Podcast Episode 141: The 10th Percentile
2017-07-19https://soundcloud.com/ctb-5/episode-141-the-10th-percentile
The Cleveland Cavaliers haven’t done much this offseason and Nate Smith and David Wood aren’t impressed in this episode of Cavs:the Podcast. There’s lots of malaise over Green and Calderon, who by many statistical measures are in the 10th percentile of NBA players. They also argue vehemently on whether or not Cleveland should consider trading LeBron James. Before you get up in arms, one of them thinks this is a ridiculous idea. Unimpressed with the job the front office has done, they discuss trade targets from nearly every team in the league, and delve into whether a Carmelo Anthony deal could actually work. To cope with the stress, they wrap things up playing a riveting game of who is better than Jeff Green and Jose Calderon. Guys like Brandon Knight, Austin Rivers, and Ersan Ilyasova get some mentions. Check it out to find out who is better than the worst and who is worse than the tenth percentile.
Listen above, on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Google Play, and as always… GO CAVS!
https://twitter.com/oldseaminer/status/888109688146993154
They must really think they can get LeBron next year if this team craps out.
Our team will only crap out if LeBron leaves.
I think Ramona Shelburne “secretly” works for the Lakers. I can’t stand her.
https://twitter.com/ramonashelburne/status/888091723674427392
Remember Ramona threw a hissy-fit when Durant wouldn’t grant the Lakers a meeting last off-season.
She’s a Laker homer/ insider. Basically like their version of Amico, but she has a beptter rep.
https://twitter.com/Reflog_18/status/888062689930555392
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/888093608594870273
THUMBS UP FOR GOING AFTER ROSE AND KEEPING ENCHILADA INSTEAD OF KILLER SHRIMP ( WE’LL SEE HOW THAT UNFOLDS AND WHO REALLY IS CALLING THE SHOTS ON PLAYERS / TRADES / FREE AGENTS ETC. ) THINK THERE IS STILL SOME ” GAS IN THE TANK ” FOR ROSE TO BE EFFECTIVE / IMPORTANT PART OF A CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM —HOPE HE SEES THAT AS WELL
Amico says Rose #4 in the league in terms of points per drive. Also averaged 29 ppg in last couple vs GSW. And shot 47% overall with good mid-range numbers.
Yep. Put him in to go to the basket with shooting around him for 10-15 minutes per game.
If we miss on Allen, I have no issue with Enchilada taking Felder’s spot.
For sure. They should cut Felder. He isn’t guaranteed this second year right?
I think there is a partial guarantee. I also saw that some contracts can be converted to 2 ways. I have no idea if Felder is eligible or willing, but it would make some sense. It gives Calderon a reason to be here as the #3 PG to help Felder.
Anyone think is Rose has some rejuvenation here it may influence Melo as the season goes on?
Could be. He may get traded to Houston before he gets bought out tho.
Given our limited resources, adding Rose, Green, Osman, & Calderon is not horrible. A whisker from PG13. Could still land Tony Allen. We have plenty of shooters (Korver, JR, Frye, Kyrie, Love) what we needed more of is athletic, versatile guys who can play multiple spots (Osman, Green) & guys who can initiate offense (Rose, Calderon). Irving, JR, James, Love, TT Bench: Rose, Korver, Green, Shump, RJ, Frye, Osman, Calderon. There is your 13 actives most nights. Felder & Tavares in Canton. Sir D on a 2 way. If we land Allen see if Felder will take a 2 way… Read more »
GM’ing this team at this moment is not hard.
GM: “Hey, does Player A have interest in playing in the NBA Finals for 1 year, $2.3M?”
Agent: “No.”
GM: “Ok.”
GM: “Hey, does Player B have interest in playing in the NBA Finals for 1 year, $2.3M?”
Agent: “No.”
GM: “Ok.”
GM: “Hey, does Player C have interest in playing in the NBA Finals for 1 year, $2.3M?”
Agent: “Yes.”
GM: “Cool.”
Haha
Great comment ;)
pretty much sums it up!
I don’t understand why we wasted any of our cap on old washed Jose Calderon. Still inexcusable. I hate Rose as person but it least is a serviceable if not decent NBA player.
I think with any free agency move the Cavs make you’ve got to ask yourself: did they improve defensively, and will it help you in the finals? I’m not sure about Rose? I don’t think they improved defensively, but he may be able to run the second unit for a few minutes, while LeBron sits.
Get a grip!! All you have to ask is will it help win.
Anyone have some advanced stats on Rose’s defensive ability?
You’d have to look at his chicago numbers, IMO, cause the Knicks were such a s*** show
With Chicago 2015-16, his defense rating is 105.8, offense rating is 101.6. His MVP year pre injury, his defense rating is 99.6. With knicks last year, he was really bad with defense rating of 111.
Rose certainly is a wild card. It might be a long shot. What fraction of his best form can he still muster? He is only 28. We will have to retain the Enchilada, so we can hit them with “Double Derrick Dragon Doom”.
All we really need him for is to have a decent finals, create some confusion for the Dubs D.
He’s still pretty great at getting into the paint and making shots. He will have much more room here. He’d be a great backup PG.
He’d be a great guy to sign. His ability to attack the basket and kick out to shooters would really help. Another playmaker when LeBron goes to the bench is nothing but a positive, too.
Can you play Kyrie+Rose together ? High usage player who doesn’t play D. Neverthless, a good signing for Cavs if Lue avoids Rose in certain lineups.
I think they can make it work. I could help us to not bleed points when LeBron goes to the basket.
Goes to the bench*
Ha.
Rose’s D is passable. People need to stop looking at the Knicks and their players as the only way they can perform. That organization was top to bottom a disaster and nobody was performing where they should. Don’t forget that Rose was a part of the stifling Chicago Bulls defense under the Thibs regime. He won’t be called upon to handle the whole offensive load on this team and could improve on the defensive end. He’s not a lock down defender but he can stay in front of players.
You might have watched Rose more than me being on east coast but from my observation in games I watched, Rose is pretty bad defender. That said, if you get an offensive talent like Rose, win for Cavs. Most bench players are one way players anyway.
my impression is Rose has always been a poor defender. Those epic Rose/Rondo battles came in part because neither guy could defend the other for a lick
Rose is better than someone like Calderon ( who is DONE imo), but he’s not much. Always been a poor defender, and the worst part is he appears to think he’s a star. He was toxic on the Knicks, and soured Porzingis with his hero ball. If you get him for the min, whatever, but I wouldn’t expect much.
https://twitter.com/Akron_Jackson/status/888063184908820480
A PG rotation of Irving, Rose and Calderon would be fantastic. Koby doing work.
I don’t know where the net negative is coming from. At vet minimum? If nothing else he’s at least AS GOOD as Deron. Not the shot, but he can get to the paint, and actually gets some offensive rebounds. Both players are negative defenders, which isn’t great, but Deron had one game he scored in the finals, and only had 6 assists in 5 games. Rose can do better than that.
Rose can at least stay in front of more guys than DWill, he may be less good on shooting from outside but like you said, Deron scored in only one game in the finals so is it really a loss on that end at all?
Yeah, that’s kind of my point. I hear a bunch of people calling the move dumb. It may not be a great move, but it makes the team better than it was.
This board generally thinks every move is horrible until it works out and then everyone claims amnesia.
Kind of like you, but just the opposite.
MikeO
When I’m wrong I have no problems admitting it.
Other than with Delly.
Certainly better than the waste of a roster spot that is Calderon at this stage of his career. He is done. Look at his numbers last season and the past 3 years. Donezo. If it takes the mle, so be it I guess. I mean they missed out on nearly every other guy that would warrant an mle, so why not rose I guess?
https://twitter.com/joevardon/status/888064675849670661
Please make it happen.
I don’t know what there is to really agree upon… do you want the vet minimum or not?
https://twitter.com/ESPNCleveland/status/888062982739161088
Vet minimum vs 2.5 mil of mle
Doesn’t the Vet Minimum end up being $2.3 M?
Well 200k is, 200k
Someone throw him $300k under the table and get it wrapped up!
https://twitter.com/WindhorstESPN/status/888056394548736004
Guess this means Kay Felder’s days are numbered…????
Felder’s a worst version of IT, nothing lost…
PLEASE let this be true. PLEASE.
Did not realize the Suns had Eric Bledsoe on the trade block?
https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2017/07/james-jones-joins-suns-front-office-gm-mcdonough-extended.html
Im very interested to see how KLove comes out this season – knowing he was on the trade block.
I don’t think players let this stuff bother him. Love knows how this all works. He’ll be fine.
David Griffin has so many teams offering the GM position to him. Oh, wait…
For all we know, Griffin told GIlbert look, I want to be the top paid GM and I want far more power within the organization because simply staying as GM here when we have nothing to really “GM” (no picks, no players with trade value outside the big 3, etc.) won’t do much for my career. I need something more because this roster is as inflexible as a roster gets.
At which point Gilbert thought… if we can’t really do much to change the team anyways, why would I pay Griffin way more than I could pay Billups, or Koby, or someone else? There’s isn’t that much “GM’ing” to do anyways.
Yep. This is entirely plausible. I think two things. I don’t think that Gilbert wants to pay top dollar for a GM and I think Griffin demanded top dollar.
Wait, how many GM jobs are available?
For all we know, Aliens abducted Griffin on a UFO and replaced Gilbert with a robot.
Which is fine. But now the Cavs look like they’re a headless chicken.
Why can’t the cavs win next year? The West is going to be a bloodbath. The Warriors are going to have to work so much harder day in and day out against 10-12 of those teams. If they suffer any sort of injury, they most likely aren’t getting out of the west. Not to mention…at some point does the disease of more start to impact the likes of Draymond and Klay? If the Warriors are pushed to play 5-7 game series all throughout the playoffs and then Cleveland can run the East…I still like our chances. If Iggy isn’t on… Read more »
Yep. After the first game where they Lee us away we had a 120 offensive rating and they had a 123. The games were close and a couple of different bounces and it goes 6 or 7.
We can win. Just have to be a bit better next year in the Finals.
From a warriors fan perspective, Cavs can win if they add few two way players and if they actually believe they can win. I don’t think Cavs were ready to start series.
Also, why won’t Cavs try to get home court. After all, they are arguably in the weakest conference of all time.
Nah, all we need is a weird salary cap spike, Durant to choke in a series vs us, then he will come play for us. That’s what the warriors did.
Tell you what is weird, Cavs getting 4 #1 picks over last 14 years. So, Cavs should be last team to whine about luck when Lebron actually came back to Cavs against heavy odds after Cavs owners and fans reaction post decision. It wouldn’t be weird if Lebron stays or leaves Cavs this year either.
Troll. Of course it was luck that you got durant. That’s the entire point. But you miss it time and time again.
Again and again, you have distinction of being a troll on your own website.
They didn’t have the depth to go for best record. How did that work for the Dubs the previous year?
I do agree the Cavs were not ready to start the series. It is not at all clear that Lue knows what he is doing. He did not use the best players, and had no Plan B. He had better luck the previous year with goofy player choices. Lue needs to quit listening to Cols.
Last 3 years warriors got home court advantage, winning 2 out of 3 is great.
Why doesn’t Cavs have depth ? Many vet minimum, MLE contract guys can make a difference to depth, if you add right ones.
We had great depth last year. Just happens you guys didn’t get depth, you got Kevin Durant. This year seems to working out a bit better, especially if we get Rose.
Totally agree. Lots of things can happen. The Cavs have as good a chance as anyone of making the finals.
If gs is healthy, no one is beating them. They are still head and shoulder above Houston.
You know the season hasn’t started yet?
From what I have seen, if they are healthy, we can’t match up with them. Not for enough of every game to beat them in a series. Nothing changed this off-season to fix that. Again, matching up with Durant on defense for 40 minutes a game is our major weakness. James still can’t be on him the whole game and when he is, his help d is limited. Jeff Green doesn’t help in that regard. You actually think Houston can beat them? I don’t see it. Spurs might make them work a few games if last year’s game 1 is… Read more »
Never underestimate the swaggyP disfunction factor. Rose is not a great shooter or defender. However, he still can do some things well & is not afraid of the big moment like Deron is. It is an upgrade. Think of Calderon as a coach/3rd PG and it is fine. See if Felder will take a 2 way deal with Pointer so they can develop. If so we’d still have 1 spot open (Allen or a buyout).
Rose can PLAY.
Bartolo Colon’s career faces moment of truth with Twins. http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/242846152/bartolo-colon-twins-yankees-last-chance
We have 1 spot open. Jones was an UFA so his retirement changes nothing there. Felder/Tavares are on partial/non guaranteed deals. Tavares is our 4th big so he’ll stay. Serious potential defensively. Felder also has potential. I’d give him a year.
Felder will never, ever, be good.
In fairness, he’d be good in China.
That remains to be seen.
Felder has potential to be what? A guy who can score 10ppg and literally kill you on defense?
I see absolutely zero reason to waste a roster spot on the guy. He is never going to be anything in the NBA.
The only teams interested in Lawson are teams in China: https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2017/07/free-agent-notes-lawson-hansbrough-buycks.html?fv-home=true&post-id=70141
That’s how far he’s fallen. No thanks!
Yep.
I liked James Jones’s locker room presence for the Cavs. He will be missed. The one thing I didn’t like was his nickname “Champ.” It almost feels irreverent and/or sarcastic. I know it’s not though.
When you had the best GM candidate in your building…
https://twitter.com/IraHeatBeat/status/887741740597358599
I highly doubt the Cavs wanted to hire Jones to be the GM of a team where he’s close friends with most of the team. I also highly doubt Jones would have wanted to be placed in that position. But feel free to keep overreacting.
The moral of this story: They probably low balled him.
Ok, Colsy-anne Conway
So Nate is on record for wanting James Jones, a dude with great relationships with his current teammates to be the GM in charge of trading them and cutting them. Awesome. Maybe you need to take a step back from your keyboard for a bit.
IDK, everyone is friends in the NBA, except the owners and players. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.
Where did you hear this?
You prefer Dan Gilbert, with his sterling record other than years when he’s had Lebron James on the team? And don’t come back with ‘Koby or someone else is GM’ – prove it. Gilbert is the de facto team president right now, and until further notice.
All accounts have Koby doing the GMing. But you can live in your made up world where everything is awful and Gilbert sucks so bad the Cavs have only been to the last three Finals if want to. Being bitter and ignoring evidence that should make you happy is a strange way to live through the best stretch of Cavs basketball we will likely ever see.
Why do you think that? Are you such a negative nelly that you think the cavs could never identify top tier front office and coaching talent like San Antonio did and subsequently build an organization that finds guys like Parker, Ginobli, and Leonard repeatedly outside the top 10? That should be the goal. Build a sustainable small market winner by finding and paying top tier front office and subsequently coaching talent.
The Spurs have built a sustainable winner by drafting well.
Due to a solid front office.
Exactly. Drafting consistently well for 17+ straight years without lottery picks usually only happens with a top tier scouting infrastructure and top tier front office/coaching talent. That is why Gilbert needs to invest in Front office and coaching talent. Stability is key.
I thought they were frauds.
OLD AND FRAUDS. Or did the Cols narrative shift for some reason?
The Cavs have no front office right now, unless you count Gilbert and his sterling record of success.
Prove that Altman has the position that you claim he has. If you can’t prove it, stop making the claim.
That is the official line. You are the one doubting it. You are the one needing proof.
Until the Cavs have a GM, they have no GM. this is not hard. But believe what pleases you.
Btw, since I’m not the one one claiming something that is not the reality, I’m the the opposite of someone who needs to supply proof.
Is this your guess? Or did you hear something?
Until someone is named, it is the reality.
The main issue I see is the lack of info regarding the Cavs desire to give Jones a try. Okay, maybe having a friend of the team become a gm is a bad thing but why wasn’t there even a rumor of it? Were there even any meetings to discuss the matter?
Whatever, Kellyanne Colsway
Seriously though, this is one of the most insane takes you’ve ever had, and is frankly an insult to JFJ. You’re saying that he’s not professional and honest enough to to deal fairly and honestly with his friends and former coworkers once he moves to management. This is something millions of people do when they’re promoted to management and have to be in charge of people they call friends. Not to mention the fact that Jones was considered one of the most honest, professional, and respected players in the NBA and has been in leadership in the players associations. But… Read more »
Whatever Nate. You need to take a break.
From you.
I actually agree with Cols that this is a pretty clear-cut decision. JFJ would not have been a good fit as our GM and Cols nailed the reasons why. This comes down to business, and JFJ would have been the most conflicted GM of all time had we hired him this year. It would have made zero sense to hire a GM with zero experience that has spent the past 3 seasons playing alongside the player he would have to negotiate with/trade/release/etc. That’s as big of a conflict as you can have. Has any player become the GM of the… Read more »
Same problem as with Billups. Absolutely 0 front office experience and thrust into the top job. Dumb.
I James Jones is better than Dan Gilbert running the team we need a gm period.
Hopefully, unless Gilbert is a completely incompetent moron, he hasn’t been running the team. Presumably, Altman has.
Also, by Gilbert’s track record of hiring, firings, and how he has handled situations publicly, completely incompetent moron is very well within the realm of possibility.
Suns can afford some learning curve by James Jones though …
I am of the opinion, that no one can afford a learning curve on the guy that has the final say on scouting and personnel decisions. Screwing up a lottery pick CAN be a death knell. Of course if you got as lucky as the Cavs have with how many #1s we have gotten in 10 years it might not matter as much.
Two #1s?
Bennett, Irving, Wiggins. Yeah Bennett. Plus two number 4s
They have a GM. Not the top job. We should have offered him something in the FO or coaching. Goodspeed Champ. Nothing but class, smarts, professionalism, & a great stroke.
Sure, a job, not the top job. Not the guy with final say on personnel.
If last season was tough to watch, how difficult is this regular season going to be? Whats the over-under on the Cavs losing 30 games for not giving a crap? I’d say Cavs go 45-37, and 30 of those 37 losses are just them mailing it in, especially with the dismal East. Warriors roster got even better, Cavs roster stayed put and their management is a mess. Everyone in the league knows this team won’t move the ball in the toughest situations and doesn’t play defense in most situations. Players, GMs just don’t want to be a part of that.… Read more »
Pretty much…
A note on backups PGs in the Finals. They usually suck, the only exception the last 6 years is Patty Mills who was pretty awesome. Livingston has been OK and Deron and Delly sucked. Thanks to EVR for the research! 2011 – J.J. Barea 45.6% TS, Mike Bibby 47.5% TS 2012 – Norris Cole 43.3% TS, Derek Fisher 53.0% TS (wow!)… on 9.7% USG, 4.9% AST 2013 – Norris Cole 32.8% TS, Cory Joseph 47.3% TS 2014 – Patty Mills 72.9% TS, Norris Cole 38.5% TS 2015 – Shaun Livingston 52.6% TS, Matthew Dellavedova 38.9% TS 2016 – Matthew Dellavedova… Read more »
Why is TS% the only measurement for if a player is playing well? This completely leaves out any defensive impacts they might have/passing/ballhandling/any not shooting stat…
Delly didn’t really play in the 2016 finals. He was “Mozgov’d!” And in the 2015 finals he played like a high usage player, which he is not. Plus what JMay said.
Plus in the 2015 finals, Delly had to play in games 4-6 without fully recovering from his hospitalization. (Just one off day between games 3 and 4, IIRC.) So gotta discount his stats for games 4-6.
But thats because he was so out if shape, don’t you remember? He only had to go to the hospital due to how poorly conditioned he was. Cols told me.
To add to this, typical backup PGs are not called upon for their shooting prowess. While many of them CAN and DO shoot, their primary function is to help maintain offensive game plans while the starters sit or to defend an opposing guard.
Moral of story: Shawn Livingston historically better than most finals backup point guards, which is why the Cavs have to improve if they want to beat them.
So the Cavs are set with a bad backup PG going against arguably the best team of all time. Thanks for the propaganda.
SO IT IS FINAL JAMES JONES NOT RETURNING TO THE CAVS —-DOES THIS OPEN UP ANOTHER ROSTER SPOT—-CAVS SHOULD HAVE HAD THE FORESIGHT TO OFFER HIM A POSITION
How do you know they didn’t offer him a position? Plus Jones being close to Lue and the rest of the team makes him a very bad fit for a FO position. Cutting and trading away your friends is no fun.
Can enchilada take his spot?
I believe they knew Jones wasn’t coming back, and still only have 1 spot available. They will have 2 though if they cut Kay Felder, before he’s guaranteed that $. Not sure about Tavares, he may have the same deal as Felder.
Should they have offered him the GM? EG thought so.
No. Not the GM. Something FO or coaching however. Perhaps we did.
https://twitter.com/RealGM/status/887735330178080768
Let the Lebron to Phoenix rumors commence!
If they start clearing cap space it’s a done deal.
Lol. Really? Phoenix?
I’m half kidding. Or a 3/4’s kidding.
Kyrie: http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/20103352/kyrie-irving-offseason-cleveland-cavaliers-very-peculiar-place
What a weird freaking team.
What a great freaking team. The best we will see in our lifetimes as Cavs fans.
Both statements can be true.
Yep. But I feel this board spends way too much time worrying about the weird instead of celebrating the greatness.
Then go somewhere else. Also, it’s not a “board.”
I add the needed balance. I’m the light side of the force in this situation. You need me.
This is some GREAT WEIRDNESS !!
What does it matter to you what people ‘worry’ about? Will you ever stop telling people what to think?
That’s pessimistic. Aim high.
It’s a weird organization with a weird owner. Heck, it’s a weird town.
I could spend two hours explicating that statement. This is a strange team.
Don’t debate stuff from KJG. That will encourage those buffoons to keep it up, if they think someone is actually reading it. The KJG level of cluelessness puts ESPN radio to shame.
I got it from Steve Kyler. Mike Schreiner is the only thing I ever liked that came from KJG
LOL Thanks, Nate.
Trading LeBron, the best player in the NBA by a very wide margin, would be the dumbest thing anyone could ever do.
If I’m LeBron I wouldn’t want to be traded, because the team he would be going to would have to give up a lot of assets, they he would probably want to play with in the future.
KJG RUNNING SCENARIOS OF LEBRON TRADES ( IS WHAT THEY DO ALL THE TIME ) ONLY WAY I WOULD EVER CONSIDER TRADING LEBRON WOULD BE IF LEBRON WENT PUBLIC AND SAID HE AND GILBERT / FRONT OFFICE HAD A MEETING —IT WAS HIS IDEA TO APPROACH THEM THAT HE HAD NO INTENTIONS OF COMING BACK AND TO ALLOW CAVS TO GET SOMETHING IN RETURN —IF LEBRON DOESN’T GO PUBLIC WITH THIS KIND OF STATEMENT YOU CAN’T TRADE HIM —-YOU WOULD LOOK ABSOLUTELY IGNORANT AND BETRAY THE ENTIRE FAN BASE ( COLS WOULD PROBABLY HUNT YOU DOWN )———-CALVIN ROBERTS IS RIPPED… Read more »
And LeBron has a no trade clause. Look how well that is working out for the Knicks and Melo.
The entire idea of trading LeBron is absurd on its face.
So as of right now, we definitely have LeBron for 1 year, Love for 2 years (potentially 3 if he picks up his option), and Kyrie for 3 years. Say LeBron leaves, would you offer Kyrie and/or Love a super max?
Kevin Love’s last year is not a player option. Don’t listen to Cols.
Cols is correct: http://hoopshype.com/player/kevin-love/salary/
Of course I’m correct. Don’t expect Nate to ever say he’s wrong though.
Spotrac was wrong.
You were wrong.
Your mom was wrong.
At least she admits it.
This thread ends with a mom joke. Perfect!
We have different sources http://www.spotrac.com/nba/cleveland-cavaliers/kevin-love-6132/
You’re source doesn’t specify one way or the other. Here’s BBall Reference. Love has a player option in his 5th year: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/loveke01.html#all_all_salaries
I concede.
It’s all good.
Our offense wasn’t the problem this series. Getting LeBron in the post would work, sure, but we need to be able to defend better.
After game one we had an offensive rating of 120. Against one of the best defenses in the NBA (supposedly, but I don’t think regular season defense translates at all to the playoffs). Unfortunately they had an offensive rating of 123 against one of the supposed worst defenses in the NBA.
Right, so naturally, that would lead you to believe that if we made marginal improvements on defense (we did not) we would stand a much better chance than if we improved on offense (we did not).
Getting Osman and Green seem like the type of wings we need for the bench. Athletic guys who aren’t zeros on the other end. The only move that didn’t seem correct was Calderon, and even then you can understand wanting to get a backup PG when we didn’t have one until Deron showed up last March.
I think there were plenty of options other than Green and Calderon who were snatched up really early. I don’t think anyone would have had a problem with these signings if there was no one left and we needed two more pieces going into the regular season.
Having only the vet minimum means that the player would have to really want to play for Cleveland and be willing to accept the vet minimum. It’s a two way street and I don’t know what you can ask for in that situatino.
We had MLE plus whats your justification for Mbah a Moute
The plan for the Cavs this summer was to bring Osman over so we had to use some MLE on that. For Mbah a Moute it’s extremely likely that he was persuaded by Chris Paul, a guy he liked playing with, to play for Houston. I highly doubt the Cavs FO didn’t give him a call and see if he wanted to come to Cleveland. We cannot act like only the Cavs have agency. Players, other teams, etc. have agency and a say in what happens as well. I do think if we offered our full MLE to Mbah a… Read more »
I think Mbah a Moute would have been the better signing out of the two. It just feels like a “give up” move. Of course players have other options and preferences. It just seems like we could have done better than Green and Calderon.
Sure, that’s an OK opinion to spend the MLE on Luc instead of Cedi. I don’t know how much better than Green we could’ve done. He gets us a veteran (but not old) athletic wing who has a good history with Lue and will be in probably the best situation he’s ever been in. That’s exactly the type of player we should be after. As for Calderon, I kind of agree, but also what are the options? Ty Lawson? Gag. Felton, sure, but he’s not tearing it up as way better. I get the disgust on Calderon, but he’s also… Read more »
Yeah, I argued David pretty hard on this point.
Nope.
Calderon isn’t going to shrink under the pressure of the Finals. He might not be great in the regular season, but he is fearless in big games. He is almost a different dude. He will be relatively awful on D until the playoffs but the signing isn’t about that. Green fought Bron hard for a few years in the playoffs and gave the King some minor trouble. I’m sure Bron remembers that in a Doc Rivers fashion. I hate him as a player, but Bron might be able to get him to not be awful. Tyreke Evans is not a… Read more »
Eh. Ben. I’m gonna respectfully disagree. Calderon has an eating utensil sticking out of his back.
Eh. Whatever. This is a typical Nate overreaction that gets revised later.
7 games in, homie. I stand by my record.
https://cavstheblog.com//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////?p=23024
Haha.
Paul Pierce always said Deron was a choker who couldn’t handle pressure & he got proven right in the Finals. Horrid shooting. Terrible TO’s. Yes, the first taste of the Finals can do strange things to guys (James himself & Harden), but the Cavs want someone who is not afraid of the moment.
Looking forward to listening, thanks guys.