season led to a 31-51 record as Harper, Williams, and Daugherty ranked one-two-three in minutes played, and were also the top three scorers. Price was a reserve to John Bagley, playing only 18 minutes.

It was only a two game improvement on the previous season.

The next year saw the Cavs improve to 42-40 and a first round playoff loss to the Bulls in five games (best of five). By the way, Jordan averaged 45.2 points per game in that series.

Larry Nance came to the team that year in a deal for Kevin Johnson, who was drafted in the first round over the summer. Price emerged as a player, making Johnson superfluous.

Think about this. The Cavs guards starting that season were Price, Harper, Johnson, Dell Curry, and Craig Ehlo. Pretty good, eh?

The following season, the Cavaliers were rolling right from the start. They won 24 of their first 29 games, and on February 28th, Cleveland whipped the defending Eastern Conference champion Pistons, 115-99, to raise their record to 42-12, five games ahead of Detroit in the Central Division.

That was also the game that Rick Mahorn elbowed Price in the head at midcourt, a terrible cheap shot. Price missed just two games, but the Cavs went just 15-13 the rest of the season.

Price also missed the first game of the playoffs vs. the Bulls with a hamstring injury, a game the Cavs lost 95-88.

Until Price was elbowed, which was out of frustration from the Cavs beat the Pistons for the third time in as many chances that season, Cleveland, not Detroit and certainly not the Bulls looked like the team coming out of the Eastern Conference.

In fact, as Jordan said during “The Last Dance”, the Cavaliers swept Chicago six games to none in the season series between the two teams.

The Price/Harper backcourt was a joy to watch, they played off each other beautifully, and the front court of Daugherty, Nance, and Williams was long and the latter two were capable of guarding small forwards.

Even though Hot Rod didn’t start, he was in there in the fourth quarter along with Nance.

That’s the group which was capable of winning a title, and we feel they would have had not something else gotten in the way the following season.

That little thing would be the worst trade in NBA history (in our opinion) when Cleveland dealt Harper AND two first round picks to the Clippers for the rights to Danny Ferry and Reggie Williams.

Trading one of your best players is one thing, but including two draft picks which could have been used as assets to improve the team was another. And that Ferry became at best a role player in the NBA was the death knoll.

Ironically, Harper blew out his knee after going to the Clippers.

The Cavs did get to the Eastern Conference finals in 1991-92 with the same group, sans Harper. It was Terrell Brandon’s rookie season. But Nance was 32 years old, and Williams was 29. They lost in six games to the Bulls.

The following season, the Cavaliers went 54-28 and lost in the Eastern semis to, you guessed it, Chicago in a four game sweep. Lenny Wilkens resigned after that season, and by the way, is still not happy about the Harper trade.

Mike Fratello took over and guided an injury plagued team (Daugherty played just 50 games, Nance 33 and neither played in the post-season) to the playoffs where they were swept again by Chicago.

By the next season, Daugherty and Nance were gone, and Price played only 48 games.

If the Harper trade would have never been made, would that group have been able to win an NBA title? We say yes. They were that could, and never really got a second chance.

Was Drafting Garland Unfair To Sexton?

Last June, the Cleveland Cavaliers made Darius Garland the fifth overall pick in the NBA draft despite drafting a smaller guard the year before in Collin Sexton.

We’ve heard a few people compare the situation to 1987 when the Cavs traded for Mark Price after he was drafted by Dallas in the second round, and then GM Wayne Embry picked Kevin Johnson, another lead guard in the first round the following draft.

The difference is Price didn’t play a lot as a rookie, averaging just 18 minutes a night, and scored just 6.9 points and three assists, and shot just 41% from the floor behind John Bagley.

The next season, Price averaged 16 points, 6 assists, and shot 50% from the floor, and by mid-season, Johnson was traded to Phoenix in a package that netted the Cavs Larry Nance Sr. and Mike Sanders.

Nance was the missing piece Cleveland needed and they won 57 games the following year, being eliminated in the playoffs by “The Shot”.

With Garland and Sexton both drafted very high, the front office and coaching staff felt they needed to play the two guards together, even though they sacrificed size, with two under 6’2″ players in the backcourt.

John Beilein thought the pair could play together and perhaps they could have in college, but in the pro, it’s tough to play defense with a lack of height, even at guard.

Perhaps the better idea would have been to start Sexton, who improved as his rookie season progressed and pair him with a bigger #2 guard, and bring Garland off the bench, much like Johnson over 30 years ago.

Sexton, who has been widely criticized all season long (including here), seemed unsure of what he was supposed to do, being moved off the ball.

Since the end of January, the second year man from Alabama has averaged 24.2 points and 4.2 assists per game. Keep in mind, a year ago, Sexton averaged three dimes per contest.

Perhaps it was too much to expect two rookie guards to play effectively at the NBA level this early. It seems playing with veterans helps Sexton, and maybe not having to guard bigger off-guards all night helps his offense too.

This is not to denigrate Garland, but he’s 19-years-old and only played four games in college a year ago.

When you play with guys who have been around, and know how to move the basketball, like Kevin Love, Larry Nance, and Matthew Dellavedova, it becomes contagious, and you become a better passer too.

Sexton admitted when Beilein stepped down and J.B. Bickerstaff took over, that he looked inward and wondered if he needed to play better and play differently. He certainly has done just that.

If Sexton continues to play like he has in the last month, GM Koby Altman has a huge decision to make. Does he turn the keys to the offense over to Sexton and make a move with Garland?

The rookie is averaging 12.3 points and 3.9 assists per game, and he looks like he can play in the NBA. But Kevin Porter Jr. has scored 10 points and dished out 2.2 assists in seven less minutes per night, and he looks like a keeper too.

Resolving the backcourt may be the single most important decision the Cavs have to make this off-season. However, they may not get the value they want because of how they handled the 2019-20 season.

Cavs “Greatest 8” After 50 Years

The Cleveland Cavaliers will be celebrating their 50th season this season and it is the only franchise in town where we can say we have been there since the beginning.

Before that, NBA basketball in Cleveland was limited to the visits the Cincinnati Royals made each year to our fair city.

In the last year before the Cavs existed, the Royals made four stops at the Cleveland Arena, the final game was played on February 3, 1970, a game won by the Los Angeles Lakers, 124-114.

Jerry West led the way for the Lakers with 38 points, while Tom Van Arsdale had 36 for the Royals.

The Cavaliers entered the league at the same time as the Buffalo Braves and Portland Trailblazers. The league probably thought they were doing the expansion teams a solid by scheduling them for 12 games each against each other.

Obviously, LeBron James is the greatest player ever to wear the Cavs’ uniform, leading the franchise to not only their only championship, but was also the focal point for all five Eastern Conference titles won by the team.

Depending on your point of view, he is one of the three best players to ever play in the NBA.

As soon as he retires, his #23 will hang from the rafters, and we would presume a statue will be erected outside Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.

Who else would be on the Cavaliers’ top eight players (starters and first subs) in franchise history?

We would start with the only other Cavalier besides James to achieve first team all NBA honors, and that would be Mark Price.

Price is still 5th in all time scoring and 2nd in assists and steals in club history. In addition to his first team All-NBA accolade (1992-93), he was third team three times (’88-’89, ’91-’92, and ’93-’94). He was on the second Cleveland team to lose in the Eastern Conference finals.

Kyrie Irving would be the other guard. It’s really a no brainer to add the four time (with Cleveland) all-star and the guy who made the biggest shot in franchise history. He also was third team All-NBA in 2014-15.

The center was so close we kept two as both Brad Daugherty and Zydrunas Ilgauskas make our “Great 8”.

Both had major injury problems throughout their career (Daugherty’s back issues caused him to retire at 28, while Ilgauskas battled foot problems), but Daugherty was a four time all star and is still 3rd all time in scoring and rebounding, and as a center, is 7th all time in assists.

Ilgauskas is a distant second to James in scoring, and also ranks as the runner-up in games played and rebounding. And he was a starter on the franchise’s first trip to the NBA Finals.

The other forwards, besides James, were mainstays on the early 90’s teams which couldn’t get over the Michael Jordan hurdle: Larry Nance and Hot Rod Williams.

Looking at numbers, you forgot how good Williams was. He ranks 5th in games played, 7th in points, 5th in rebounds, and 2nd in blocked shots in Cavalier history. He was a reserve mostly because Lenny Wilkens loved him as a weapon off the bench, backing up both Daugherty and Nance, and at times playing with them.

Nance is 9th all time in scoring, 8th in boards, 3rd in field goal percentage and blocked shots. He was the final piece in making those teams title contenders. The Cavs were 42-40 the year Nance arrived in a mid-season trade, they won 50 games in three of the next five years.

The last spot on our list goes to franchise icon Austin Carr, whose career was hampered by knee injuries, but was the team’s first star.

Carr was the first overall pick in the draft in 1971, and made the All Star team in his third year with a 21.9 scoring average. He was around 24 PPG the following season when he injured his knee, and became a valuable reserve for the Cavs’ first team that went to the conference finals in 1976.

Those are our Cavs’ “Greatest 8”. The best players Cleveland basketball fans have seen wearing the wine and gold.

Irving’s Legacy In Wine and Gold

Collin Sexton made a splash Thursday night, and not just by being the Cavaliers’ pick with the eighth overall selection in the NBA Draft.

He also said he was going to wear the #2, last worn in Cleveland by Kyrie Irving.

Now, there is no doubt that Irving will hold a special place in franchise history for making “The Shot (Cleveland version)”, which gave the Cavs their only title in 2016.

He deserves adulation for taking and making it, especially since both teams had a difficult time scoring in the last five minutes of Game 7.

However, he also decided to demand a trade after the 2016-17 season, and Cleveland granted him that request, sending him to Boston. It has also been reported that he planned to have elective knee surgery if he was not traded, making it so the Cavaliers didn’t have a choice.

So, some fans reacted with outrage at Sexton’s wanting to wear #2.

First, the rookie did wear the number at Alabama. It’s not as if Sexton wore #33 in college and decided to wear #2 here to troll Irving and his fans.

The other argument from fans, we believe these are younger fans, is that Irving should be honored some day by having his jersey retired here as the second best player in the history of the franchise.

We believe this is very clearly up for debate.

In our opinion, Mark Price is the second best Cavalier ever behind of course, LeBron James, and win shares concurs with this theory. Here are the franchise’s top five in win shares:

LeBron James 154.1
Mark Price 65.4
Brad Daugherty 65.2
Zydrunas Ilgauskas 63.4
Hot Rod Williams 58.3

Irving ranks eighth in team history (behind Larry Nance and Anderson Varejao) in this category.

To determine how win shares are calculated, please visit BasketballReference.com, but the all time leaders in the category are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Karl Malone, James, and Michael Jordan.

It is an accumulative statistic, meaning the longer you play, the higher number you get, and that is one of our arguments against Irving at the second best Cavalier.

Price played nine seasons in Cleveland, and four times made the all-NBA team, a first teamer once (the only other Cav besides James to have that honor) and third team three times.

Irving played with the Cavaliers for just six seasons, making the all-NBA teams just once, a third team selection in 2014-15.

That indicates how both players were regarded within their eras. By this measurement, it shows Price was regarded as an elite player at his time. Although Irving is a gifted player, he has only been regarded as a top six guard in the NBA once.

And in looking at individual stats, Irving leads Price in points per game (21.6 to 16.4 with Cleveland) and rebounds.

The difference in points is attributable to Irving taking five more shots per game than Price, as the latter shot a higher percentage from the field.

As a point guard, Price averaged 7.2 assists with the Cavs, compared to Irving’s 5.5. Price was also a better three point shooter, making 40.9% compared to 38.3%.

Look, we are not saying Kyrie Irving is not a great player, nor can the story of the Cavs’ only title be told without the important contribution of Kyrie Irving.

But second best player in Cavs’ history? Retire his number? Let’s look at that without the emotion of the 2016 NBA Championship or the emotion of how his time with the Cavaliers ended.