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.

Grant’s Flaw Was Not Building A Team

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, those two have a problem playing together.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, where does this franchise go?

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

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

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

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

Cavs’ Woes Rooted in Several Areas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GM Grant Needs to Add Shooter

The Cleveland Cavaliers are a struggling basketball team.

They’ve had four draft picks in the top four of the draft over the last three years. They’ve hired a new coach. They’ve taken some chance on the free agent market.

Yet, to date, the result is the same. They continue to struggle and right now they are sitting at 10-21 on the season, and are on pace to win 27 games, a mere three more than last season, a record that got their coach, Byron Scott, fired.

That would seem to put the onus squarely on the shoulders of GM Chris Grant.

Grant has brought in some talented players, with the prime example being Kyrie Irving, the first overall pick in 2011, won the NBA Rookie of the Year, and has made an all-star team.

Outside of this year’s first overall pick, Anthony Bennett, the other two players who were selected in the top four of the draft were power forward Tristan Thompson, a solid player in the league and Dion Waiters, who has shown ability since entering the league last year.

So, Grant hasn’t taken any stiffs, with the disclaimer that it is still way too early to make any judgment on Bennett, who’s only 31 games into his rookie season.

Still, it seems that the GM hasn’t put together a basketball “team”, meaning the mix of talent hasn’t been working.

While we have supported Grant’s talent evaluation in the past, we did so thinking he would convert the duplicate talent he has at certain positions and convert them where the team’s weaknesses are.

The wine and gold have a plethora of power forwards in Thompson, Anderson Varejao, Earl Clark, and Bennett and a bounty of point guard types in Irving, Waiters, and Jarrett Jack.

This forces Mike Brown to have to play two power forwards and two point guards for much of the game. That’s not a good mix offensively and defensively.

What the Cavaliers do not have are shooters. Sure, Irving won the three point shooting contest last season, but he’s more of a penetrating guard than a pure shooter.

The odd thing is, these types of guys should be fairly easy to obtain, a lot of them bounce around the league like Kyle Korver and J.J. Redick.

That’s what is lacking with the Cavs right now. They don’t have a lot of guys who can put the ball in the basket from outside.

So when Irving and Waiters get into the lane with dribble penetration, they don’t have options to kick it out to, which makes the defense protect the basket all the more, making it tougher for those guys to score.

The extra power forwards aren’t as critical because Brown can use them, along with Tyler Zeller at center to alleviate some of the logjam, but the imbalance in the backcourt and at the small forward spot isn’t providing a winning mix.

On New Year’s Eve, the Cavs played the Indiana Pacers even for three quarters, but simply couldn’t make shots in the fourth quarter, being held to eight points for most of the quarter.

When a guard did get into the paint, there was the overwhelming presence of Roy Hibbert, and when the ball got kicked outside, they don’t have a reliable shooter.

If anything is to be salvaged this season, Grant has to act quickly. As it stands, the wine and gold can still make the playoffs despite their mediocre record.

In basketball, pure talent isn’t the only determining factor. You have to have the right mix and the Cavaliers don’t.

It’s on Chris Grant to make the correct moves and balance out his roster. And he needs to do it sooner than later.

Cavs’ Need to Stop Expirimenting

A little over a week ago, on November 20th, the Cleveland Cavaliers lost a home game to the Washington Wizards 98-91 to drop their record to 4-8. After beating the Wizards on the road in the previous game, this was a tough pill to swallow.

Following the contest, Mike Brown told the media that only one player played hard the entire night, rookie G Matthew Dellavedova. When the Cavs took the floor for the next game in New Orleans, the coach wanting to send a message to his team, started Dellavedova.

The wine and gold blew a 12 point lead late in the fourth quarter that night and they haven’t one a game since, getting blown out in their two road games (San Antonio and Boston) and dropping a home game to the Miami Heat.

In both the road games, the contest was basically over in the first quarter. Could that be because Cleveland doesn’t start their best players?

It is time for the coaching staff to go back to basics and start the games with veteran players to keep them in the game right from the get go.

Mike Brown needs to settle on a regular rotation to settle down the mess that the Cavs are becoming.

Let’s start at center. We get that the staff wants to start Andrew Bynum because he can get loose before the first and second halves, and there is no problem with that. The big man isn’t killing the team with his play and he needs the time to get his game back.

At power forward, Tristan Thompson needs to play more. The third year man from Texas is averaging 32 minutes per night, but in the last five games, all losses, he hasn’t played more than 26 per night, and has only scored in double figures once, and also only has one game with more than 10 rebounds.

He needs to play at least 30 minutes per night, and probably should get 33-35 minutes.

The small forward spot is a mess, but Earl Clark has to be shaking his head after last night. On Wednesday vs. Miami, Clark shot 5 of 11 from the floor scoring 13 points. Against Boston on Friday, he received 12 minutes.

Clark may have problems guarding small forwards, but he is a better shooter than Alonzo Gee. If Cleveland has the lead, Brown can give more time to Gee, a good defender to protect the lead.

In the backcourt, most people thought the idea would be that Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters, and Jarrett Jack would split the time. We would start Irving and Jack, another veteran who can help the team get off to a good start, and use Waiters as the key offensive player on the second unit.

Irving should be out there for at least 36 minutes with Jack and Waiters splitting the other 60 at the guard spot.

The second unit should be Waiters and Gee, with Anderson Varejao backing up Thompson and Bynum. Brown needs to also work Tyler Zeller and Anthony Bennett in the rotation, and he should let them know when they are going to get into each game and give them time. As young players, they need that type of stability.

That is, of course until GM Chris Grant can deal Varejao to a contending team. The Brazilian has had a fine career in Cleveland, but with Thompson, Zeller, and Bennett needing minutes, it is time to cash in on the asset.

Brown’s statement about playing hard has the Cavs spinning out of control. It’s time to go back to basics and tonight’s game against the Bulls would be the perfect time to do it.

Cavs’ Parts May Not Fit

Since the holiday season is upon on, it seems appropriate to refer to the roster of the Cleveland Cavaliers as the island of misfit toys.

This isn’t to denigrate the talent of some of the players, and really, it is not to rip on GM Chris Grant for his selections in the draft.

Grant’s job is to draft the most talented player available when it is his turn to pick. So, if he thought Anthony Bennett was the best player last summer (and it is way too early to judge otherwise) then you have to take him.

The problem with the roster is it is too heavy in some areas and it needs help in others. Our thought was that Grant could deal from strength to shore up the weaknesses, and he may do that in time, but he can’t wait much longer.

Let’s look at the power forward position. Currently, the wine and gold have four players that are primarily “fours”: Tristan Thompson, Anderson Varejao, Earl Clark, and Bennett.

Mike Brown tries to alleviate the problem by playing Varejao at center and Clark at small forward, but they give up a lot (Varejao—size, Clark-quickness) at those spots.

Most NBA teams use two power forwards on the roster, so right now, there is an overload there.

At the small forward, the Cavs have Alonzo Gee, a defensive specialist, and they can play swingman C. J. Miles there as well, although in limited minutes.

Gee doesn’t shoot well enough to be considered a problem for the player assigned to guard him, and Miles doesn’t have the size to be able to guard the elite small forwards of the league, although he is the one Cleveland player who has knocked down open shots thus far.

In the backcourt, the Cavaliers have the centerpiece of the current roster, point guard Kyrie Irving. Irving can score and set up teammates, and if he has a weakness, it’s that he loves his dribble.

It would be one thing if he were moving with the dribble, but more often than not, he’s at the top of the key bouncing the ball and going nowhere.

That could be because of the simplistic offense the coaching staff runs.

The other players who get time in the backcourt (along with Miles) are Dion Waiters and Jarrett Jack, both combo guards rather than true off guards. This means both are more effective with the ball in their hands.

However, the coaching staff probably wants the ball in Irving’s hands.

You could have plays where the ball starts in Waiters or Jack’s hands and they set up Irving, but you would have to have something set up for that, and right now that doesn’t look to be the case.

So, the three-headed backcourt doesn’t seem to fit well together right now.

So, the pressure is on Grant to convert his superfluous parts into ones that can help this basketball team win and win now, because although there is talent on the roster, it doesn’t fit together.

There are too many players who have similar games, which is fine if they play at different times, but when you have to play Waiters and Jack at the same time or have Thompson and Varejao on the floor at the same time, it’s a problem.

If this team is going to start winning, this roster may have to be fixed. Grant has to make some moves to get this team to start putting games in the win column.