Cavs: The Duels-Does Anderson Varejao fit?

Cleveland Cavaliers center Anderson Varejao warms up before an NBA basketball game in New Orleans, Friday, Dec. 12, 2014. (AP Photo/Jonathan Bachman)

Editor’s Note: After noticeable debate around the CtB water cooler, we decided to take it to the mat, and offer a full on tag team rumble over Andy’s fit on the Cavs. Cory and Mallory are the Wild Thing Doubters, while David and Nate remain faithful members of the AV Club.

David Griffin’s state of the franchise press conference after the Cavaliers tumultuous 2013-14 season gave few definitives on the future. He didn’t know who would be back, including himself. “Fit” was the primary theme of his speech and having players that complemented each other was the only way the team could swim its way to a solid foundation, out of the murky waters of lottery lake. The only members of that team who are anticipated to play for the franchise two seasons later are Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson and Anderson Varejao. Irving broke down in the playoffs after growing defensively and as a professional during his fourth season. Thompson was the Cavs’ second most reliable player during the playoffs, and his value is still to be determined. Which leaves Andy. Varejao missed 56 games and the entire playoff run after suffering his most devastating injury to date, a ruptured achilles. Irving and Thompson are the present and future; does Varejao still fit this team?

Cory Hughey:

Lineup specific data on Anderson Varejao’s fit on last season’s team comes with the small sample size warning, primarily because he only played in a quarter of the Cavs games last season (playoffs included). The Cavs’ original starting lineup of Varejao, James, Irving, Love, and Marion yielded an unimpressive NetRtg of 3. Some of that can be attributed to the players being unfamiliar with one another, and James’s “do as I say, not as I do” mantra at the beginning of the season. The biggest mistake Griffin has made thus far, wasn’t trading away Wiggins and his cap friendly rookie scale contract for Love, but not seeing how Andy fit next to Love before extending the Wild Thing’s contract.

Updated Cavs salary picture with LeBron's deal and revised cap / max contract details. Between $225-263M. pic.twitter.com/xJKWdv5dsc

— Jacob L. Rosen (@JacobLRosen) July 9, 2015

From a luxury tax perspective, Varejao’s extension castrated the Cavs flexibility this summer. I don’t doubt that Dan Gilbert is willing to shatter the Nets luxury tax record, but if you have to spend three times as much on luxury taxes to re-sign Matthew Dellavedova as on his salary, it certainly complicates things. You can make the point that the Cavs would be in the luxury tax regardless of whether Varejao was on the team or not. LeBron, Love, Kyrie, Mozgov, Shumpert, Miller, Williams and Harris combine for $78, 805, 763 and the tax line is at $84.74 million. Thompson’s extension will push the Cavs well past the tax line alone. The tax payouts become darker the further you go into them. From $0-$4,999,999 million above the tax line, you pay $1.50 on every dollar of salary in luxury tax. The nearly $10 million Varejao will make this season will push that payout to $2.50 on every dollar spent. It would be surprising to see the Haywood trade chip turn into anything other than a trade exception, thanks to Andy’s salary.

If the tanking era Cavs and the current title or bust Cavs were ships in the night, Anderson Varejao is the dinghy that was left in the middle of the ocean after they crossed paths. Which vessel does he belong to and did poor circumstance make him not fit either? Unfortunately, the years that turned out to be Andy’s prime, were pretty much wasted seasons. I advocated trading Andy numerous times, mostly for his own good. He’s the longest tenured Cav, and I understand that people want to see him be part of the team when they win a title, but he could be one of the primary excuses we come up with if they don’t. People get sentimental for sensibility’s sake. They want the past to be part of the present. It’s hard letting go.  There’s no point trading Andy now. His value is so low, the Cavs would probably have to attach a future draft pick or two just to shed his salary. His passion, deep injury history and fun hair makes him a real life mascot who makes $10 million per season.

David Wood:

You’re right, my brother-in-typing. Andy is a dinghy between the Cavs tank ship and Finals ship. There is nothing wrong with being a dinghy though. In the middle of night, a dinghy can show you how far you have come and where you need to be headed. Andy is a beautiful poofy haired reference point.

Andy needs to be looked at properly. He is no longer a guy who should be sharing the floor with any of the Big-Three for extended minutes. As Corey mentioned above, the lineup data shows that he isn’t the best fit with those guys. Mozzy worked much better. However, Andy’s power is unlocked when he gets to run the offense.

Think back to the 2013-2014 season. If Kyrie Irving or Dion Waiters were sitting, Andy would receive the ball at the top of the elbow and have a chance to survey the floor. Usually he would find a cutter, or he would take a dribble or two before handing the ball off. He made what should have been historically terrible units usable.

The Jarrett Jack, Dion Waiters, Matthew Dellavedova, Anthony Bennett, Varejao unit was +2 in just 22 minutes. The Jack, Waiters, Dellavedova, Earl Clark, Varejao unit, which was too undersized to do anything of note, didn’t drowned next to the Anderson dinghy. They put up a net rating of +6.

The 2012-2013 season is even more informative. The Jeremy Pargo, Waiters, Alonzo Gee, Tristan Thompson, Varejao group was +7 in 77 minutes on the floor together. This was Andy’s second most used lineup too. Keep in mind, this is when Dion was in full on, “I’m better than Kyrie, we’re equals, and my mid-range 2s are worth just as much as any Kyrie 3-pointer because I said so,” mode. Heck, the Pargo, Waiters, Gee, Varejao, Tyler Zeller unit put up a net rating of 0 in 13 minutes. Swapping out Zeller for Clark amounted to packing the court with bubble wrap to take up any operating space. Andy has a knack for helping terrible guys hide their terribleness for minutes at a time. The Cavs need to use the Wild thing as a Big-3 recharger this season. They could run Andy & the scrubs out for four minutes at the beginning of every fourth quarter to rest the stars. It sort of worked last season. In just four minutes of play the  Dellavedova, Waiters, James Jones, Thompson, Varejao group had a net rating of 0. That’s not sinking a chance for a win.

Now, it is easy to say that my idea is great, while still snickering: “Yea, you play Andy in those Big 3-less units until he gets injured.” Guess what, maybe those are the only units he plays in. Last year Andy played 636 minutes before going down. If you cut out the freak 2013-2014 season where Andy was reasonably healthy, the Wild Thing averaged 829 minutes the previous four seasons. If the Cavs were to play him just 9 minutes a night, he would just be hitting the 900 mark after a 100 game season. He could probably survive that. And, for the people that say he may not regain his form after an achilles injury, I say “Malarky.”

There are two ways to look at Andy’s success. Andy is either sneakily athletic or really energetic. I fall in the energetic camp. Have you seen this picture of Andy:

The body of your neighbor.

This is a man who enjoys his malty beverages and Taco bell. Also, if he has an odd limp from his injury, his monster style running and hair might scare the crap out of people he is closing out on, even more so than normal.

Now, and this is the best argument for keeping the Wild thing, Andy can act as a blueprint for Love to become more involved. These two guys are statistically closer than most realize. Love had an assist rate of 10.7% last year and Andy’s was 9.1%. Their respective usage rates were 21.7% and 18.1%. Look at their shot charts.

Andy’s shots, 2014-2015

Andy shot better from the mid-range area than Love, although I wouldn’t call him a better shooter.

Kevin’s shots, 2014-2015

Yet, it would benefit Love to watch Andy’s positioning on offense. The Afro-ed one grabbed 10% of all offensive boards, while Love grabbed just 6.5%, down 2% from his last year with the Timberwolves.

Kevin’s shots, 2013-2014

That might have to do with his positioning on the floor. As you can see, his last season with the Wolves he took more shots from the elbow and at the rim. Forcing Love off the three-line might force him to become a more active part of the offense. The Cavs could also run some dribble handoffs with a guy who is a threat to pop out to three or dive below for a tricky finish.

Lastly, let’s look at this from an emotional standpoint. The Andy dinghy is a reference point in more ways than one. Yes, you can look at the Wild thing and see how far the team has come. I won’t take that away from anyone. However, you can also look at Andy and see yourself. Andy isn’t the most athletic guy. He isn’t the most orthodox basketball player either. Yet, he tries. He’s turned his elbow-pointing-the-wrong-way mid-range jumper into a weapon. He finishes at angles no one else can. He has ESP with LeBron. And who do you think taught TT how to board?

As a young teen, I was oddly tall and wasn’t a natural baller. However, early on, coaches always pointed out Andy and said to just try your absolute hardest. It worked out. Andy made the offensive board something sexy for me. I wasn’t hitting 3s or driving in for smooth layups like Steve Nash, but I still could relate to an NBA player. You can’t find a guy like that just anywhere. Andy is the perfect mix of goofy and just plain old good that any NBA fan can look at him and feel like they belong in the NBA too. It doesn’t matter if his team is headed to the finals or for the number one pick. The Cavs can’t rob their fans of that feeling. It’s a rare one.

Mallory Factor:

Ah, David – everything you’ve written is excellent, well reasoned, well thought out, and totally accurate.  If the year is 2012 and the Cavs didn’t already have three bigs, two of which (assuming TT gets close to what he wants) will be making WELL over 10 mil a year, and a third who could easily be making about than that in 2016.

Look, I understand the emotional side to wanting Andy around – heck, I’ve pretty much always, through my time writing for the blog, considered myself a “fan-writer” in that my approach often came from the side of a crazed fan, rather than purely logical.  But it’s hard to look at everything you wrote above and feel as though the data is…uh…a bit dated.

Since 2012/2013, Andy has been a sparse part of the Cavalier’s consistent play.  Missing basically two full years for ANY player would make for a long, arduous recovery – look at what poor Shump had to go through to get back to his regular self.  For someone who will be 33 when the season kicks off, and will be pushing 35 when his contract finally expires, it’s nearly impossible to believe they’ll ever fully recover.

And here’s the thing – even if Andy was 29 or 30, I still don’t think he’d make sense as more than just a roster-filler, 5-10 mpg player.  For all the beauty of Andy’s ability as a ball handler, the Cavs don’t really have a need for a guy through whom they have to run their offense.  The idea that the Cavaliers need to rest the big three for hugely extended periods of time, and that while resting them there will be a need for substantial minutes to any big not named Tristan or Timofey is totally misguided.  Finally, for however great Andy is on D and however great he is on O, his 10 mil (plus tax) isn’t worth anywhere near his production versus a guy like James Jones, at his vet minimum (side note – I am NOT arguing that Jones is better than Andy.  But at about 9 million a year less?  Yep, he’s a better deal).

So let’s sum it up – Yes, Andy is a favorite of many Cavs fans, and yes, he was great during the Lebron-less years.  But Andy is old and coming off a MAJOR injury (after a previous years of injuries), he plays the same position as three of the most financially invested, youngest, highest upside players on the roster, and he costs an absolute ton of money.  If there’s any way the Cavaliers can part ways with their beloved vet for anything of value, they should, sadly, do it in a heartbeat.

Nate Smith

Andy has been a strange outlier for his entire NBA career. In 2004, when the Cavs traded Tony Battie, and two second-rounders for Drew Gooden, Andy, and Steven Hunter (one of the best Cavs trades ever) , little did they know they’d be getting a big man who’d be on the team for 11 more season. Andy was one of the rare NBA players who kept getting better every year, until he peaked at 29 when he put up 14.1 points and 14.4 boards a night in 25 games before his season was cut short (a familiar theme). In addition, Wild Thing learned to shoot, and for the last two seasons has had one of the league’s best mid-range jump shots: 50% from 10-24 feet over the last two seasons.

That jump shot isn’t going anywhere, and as David said, Andy’s skill set meshes beautifully as a backup for Kevin Love, and as a great setup man from the high post. When Andy’s in, Kevin or Bron can go to the low post with Andy giving the high-post entry past, and guys can camp out on the corners and/or cut off the wing. There are SOOO many options with those sets, and you can never have too many guys who can pass, cut, and shoot. And Mallory, because he can actually grab a rebound, Andy is more valuable than James Freaking Jones. From a pure basketball standpoint, there’s few teams in the league who wouldn’t want Andy. He fits everywhere.

Defensively, Andy stunk at the beginning of last year, and it seemed as if his lateral quickness had left him. But, every Cav was a defensive sieve at 2014’s start. The Cavs started 19-20, and to point to Andy’s 25 games as the reason is silly. The Cavs were running defensive stalwarts, Dion Waiters and Shawn Marion at the two. Teams were dusting those guys, and K-Love, ‘Bron, and Andy were all playing hands-on-your-knees D when penetrators got to the second line.

I’m throwing any data from the beginning of last year out the window. Though, it’s not like his defense was terrible last year. His DRPM was -.57, while his ORPM was -2.23. Andy was poor – not awful – on D, and suffered from the same offensive malaise the rest of the team did. But if you go back to 2013-2014, Andy was No. 4 center in NBA in RPM, at 4.06. and 26th in the NBA, most of this predicated on his 3.59 DRPM. We’re only a little over a year removed from that kind of production.

AP Photo/The Plain Dealer, Thomas Ondrey

…well, a year and one ruptured achilles. I know what you’re all thinking. I’m ignoring the elephant in the room: Varejao’s ridiculous injury history. Over the past five seasons, he’s only played over 31 games one time. But here’s the outlier thing again: Andy’s never had the same injury twice.

2010-2011: Right ankle tendon, Jan 6th, season ending. 31 Games.

2011-2012: Broken right wrist, Feb 10th, season ending. 25 Games.

2012-2013: Blood clot, Jan 21st, season ending. 25 Games.

2013-2014: Back soreness, Feb 11th-March 7th. 65 Games.

2014-2015: Ruptured left achilles, Dec. 23rd, season ending 26 Games.

This isn’t a guy who has one chronic issue. It’s just flukes coming up over and over. Of course, he has one of the NBA’s most difficult injuries to overcome, an achilles, on his dominant foot. A couple of years ago a couple of doctors from Drexel wrote a paper, “Performance Outcomes after Repair of Complete Achilles Tendon Ruptures in National Basketball Association Players,” and Kyle Wagner at Deadspin covered it.

Takeaways include these fun facts.

In the first year back from injury, players played 5.21 fewer minutes per game. That number dropped to 4.42 in the second year back. More tellingly, player efficiency rating (PER) dropped by 4.64 the first year back and 4.28 the second…

On a per 40-minute basis, “athletic” stats like blocks, rebounds, and steals actually held steady post-injury. The same is true for field goal and free throw shooting percentages…

The dropoffs showed up in any number of categories. Some players shot abysmally once they came back; for others, usage rates plummeted, suggesting they were no longer capable of creating their own offense. But taken as a whole, there was an obvious and expected drop in efficiency for nearly everyone…

In a similar article, CBS’s Chris Towers gave us a chart of former players and their post injury stats..

But here’s the thing. Andy will not be a high minutes player on this Cavs team, so the fewer minutes is no big deal, that’s got to happen. And Andy’s game was never predicated on explosive athleticism like Kobe Bryant, nor superior quickness like Chauncey Billups. If Andy’s block, rebound, and steal numbers can stay solid, there’s no reason he can’t contribute to this team, especially if his jumper stays true. The biggest place Andy will probably have trouble is finishing layups and dunks, which could be an issue. But it was reported that Andy was already warming up and running drills with the team in warmups during the late stages of the playoffs and the finals. This has to bode well.

It’s Dan Gilbert’s Money if he wants to pay, he can pay. Yes, every dollar he’s paying, counts triple or more, given the salaries the Cavs are supporting. It’s hard to Ask Cavsdan to re-sign Delly, JR, trade Brendan Haywood for someone, sign someone with the remaning mini-midlevel, and keep Andy. Here’s a little scenario of what that would look like in salary, courtesy of WFNY’s Jacob Rosen.

With just adding hypothetical J.R. Smith $7M deal, total Cavs spending increases to the $272-$316 range. pic.twitter.com/Aygjrjt8Ti

— Jacob L. Rosen (@JacobLRosen) July 9, 2015

Ultimately, if Andy’s not working out, the Cavs do have an option instead of trading him. They can offer him the stretch pay buyout, which could save the Cavs over 27-40+ million in luxury tax payments this season. Due to the way Andy’s two years and $18.9 million million in guaranteed salary is structured, and due to his non-guaranteed third year, the Cavs could offer him the stretch pay buyout, making his yearly cap hit over the next seven years $2.7 million dollars. To do this, Cleveland would have to waive Andy before August 31st this year. Otherwise, his $9.6 million dollar 2015 salary cannot be stretched. As you can see above, small changes to salaries (in this case, Matthew Dellavedova and Tristan Thompson), can cause $40 million in swings when it comes to the Cavs’ tax bill.

But I don’t want to see Andy released. His injuries are like a bad run in poker. Just because you lost four of the last five hands, doesn’t mean you played them wrong or you made bad decisions. Sometimes you have bad luck, and sometimes it comes in clusters. Correlation is not causality.

David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

I’ve never been one that just roots for laundry. I love this Cavs team for the players. I don’t love the players just because they’re on the Cavs (*casts sidelong look at Joe Harris*). Anderson Vaarejao deserves a shot at a ring more than some schmuck the Cavs could get with Brendan Haywood’s contract.  Andy bleeds Wine and Gold and will have his number retired in the Q some day. Sure, if Cleveland released him, they could bring him back as an assistant, but Andy has more pride than that. He’d go sign somewhere else first. It would pain me to see Andy playing against Cleveland in another uniform. And I don’t think it would make the guy who’s running the Cavs – LeBron James – very happy, either. Which is why it won’t happen.