From Distance: Grumpily Taking on The Czar

Four point play…

1. I was excited to hear ex-Cavaliers coach, Mike Fratello, in the booth with Austin Carr and Fred McLeod Tuesday night. The Czar has a little more time on his hands this season without having to call the Brooklyn Nets games every night. He is a fun analyst, but more importantly, Mike was a perfect example of a coach who tailored his basketball strategy to his players’ strengths.

Fratello’s Atlanta Hawks teams of the 80s featured an uptempo offense that scored at will. It was led by the now underrated, “Human Highlight Film, Dominique Wilkins. Those teams mostly fell short in the playoffs against Larry Bird’s Celtics squads, but it certainly wasn’t because they lacked offensive explosion.

He followed that coaching tenure by turning the Cleveland Cavaliers into a defensive juggernaut. Most impressively, Fratello’s 1997-1998 team gave heavy minutes to four rookies, Brevin Knight, Derek Anderson, Cedric Henderson, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Normally, rookies aren’t particularly good on defense, regardless of talent. That team, led on the floor by Shawn Kemp, was ranked first in defensive rating. That’s somewhat insane considering the youth. It’s almost as though Mike Fratello was the anti-Larry Brown. Brown detested playing younger players. Fratello coached them up, threw them on the floor, and they flourished.

That team holds a special place in my heart. It didn’t end all that well in the playoffs against Reggie Miller’s Indiana Pacers, but at the time, it seemed as though the Cavs had nowhere to go but up. Big Z and Brevin Knight made All-Rookie First Team, and Derek Anderson and Cedric Henderson made the Second Team. Shawn Kemp was a legit star and Z looked to be healthy after his lost 1996-1997 season. It wasn’t ridiculous to compare Zydrunas to fellow rookie, Tim Duncan.

We know how things played out. Ilguaskas injured his other foot after signing a huge deal, never to regain his athleticism. The awful NBA lockout gave Shawn Kemp time to eat his prime away. Derek Anderson struggled with injuries before getting traded to the Clippers, and Knight and Henderson never developed much further.

That season was the last time the Cavs made the playoffs before LeBron James 1.0 broke the drought in 2006. What looked like a young dynasty in the making was interrupted by injury, a lost NBA season and general weirdness. Fratello was fired after the 22-28 strike shortened campaign, and Cleveland floundered for the next four seasons. Who knows whether Fratello really would have wanted to continue coaching that decimated roster, but he certainly wasn’t canned for lack of coaching acumen.

Anytime I see “The Czar”, I think of that fun team and experience another little pang of regret for what Big Z’s career could have been. My second thought is what interesting thing will Fratello point out this game?

2. For that reason, I was a little startled by how reductive Mike was in his brief stint in the Cleveland booth. After watching one Cedi Osman failed three, he intimated that Osman has a bad shot. He followed that one up with a hard take on Luke Babbitt. Fratello basically said that Luke Babbitt came into the league known as a shooter, but couldn’t hit a shot until this season. That felt weird right out of his mouth. I checked Babbitt’s career stats and sure enough, the dude shot 43% from deep in just his second season. To be fair, Babbitt hasn’t gotten a lot of minutes throughout his career, but judging from his three point percentages, it doesn’t seem to be because he has had trouble connecting from behind the arc.

Why am I bothering to write about generally irrelevant remarks from a lifetime NBA guy? Because Austin Carr and Fred McLeod immediately agreed with both of Fratello’s takes. The guys pointed out how Osman banked in a three the other day and tacitly agreed with Fratello’s Babbitt remarks.

It is a microcosm of the announcing culture in the NBA. TV announcers are trained to never directly correct any mistake their partner makes on air. There are many elegant methods used by the personalities that help them to agree and adjust instead of disagree and correct. It is considered bad form to call out a partner in that way. It makes for good television. It also makes it incredibly entertaining when a booth partnership is comfortable enough to joke and rib without fear of one person taking offense.

It is basically a big game of Improvisational Theater. The Improv golden rule of “Yes, and…” is employed every night. Two Improv partners who have worked with each other for years can throw in a few “yes, and you are completely wrong” because they trust each other. Throw a new guy in the booth, and people will rely on their training.

Fine. Who cares?

I’ll get to the point. As a rule, I always listen to the home announcers when I’m watching League Pass. It helps give me an idea of how opposing announcing teams view the Cavaliers’ roster. I’m always curious to hear how many old, out of date scouting reports are still used to describe players whom I know very well.

Some common themes:

J.R. Smith is a poor defender and a bit of a knucklehead. 

Iman Shumpert is Tyronn Lue’s primary defensive stopper.

Kyle Korver can shoot the ball, but the team really struggles defensively when he is out there.

There are more. They are mostly either expired or simply incorrect. And yet, almost every announcing team will articulate the three above and a host of other inaccuracies. People will naturally believe what they hear from the so-called experts. If you train both the announcers and the viewers to agree with what they hear, it can get even worse.

This seemingly innocuous distribution of “information” forms the opinions of millions of fans. Maybe it makes for smoother television, but it also promotes a “common knowledge” that is based on platitudes and banality. Since Fratello is one of the best, just think about how much nonsense we get from lesser basketball minds. We need to do better. Think of the children.

3. Speaking of misinformation and general nonsense, the chatter around LeBron James going to the Houston Rockets next season is getting obnoxious. I do everything I can to avoid ESPN’s talking heads. If it weren’t for Zach Lowe, I might avoid the website all together. Unfortunately, it seems to extend beyond the “world wide leader”. One is hard pressed to find a single basketball site that hasn’t covered this new fantasy with the illusion of truth.

Enough already. Yes, LeBron would be good there. LeBron James is the greatest basketball player on the planet. He’d be good with any team. Line them all up, add LeBron James, and voilà, the team resembles a Finals squad. Oh wait, except the Lakers. And that’s why we have to read all this silliness about the Rockets. All these cute experts had LeBron going to the Lakers a month ago. Now that Lonzo Ball’s broken shot has dissuaded even the biggest “Bron to LA” believer into reevaluating the assumption, some other team has to take over as destination number one.

Look, it’s possible LeBron goes to play somewhere else. I highly doubt it, but it would be prudent to keep it on the table, both for him and for us. But, do we really have to send him to every team that enjoys a couple weeks of success? Aren’t there other stories to cover in the NBA? (Yes, I know I’m contributing to the problem by bringing it up here. sigh).

4. Go East, young man? For all the talk of Western Conference dominance, the East is still sporting more competitive teams. While the Warriors, Rockets, and Spurs continue to mow through the league, it could be argued that any of the East’s top 10 teams could be as good as anything else the West has to offer.

Before the season, people predicted horrendous seasons from both the Knicks and Pacers. I didn’t understand it at the time. Both teams feature young centers with range and huge defensive potential. As Kristaps Porzingis and Myles Turner continue to fill out their impressive frames in their third seasons in the league, more wins will follow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl9nFxyXkHQ

Porzingis has more individual talent, but Turner’s Pacers have a deeper roster. Victor Oladipo’s recent explosion has somewhat overshadowed just how solid the Pacers’ squad is. In any case, teams with that kind of superstar talent upfront aren’t going to be cellar dwellers.

It is the L’Eastern Conference no more. Unfortunately for Cavs fans, even the Nets are playing some inspired ball. As I write this, they would sit at 10th in the West.

Let’s not be afraid to reevaluate the things we are told to be true. Maybe J.R. Smith isn’t a knucklehead. Maybe the East isn’t so awful after all. And maybe, just maybe, LeBron James likes playing with a group of extremely talented players. In Cleveland.