While NBA Players Have Power, Who Is Worrying About The League?

The NBA off-season reached its zenith Friday when Kawhi Leonard made his decision, going to the Los Angeles Clippers as a free agent, after the Clippers made a trade bringing Paul George to LA from Oklahoma City.

So, there aren’t any “superteams”, like the Golden State Warriors the past few seasons, nor like the Boston Celtics of the late 2000’s, or the Miami Heat earlier this decade.

But there are a decided shifting of great players to major markets. The five players who made the NBA’s top three all league teams and moved this off-season, all went to big market teams.

Now, some were already on big city squads, like Kawhi Leonard going from Toronto to LA, and Kyrie Irving going from Boston to Brooklyn.

But George went from Oklahoma City to the Clippers and Kemba Walker went from Charlotte to Boston.

So, the only players on small market teams remaining on the first, second, or third team All-NBA squads are Nikola Jokic (Denver), the reigning MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee), Damian Lillard (Portland), Rudy Gobert (Utah), and Blake Griffin (Detroit).

The year before, Anthony Davis and Jimmy Butler were listed and both of them moved to big markets (Lakers and Heat, respectively).

This is not meant to criticize the players. They have earned the right to free agency, and because of that, they earned the right to play where they choose.

The question is how this affects the league, which the players don’t and shouldn’t worry about.

The NBA is without a doubt, a multi-billion dollar business, and the players are the reason for that. They are the league, and the names are recognizable by first name or nickname: LeBron, Kawhi, Steph, KD, Giannis, etc.

However, if all of the league’s superstars gravitate to big markets and warm weather climates, how does that affect the Association?

Part of the reason the NBA makes a lot of money is it has 28 markets (two teams in Los Angeles and New York). Now, the younger fans are more attracted to players rather franchises, but the league is helped by those stars traveling to 28 cities around North America.

What would happen if eventually, four of those franchises went away because attendance fall off, mainly because the people who can afford tickets to NBA games figure out their franchises don’t have any chance to be competitive in the long term.

Or four of those teams relocated to let’s say, southern California or the New York metropolitan area, again reducing the number of markets to draw fans?

Is that good for the health of the NBA?

Again, the league has become global, so maybe it doesn’t matter, and perhaps they will eventually relocate smaller American markets to Europe, Mexico, or other countries, growing the NBA in that matter.

We aren’t going to say the championship the Cavaliers won in 2016 will be the last one by a smaller market because the Bucks still have Antetokounmpo, and that makes them a threat to get a title.

But the growing number of players looking to get out of smaller cities continues to grow. And let’s face it, if James isn’t from northeast Ohio, does he come back from 2014-15 to 2017-18 and the Cavaliers get to raise a banner?

As we said, it’s not the players’ job to worry about the league, but someone should be concerned. Shouldn’t that be the commissioner? Again, maybe he just doesn’t care about the middle of the country.

Was Cavs’ Defense Better Than You Think Vs. Pacers?

The Cleveland Cavaliers wrapped up another first round sweep in the NBA Playoffs, taking care of the Indiana Pacers in just four games.

It was the 10th sweep in LeBron James’ great career and he has now won 21 consecutive first round games.

The Cavs had defensive issues throughout the regular season and the analytics had Tyronn Lue’s squad as the third worst in defensive efficiency in the four game sweep.

Statistics have the Pacers having the shortest distance per field goal attempt of the 16 playoff teams, showing Indiana didn’t have much of an issue getting into the paint.

On the other hand the wine and gold’s field goal percentage against ranked in the bottom of the top half (7th) of the teams that qualified for the playoffs.

Cleveland did some good things against the Pacers, though.

Although Paul George averaged 28.0 points per game in the sweep, he did it by volume shooting. A 46% shooter in the regular season, the Pacers’ star shot just 38.6% against the Cavaliers, as Lue threw several defenders at George, including JR Smith, Iman Shumpert, with James helping on double teams.

And the All Star really struggled from the middle of game three throughout the completion of the series.

The other player the coach mentioned in terms of limiting before the series was C. J. Miles, who torched the Cavs in the regular season for 17.0 points per contest.

Miles was stifled by the Cavaliers, scoring just 7.3 points per game in the series, and he shot just 31% from three point range.

Lue’s defensive philosophy is to identify the opponent’s strengths and try to take them away. It seems he did just that against the Pacers in this series.

In order to do that, the coach is willing to give something up, and to this point, it’s hard to argue with his success.

So basically, if the Pacers were going to emerge victorious, it was going to have to be because Jeff Teague, Thaddeus Young, Myles Turner, and Lance Stephenson had huge performances.

Those four combined for 56 points per game on 49% shooting.

However, out of those four players, only Stephenson, who played only six games for Indiana this season, has the personality to be the lead dog. The rest are complementary players, forced into a big spot.

Not everybody can handle that situation.

That’s Lue’s philosophy, but opposing players into situations that they aren’t comfortable in.

As the playoffs go on, it will be more difficult to do this because the better teams have better options and more players capable of producing under the bright lights of the post-season.

Luckily for the Cavs, they have veterans who have stepped up in these situations throughout their careers. Channing Frye was huge a year ago for the Cavs. Two years ago against Atlanta on the road, the wine and gold won because Smith got hot in game one.

One of the new veterans acquired by GM David Griffin had a huge impact in this series, and that is Deron Williams.

Williams seemed to not be sure of how he fit when he first arrived in Cleveland, but he gave Lue some very good minutes in the second half of game three and in the second quarter of the deciding game.

There is no question that Cavs can be better on defense than they were vs. the Pacers, but they did accomplish some of the things they set out to do in the series. That’s something to watch in round two.

Cavs-Pacers Preview

Today, the Cleveland Cavaliers will start a journey in which they hopes ends in a repeat of last season…an NBA title.

They will also try to prove that a team’s performance in the regular season is absolutely meaningless.

The Cavs are limping into the post-season, going just 12-15 since the All Star Game, and basically playing at a .500 level since the beginning of the calendar year.

However, they still have the sports’ preeminent player in LeBron James and for the most part, the same cast and characters that brought home the Larry O”Brien Trophy on June 19, 2016.

Most of the concern surrounding Tyronn Lue’s squad is the defense, or rather, the lack of it, through much of the last three and a half months.

Can Lue and his staff correct the problems that befell the team during that span?

They start the playoffs today at Quicken Loans Arena against the Indiana Pacers, in a best-of-seven series. While the Pacers were the 7th seed, and the wine and gold have the home court advantage, they do represent some challenges for the Cavs.

First, they have one of the game’s better players in Paul George, who happens to play small forward, the same position as James. While we don’t expect James to guard him for 48 minutes, he will have to check him during crunch time.

George is a 39% shooter from beyond the arc, and overall, the Pacers rank 4th in the NBA in three point field goal percentage. That has been one of the Cavaliers’ weaknesses throughout the past several weeks.

Lue pointed out C.J. Miles as a problem for the Cavs, and he shot 41.3% from distance as well. Add in Glenn Robinson , Thaddeus Young, and back up point guard Aaron Brooks, and Cleveland has its work cut out for them. They have to get a hand in the face of these shooters.

On the other hand, George will have to expend a lot of energy guarding James, and we all know that takes its toll on everyone, especially over a long series.

What it comes down to for the Cavs is can they get decent minutes from the bench in this series, and also, is Tristan Thompson’s thumb going to allow him to be effective.

Lately, the team has received very little from Richard Jefferson and Iman Shumpert, leaving the bench scoring to have to come from Kyle Korver and Channing Frye. Deron Williams played well in the last two games, but has yet to show he can be effective when on the floor with James and Kyrie Irving.

We know what a gifted offensive player Irving is, but this post-season will hinge on his defensive play. He has to be able to keep his man in front of him.

Lue also needs JR Smith to regain his shooting touch too. And it wouldn’t hurt to establish Kevin Love in the post early in games.

However, it still comes down to defense. The Cavs don’t need to get in a mode of having to outscore everyone in the playoffs. They need stops.

Failure to improve defensively may not be a problem in the Indiana series, but it could hurt them down the road.

That’s the key thing to watch in this one.

If the Cavs want to get extra rest, it would behoove them to win the first two games at home. Failure to do that could result in a six or seven game series.