Podcast: Episode 59 – Midseason Report Card
2015-01-20https://soundcloud.com/ctb-5/cavs-the-blog-podcast-episode
At the halfway point of the season, Tom Pestak, Ben Werth, and I jumped into the podcast booth to talk about an array of topics: Mozilla, J.R. Smith, David Blatt, LeBron, Kevin Love, Andrew Wiggins, Klutch Sports, and midseason report cards. Did you ever get tokens at Chuck E. Cheese for your report card when you were a kid? I used mine one year to get to level 76 on Gauntlet. How many tokens do you think your favorite Cav would get? What about the whole team? To find out our grades, you can listen on SoundCloud above…
and on iTunes at…
The Wiggins trade will drive us crazy for years. Oh well, we gotta get over it somehow, but of course it mostly looks bad in hindsight. If Love’s shot comes back it will seem much more reasonable. My grades: LeBron: B+ (coasting and not himself, we know he will turn it on) Kyrie: A- (defensive effort starting to come, once he has smarts and team offense comes around he can be A+) Love: B- (good effort, but D and shooting have not been there. No reason not to expect better days ahead) JR: A (great start, hopefully will keep it… Read more »
My grades –
KLove – C
Kyrie – B
LeBron – C
Blatt – C
Miller – Z
Jones – D
Delly – C
TT – B
Griffin – D-
Harris – C
Mosgov – INC
JR – INC
Amundson – A (because he was traded off the team)
Haywood – A (because that Shaqtin’ a fool pass was HILARIOUS)
AV – INC
Shump – INC
Lue – D for defense
What?
Love B+
LeBron A-
Kyrie A
Blatt D
Delly F
TT B+
Griffin A+
Harris F
Mosgov B
JR A
Marion C
Miller D
Jones D
What? No F- for Delly? And how do you give poor Joe Harris an F? Rookies shouldn’t get an F unless they were a high draft pick disappointment (a la GumDropBear).
Delly has been terrible and joe Harris is out of the league. Delly could have a D if you want.
Delly has been terrible in your estimation. In my book, he’d get an A for effort but a D for ability. Averages out to B- or C+. Harris isn’t out of the league, he’s just getting playing time in the D-League. Worst he should get is a D… for D-League…
OK
C- for Delly because he tries but isn’t good.
D for Joe Harris for D league.
How’s that?
Good with me…
Wow, that’s an awful lot of As and Bs for a .500 team.
Yes, but it’s reasonable for a team that will “easily make the Finals”. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as it were…
Ehhh you guys are making me so depressed with this Wiggins talk. Man, I really wish we didn’t give up the farm for KLove. Good call on the David Lee comparison Ben. Was thinking the same thing. I guess the only thing I can hold onto W/R to KLove is that he has a better PER than Wiggins. But Wiggins is a WAY better two way player and a rookie. If the Cavs can ultimately win a championship then this trade is forgivable in my opinion.
To keep from getting too depressed about it, I’ve concocted this future reality in my mind… In the summer of 2022, on the heels of the Cavs 4th title in 7 years, LBJ agrees to re-structure his deal down to a mere $25M (a la Dirk who has replaced Reggie Miller as the funniest color man NBA announcer) which only accounts for 1/8th of the now $200M salary cap, so Dan Gilbert can sign perennial All-Star Andrew Wiggins in the summer’s biggest FA splash. Of course DG has to secretly get on a plane and fly to Minnesota to meet… Read more »
2023, Wiggins failing to hit 30% from 3 and playing sloppy with an avg of 5 TO per game is traded after the All-Star Break by Nate Smith, GM, for 2 conditional first round picks lottery protected through 2030.
Then we’ll have Wig and Leb and no one will be able to stop us except maybe The Thunder coached by Erik Spoelstra. Amiright?
LOL, very true since he’s the master/inventor of the “space and pace” offense…
If we didn’t have Love, wiggins would be here averaging between 6-9 ppg and we’d all be wondering if we could find a big man who could score, pass, and rebound.
The trade works. With Love we easily make the Finals, without Love there’s no way.
i need a tldr
did you guys only grade the big 3 and mozgov? i listened to a fair bit and skipped through a fair bit too though.
Mike Miller was given an “F” I believe. And Blatt a “C.”
Nate – how old were you when Chuck E Cheese had Gauntlet?
I don’t know that Chuck E Cheese ever had Guantlet. Mall arcades, yes. Chuck E Cheese?
There was a time, at least in Anchorage, Alaska, that Chuck E. Cheese catered to not just the young children, but to game enthusiast all the way through high school. I would have been in Jr. High when Gauntlet came out, This would have been 87, 88, or maybe even 9th grade — 89, and Chuck E. Cheese was definitely marketed to Jr. Highers, then. Remember, we didn’t have Nintendo consoles till 87 either, so there wasn’t as much competition for the entertainment dollar. There were two big arcades in Anchorage at the time, Chuck E. Cheese, and The Space… Read more »
Humorously, the town I went to college in, Fairbanks, Alaska, had seen its Chuck E. Cheese fail after one of the oil crashes (Alaska, like most oil states has a boom or bust economy). It was bought by a Chinese buffet, and they didn’t change the carpet the whole time I was there, up through 2000. Eating at a Chinese restaurant with Chuck E. Cheese logos in the worn carpet was pretty funny. Fairbanks is/was a weird town.
Nature vs Nurture – I think we know which weighed more heavily with Nate’s upbringing
Lol after prom at Chuck E Cheeses – wonder if the dude in the Rat costume got a little action in the ball pit
Good stuff as always guys. I’m probably not quite as high on Mozgov nor quite as down on K-Love, but potayto, potahto. Will be interesting to see how they play against the Jazz if the Lebron doesn’t play.
Man, that was a marathon…
yeah. that was us planning attempting a 30 min pod.
Nate will blame me – but I was asking the questions
New KLove nickname… “The Elbow”
So Nate, does the illustration translate to Griffin and Mike Miller about to go kick TT’s ass?
I forgot about the Szerbiak chase down block of Bill Walker! Man, that was awesome…
Meanwhile, I had almost forgotten about my bet with Cols about LBJ chasedown blocks. I was pretty sure, but you guys just confirmed that I only owe him one beer so far (actually, I think it’s only a half a beer since the lone “chase down” was from the foul line and not even half court…)
I don’t know if I really want to know about Ben’s opera singing….
I’m hurt, man. Really hurt. haha
Okay, okay! Fine, give me the link to you opera podcast ;)