A Plan to Rest LeBron

During the Cleveland Cavaliers’ slow start, David Blatt received a lot of criticism from people who expected the wine and gold to be 82-0 for the regular season. After all, they added the best player on the planet, LeBron James and another all-star in Kevin Love to Kyrie Irving.

Now that the Cavs have won four in a row, some of that criticism has subsided, but there is one area that the new to the NBA coach needs to make an adjustment. That would be controlling the minutes of James, who will turn 30 years old at the end of the month, and has a lot of miles on his legs, having spent 10 full seasons in the league, plus playoffs, and his stints with USA Basketball.

James is currently averaging 37.7 minutes per night, which is right in line with the last three years he spent in Miami. However, he has accumulated more than 40 minutes in a game seven times in the season’s first 16 games.

That’s not going to help him or the Cavs if they do indeed make a deep run in the NBA playoffs.

So, Blatt has to make a conscious effort to limit James’ minutes, especially during this time of the regular season, when, let’s face it, the games don’t have a heck of a lot of meeting.

We are sure Blatt intends to give James around 35 minutes per night going into each game, but our guess is his competitive nature gets in the game, and as the contest goes on he wants LeBron on the floor so the Cavs have a better chance for victory.

Part of it could also be adapting to a 48 minute game too. In a shorter contest, resting a player five minutes gets them to 35 minutes on the floor, in the NBA, a player has to sit out for 13 minutes to be at that kind of playing time.

As a compromise, we would suggest James sitting out the last three minutes of the first quarter and the first four minutes of the second quarter. Currently, he is playing the entire first stanza. This would give him seven minutes off in the first half, and if Love and Irving are on the floor at that point, the Cavs shouldn’t be in any danger of getting blown out.

In the second half, the coach can keep James off the floor the last two minutes of the third quarter and first two minutes of the fourth quarter. That get James to 37 minutes per night. And when the Cavaliers get a blow out win, he will get even more time off.

We also think having LBJ on the floor as much as he is provides a crutch to the players coming off the bench, meaning they think James will handle things, and they are reluctant to step up.

While James is resting, why can’t Dion Waiters pick up the scoring slack? We know Waiters can put the ball in the basket, and if he can produce when he’s in there, it means LeBron can watch from the sidelines.

And that will also make the Cavs a stronger team.

If you spend as much time in the Association as James, it takes its toll. That isn’t to say LBJ is no longer a dominant player, but he does need to start cutting back on his minutes if he is to be at top form when the playoffs start. David Blatt knows this, he just needs to stick to the plan.

Way Too Early To Blast Blatt

It is amazing that with the NBA season just 10 games old, there are fans who are dissatisfied with Cavs’ coach David Blatt.

We know the reason. The wine and gold brought in the best player on the planet and another all-star to play for the team and they are only 5-5 after the first ten contests, so it must be the coach that is the problem.

After all, there were idiots out there projecting that the Cavs would win 70 regular season games in 2014-15, something only one team in history has done. So, really Blatt’s problem is the unrealistic expectations of the fan base.

This is not to say that Blatt has made a seamless transition from the European leagues to the NBA. He hasn’t used his bench much and that’s a big key for an 82 game schedule. This is the time of year where you develop your bench, giving reserves minutes so they can contribute as the season progresses. That has to change, and tonight’s game would be a good place to start.

He’s also using LeBron James too much. James was averaging a little over 39 minutes a game prior to Wednesday’s game against San Antonio, and played 34 minutes vs. the Spurs. That’s more in the realm we’d like to see going forward to keep him fresh for the entire season.

Also, giving James more time off would allow Kevin Love assert himself more offensively. Love admitted he is struggling to find out his place in the offense, and having him on the floor with James resting would make him the primary offensive option.

Blatt is also trying to figure out who he can trust, particularly on the defensive end of the floor. The knee injury to Matthew Dellavedova was a bigger blow than most think because he is one of the few guards on the roster who can defend. His absence has caused more playing time for rookie Joe Harris, which will help in the long run.

But once again, it is still very early in the season, the Cavs have played 12% of the regular season and once again, they have a roster where roughly 2/3’s of the players are new. We know sports fans in northeast Ohio hate the word, but it’s a “process”.

If the same issues are still in place once the calendar turns to 2015, then we can have a meaningful debate about the merits of the coach. Blatt is a smart man, and he’s not a head coach for the first time, just the first time at the NBA level. He has a lot of experience coaching professionals.

He’s not a former player without a background in x’s and o’s either. He knows the game, and he knows from a strategic standpoint how to coach it. But he does have to adjust to the NBA’s 48 minute contests. If you think about it, he rests his starters like they are playing the 40 minute games he is accustomed to.

The critics are forgetting that it’s a new coaching staff and the majority of the players also just joined the team over the summer. It takes time to develop chemistry and cohesion, mostly in terms on knowing where players need the ball to be effective, and also on the defensive end where trust in mandatory.

Guys who played for Blatt in the past have raved about him, and there’s no reason to think his style has changed drastically. The things he has struggled with early in the season should be correctable.

This team will show progress, we are confident in saying that. Blaming the coach is the knee jerk reaction in these parts. Let’s allow David Blatt to coach for a while longer before it is determined that he is the problem.

Cavs’ Circus Begins Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, perhaps the most important non-sporting sporting event in Cleveland will occur when the Cavaliers have their media day.

So, the circus that will surround them all year will start then and there.

The biggest focus for everyone will be LeBron James, who hasn’t really sat down to speak about his return to Cleveland, except through his essay in Sports Illustrated and his welcome home party in July in Akron.

To be sure, he will be asked about his future with the Cavaliers because he signed a one year deal with an option, even though he has stated publicly that he will finish out his career in wine and gold.

There will also be considerable attention on the NBA’s newest “big three”, James, recently acquired all-star Kevin Love, and the MVP of both last year’s All Star Game and the FIBA World Championship, Kyrie Irving.

To be sure, they will be compared to the Celtics recent grouping (Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce) and Miami’s famous, or infamous trio of James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh. Will the Cavs group have the same success as Boston, winning a title in their first year together?

There is no question than not only do the Cavs have a core of all-star players, but they also have put together a deep roster of solid role players, something Miami didn’t have at least last season.

Besides the holdovers from last season, Dion Waiters, Anderson Varejao, Tristan Thompson, and Matthew Dellavedova, who are all solid NBA players, GM David Gilbert also brought in Shawn Marion, Mike Miller, and James Jones, and don’t forget big man Brendan Haywood, who missed last season with a stress fracture in his foot.

The deep roster will allow James to cut back on his minutes, as our guess is all parties would like him to average around 33 minutes per game in 2014-15, compared to the 37.7 he played last season in Miami, and the 39.5 he averaged throughout his time in the NBA.

The only thing this team doesn’t have on paper is a big time shot blocker or rim protector in the new vernacular, and that could be Haywood if his feet can hold up.

And while some critics will say there aren’t a lot of lock down defenders in this group, right now James, Marion, Varejao, and Dellavedova would be considered the best defensive players, the name of the game is scoring more than your opponents, and this edition of the wine and gold should be very proficient in putting the ball in the basket.

The coolest thing about all this is the amount of focus that will be on Cleveland, Ohio this winter. The two best teams in professional basketball might just be here and in San Antonio. The national media has to be going crazy. We will probably hear about how the league is in trouble because it doesn’t appear its hallmark franchises (Celtics, Lakers, Knicks) will be in the championship mix for a while.

Also, the Cavs will be embraced throughout the league too. James was named the most popular professional athlete in the country this summer, in part because he did the right thing in many people’s eyes by reversing the wrong committed four years ago and returning to Cleveland.

As we have traveled around the country this summer, most basketball fans are genuinely happy that The King is back in northeast Ohio.

It all starts tomorrow. And the wait to Opening Night will be excruciating.

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.

We Have Answers…

Thought we’d change it up a little this week and answer some questions posed to us over the last couple of weeks.

Who should the Cavs take with the first overall pick?

Well, our first thought would be to check for the highest bidder for the choice and get a proven player for the selection, but if that can’t happen, we would take Kansas center Joel Embiid.

We have doubts about any one of the three players that are the consensus top guys, mostly because they are one year out of high school, but if the risk is about equal, we’d take our chances on the player with the biggest upside, and that is Embiid.

If you can get a big man who is as good as he is advertised to be, you have to go for it. And yes, we know the NBA has become a league where point guards and wings are kings, but a great defensive presence is still needed.

Are you interested in the World Cup?

No.

Who should start at quarterback for the Browns in the season opener at Pittsburgh?

The answer here is not a cop-out. The correct choice is the player who gives Mike Pettine’s squad the best chance to win. This franchise has been down and out for so long, they can’t play someone because he’s a first round pick or because he will create a buzz around the country.

And that is not a bash on Johnny Manziel. If he shows the coaching staff enough to be the starter at Pittsburgh, then by all means, he should be in there.

We don’t believe that Pettine will be swayed by anything else than performance in making that decision. He strikes us as a coach who doesn’t have any other agenda other than winning. If he thinks Brian Hoyer can get the W, then he should start, if it’s Manziel, then he should get the nod.

That’s the way it should be.

Who do you want to win the NBA Finals?

The obvious answer is San Antonio, although not for the reason you think. We are old school when it comes to basketball and the Spurs play the game the way it is meant to be played. They move the ball, always looking for a player with a better opportunity.

This is in stark contrast to the pick-and-roll based offenses most teams play with players dribbling, dribbling, and more dribbling looking for an opportunity to take their defender to the basket.

Perhaps if the Spurs win, more teams will emulate that style of play. Teams usually copy the champions, and it would be another benefit if more teams played the game the way San Antonio does.

Is there a possibility LeBron James will come back to Cleveland to play for the Cavs?

If the Heat wins, no. If the Heat loses? Probably not. Moreover, the Cavs’ front office has to stop pretending that’s the only way they are going to get back to a title contender level.

If they put all the energy they spend on thinking of ways to impress James into building a competitive roster, they would be much better off.

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.

Lottery Win Gives Griffin Another Asset

At least the Cleveland Cavaliers have one arena where they are victorious, unfortunately, it is not on the court.

Instead, it happens in the NBA Draft Lottery, where the wine and gold came up with the first overall pick for the third time in the last four seasons.

To this point, those first overall picks haven’t translated into success in the regular season, which is why the Cavs continue to be in the lottery. They haven’t been able to make the playoffs.

The first overall selection does give Cleveland GM David Griffin a valuable commodity, it remains to be seen though, who will make the first pick next month.

Why? Because the Cavs have already been through this before. Is it really best for the team to take another player who will take two, three, or maybe even four years to be able to make a difference in the NBA?

Next year will be the fifth season since LeBron James left for Miami, causing the Cavs to start a rebuilding process. The time for developing players is over, it’s time to start winning games. Will the first overall pick help them get over the hump in 2014-15?

We are all aware of last year’s draft in which the Cavs selected Anthony Bennett with the first choice. The rookie of the year turned out to be Philadelphia’s Michael Carter-Williams, who was the 11th pick. Out of the top ten, only Victor Oladipo (Orlando), Cody Zeller (Charlotte), and Trey Burke (Utah) could be said to be big contributors to their teams as rookies.

The year before, the Cavs selected Dion Waiters with the 4th overall choice. That draft looks to be pretty solid with only Thomas Robinson and Austin Rivers not getting big minutes with their respective teams. Still, only four players, Damian Lillard (Portland), Terence Ross (Toronto), Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (Charlotte), and Bradley Beal (Washington) are playing a significant role of playoff teams.

In 2011, Cleveland selected Kyrie Irving first and Tristan Thompson fourth. Only two players taken in the top ten of that draft, Jonas Valenciunas (Toronto) and Kemba Walker (Charlotte) are getting significant minutes on teams that made the playoffs.

The point is there haven’t been more than a handful of rookies who have made a significant difference in their first couple of years in the league. It is almost like the major league baseball draft, where you are picking players who can help you down the road.

The Cavaliers can’t wait any longer to start winning.

We have said this before, players who can make an immediate impact in the NBA generally play well in the NCAA tournament. They don’t disappear.

Many have Cleveland selecting Anthony Wiggins of Kansas as their choice. His last college game was dreadful, scoring less than 10 points. He also weighs under 200 pounds. Can you see him playing against guys like Paul George, Paul Pierce, and other small forwards who are 6’7″ and weigh 220 pounds?

This isn’t to say Wiggins won’t ever be good, in fact, he may turn into an all-star player. Irving did, but his success hasn’t translated into wins on the floor.

The point is there isn’t a player in this draft who can turn a franchise next season, so if Griffin can turn this pick into a young veteran who is already a quality player, that would be better for the wine and gold.

As for young, we mean mid 20’s, not a player who only has a few years remaining in their career.

To be sure, it was great for the Cavaliers to get the first overall pick. However, they need to look at it as another asset they’ve accumulated to get back to winning. There isn’t a franchise turning player in this draft.

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.

Cavs Ignore Shooting as Part of Game

While we are always critical of Cavaliers’ coach Mike Brown’s offense strategy, he does work under the handicap of not having an excellent shooter on his roster.

The Cavaliers rank last in the NBA in field goal percentage, making just 42.3% of their shots from the floor. And from beyond the three-point line, they are slightly better, ranking 21st among the 30 teams at 35.0%.

To illustrate the importance of shooting, here are the top five teams in the league in making shots: Miami, San Antonio, Houston, Oklahoma City, and Dallas. All five of those teams would be in the playoffs if the season ended today.

Now, this percentage can be raised by fast break opportunities which lead to high percentage layups and dunks.

So, a more accurate gauge of pure shooting would be the three-point field goal percentage, and again, out of the top five in this category (Spurs, Pelicans, Wizards, Trailblazers, and Warriors), four of them would also reach the post-season.

Why is having shooters important? Well, the obvious answer is the score is kept by putting the ball through the basket.

Still, the real reason you need them is to spread the floor, especially when you have put together a number of guards who excel at driving to the basket like Cleveland has with Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters.

And when the shot clock is running down, you can get the ball to a shooter who has a decent chance of making a long shot.

The closest thing Mike Brown has to a threat from outside is swingman C.J. Miles, who hits 39% from outside the arc. Acting GM David Griffin did take a good stride in this direction in obtaining Spencer Hawes, who is making 40.5% from distance this year.

There is no one else on the roster that opponents need to respect when they are standing beyond the arc.

To be fair, former GM Chris Grant did covet Bradley Beal in last year’s draft, but Washington snapped him up before the Cavs turn with the fourth pick which turned out to be Waiters.

Beal is currently 13th in the NBA in 3 point field goal percentage, making 41.9% of his shots.

Brown’s mentor, Gregg Popovich has embraced the three pointer, with two players among the top 20 in accuracy, and to be fair, when Brown was here before, he had snipers like Damon Jones, Donyell Marshall, and Boobie Gibson on the roster, all guys who could knock down the open three.

Irving is the Cavs’ most frequent shooter from outside and makes 36% of his attempts, but he is one of the guys who make their living driving to the hoop, and opponents want him to take that shot because he is so lethal going to the basket.

Waiters is the same type of player, but when you watch a game, don’t you wish we would go to the hoop more instead of shooting long jumpers? Opponents do too.

The Cavs need a player like Kyle Korver or Jamal Crawford or Marco Bellinelli, a pure shooter that defenses respect and are forced to account for when they are on the floor. Players like that also provide useful targets for Irving and Waiters when they penetrate.

Grant may have started to address the situation by drafting Sergey Karasev last year, but right now Brown considers him too green and too much of a defensive liability to get off the bench.

That’s not helping the current team, and it put too much of a burden on guards to get to the basket to create any kind of scoring.

Just another reason this Cavalier team has struggled to meet expectations.

Hard To Criticize Possible Move for Gasol

The Cleveland Cavaliers rehired Mike Brown as coach because they wanted to re-establish a defensive identity.

Last season, they ranked 25th in the NBA in points allowed per game at 101.2 and were the league’s worst team in defensive field goal percentage, allowing opponents to shoot 47.6% from the floor.

However, this season the Cavs have actually allowed more points per game at 101.3, but their defensive field goal percentage has dropped to 16th in the Association at 45.1%.

The wine and gold is actually rebounding better defensively as well, ranking last in the NBA in 2012-13, and this year improving to 14th.

So, the case can be made that the Cavaliers do play better defense, which is what Brown was brought in to accomplish.

While we have been critical of Brown’s ability to coach offensive basketball, how does the scoring compare to last season?

Last season, the Cavs scored 96.5 points per night, and shot 43.4% from the floor. This year, the points are down to 95.5 (one point per game) and the shooting percentage has also dropped to 42.2%.

So, Cleveland has improved the frequency with which their opponents make shots, but they are still allowing the same amount of points while they are scoring less than last year.

Therefore, there hasn’t been any improvement in total.

The record hasn’t improved all that much as Byron Scott’s team was 7-25 after 32 games, while this year’s edition of the Cavs is sitting at 11-21.

It’s the lack of dramatic improvement that gets basketball fans in Cleveland antsy. Many people thought the natural progression of young players, the return to health of Anderson Varejao, and the addition of Andrew Bynum could get the Cavaliers over the .500 mark and into the playoffs.

The return to the playoffs is still a possibility as the wine and gold is still just three games out of a post-season spot despite their mediocre record.

That’s why a change is needed and the quicker the better.

With the amount of youth on this basketball team, there isn’t a huge gain to be made by making the draft lottery again. To be sure, the fans and media who believe that everyone in the draft is great will disagree, but really, GM Chris Grant needs to change the culture of losing that has seeped into the franchise since LeBron James departed.

That’s why if Grant can get C/F Pau Gasol from the Lakers for Bynum, he should do so immediately.

If Gasol comes here with the right attitude, and he hasn’t had any character issues in the past, he would provide a player who has been on winning teams and would also provide a legitimate scoring threat, averaging 15.3 points per night this season.

Remember, the Cavs are dealing a player they no longer want in Bynum and perhaps, if the rumors are true, a wing player who has fallen out of the rotation in Alonzo Gee, so it’s hard to be critical of the move.

Plus, Gasol can be a free agent at the end of the year, which helps with salary cap implications.

It still doesn’t address the need of a legitimate #2 guard and/or a small forward, positions the Cavs need to take a leap in the standings and also to balance the roster, but it is getting something for nothing.

However, Grant then needs to make another move to bring in players at other spots besides guards who handle the ball who can score. And he needs to do that as quickly as possible.

The Cavs need to do anything they can to make the playoffs and show young players like Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters, and Tristan Thompson what it’s like to experience playoff basketball.

That’s what the “draft people” don’t get. The franchise needs to take a step forward and the quicker the better.