The first preseason game and other stuff too
2009-10-06
-Notes from the first preseason game, which unfortunately I didn’t get to watch. (Damn you, League Pass. And the fact I went through the play-by-play and pretended to be Austin Carr is probably indicative of a serious mental disorder.) But anyways, here are my thoughts from the box and highlights, which should be taken with a grain of salt:
-LeBron seems to be into form early, with 15 points on 7 shots in 15 minutes, a nice dunk, and a three. The 4-6 from the line makes me nervous, but maybe I just need an ulcer.
-Can’t really say a whole lot about Shaq’s debut-I really, really, really want to see what effect it’s having on the spacing with him and AV in there at the same time, but the 15 in 15 from LeBron helps to quiet my biggest fear, which is that the lane’s going to be too clogged up for LeBron to drive this season.
-0 perimeter players other than LeBron with one field goal today, which is not fantastic. But a team-high 4 assists from Boobie, which is nice. (Not as nice: 3 of his 4 shots coming from inside the arc. YOU ARE A SHOOTING SPECIALIST, BOOBIE.)
-JJ Hickson going 6-9 is probably the good news of the night-if he can legitimately make the rotation this year, it makes a lot of things easier for Mike Brown when he’s making his rotations. And he did have a nice block on Augustin, although the fact he was horrendously late on his rotation when he made that block gives me pause.
-2 steals for Zydrunas Ilgauskas. That doesn’t happen a lot. I still worry about how he’s going to adjust his game to coming off the bench.
-The Delonte DNP: Definitely news of some kind, but since nobody really knows what’s going on, it’s tricky to talk about it. Get better, Delonte.
-Other stuff:
-In hopefully the last “incident” of LeBron’s ridiculous off-season, apparently Braylon Edwards punched one of LeBron’s friends or something. Sticking to his strengths, Braylon has apparently dropped any feud with LeBron, and hopefully this will all go away fairly soon.
-Hollinger’s player projections are out: Only LeBron and Shaq are projected to have significantly above-average PERs, with Z and Mo Williams coming in slightly above average. I don’t disagree with any of Hollinger’s assessments, and was in fact stunned by how accurate a lot of his Cavs observations were, but it’s fascinating to see how few objectively above-average players the Cavs feature. As I’ll get to in my player profiles, last season’s starters were stunning on how much of their value was derived from their “fit” rather than their ability in a vacuum.
-Alright, that’s all for right now. This week: player profiles, for serious. Stay tuned.
I like your thoughts. Can you send me a link to your other posts?
Justin Davis
Disclaimer: Author does not represent any legal position of
Lightspeed Systems Inc. and is the author’s opinion only, and
Lightspeed only provides an internet filter to K-12 schools and institutions
i watched every minute of that game (what does that say about me?) and the things that stood out are as follows: moon is crazy good on the defensive end of the court. Z is gonna thrive against second- teamers all year. hickson has more talent that anyone not named LBJ on this team. shaq is a very good passer and andy has to understand that a whole lot better before the season starts. parker looks great shooting off of screens. shaq was not trying very hard (can’t really blame him. veteran guy is not gonna expend a ton of… Read more »
My favorite part of the game was watching Moon all over the place. It just seems like at any moment he could pop up and block a shot or make a steal.
Agreed with Brent. Hollinger himself admits his PER does a less than ideal job of capturing defense and off ball play, two of AVs big strengths. His system has also been critized for overvaluing inefficient volume scorers(and thus by the nature of PER undervaluing players on the opposite end of the spectrum) by people like David Berri(which I think is a valid point, though some of Berri’s other assertions and his sometimes wacky results give me pause concerning his metric in general. Though for believers, Berri projects that 8-9 of the Cavs players will likely be above average.) And of… Read more »
That Delonte West and Anderson Varejao don’t register as above average players in Hollinger’s system is more evidence to me that Hollinger’s system has some real flaws. And beyond just the standard “he doesn’t measure defense with PER” types of flaws.
Tip from a fellow displaced Clevelander (I’m in St. Louis) since league pass is being lame: wtam.com usually doesn’t let you listen to games online but it was definitely working last night. Maybe it will work for preseason games until league pass starts up. I know its much better to get to actually see the games but its always good to hear Joe Tait’s voice.
WHAM with the right hand…
Hickson is interesting. It’d be nice if he made his way into the rotation, especially before Powe comes back.
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What the duece is up with the spam? Anywho, when we traded for Shaq this summer, I did the best I could to temper my excitement. I didn’t know which Shaq we would be getting, and I need not remind myself or anyone how disappointing last season was with the highest of expectations. But as soon as I saw Shaw on the court last night, I immediately went right back into “Championship or Bust (aka Massive Letdown and Disappointment)” mentality. Can’t wait for the season to start, and I can’t wait for more player profiles! As for Braylon, now that… Read more »
Hollinger may think the Cavs players are average, but an even more detailed statistical model says otherwise;
http://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/is-a-championship-parade-in-the-future-of-cleveland/
This guy’s evaluation suggests that every Cavs starter is above average as well as three of our bench players also being above average. Z is listed as ever so slightly below average.
Boobie doesn’t drive or take mid-range jumpers (least-effective expected value, I know) and people complain. He doesn’t take many/any threes, they complain. He can’t win. I’m not saying he is a great player, and I also wish he would concentrate on set threes, but I also feel bad for him. Shaq looked about an uninspired on offense when he did not have the ball as I have ever seen. He didn’t seem to go after any offensive rebounds while I was watching. However, he looked somewhat inspired on defense. Odd, but promising. He just looked bored without the ball in… Read more »
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