{"id":24987,"date":"2014-03-18T03:02:27","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T11:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/?p=24987"},"modified":"2014-03-18T05:20:50","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T13:20:50","slug":"glass-half-full-view-of-the-season-or-how-consistently-wrong-can-i-be-about-this-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/?p=24987","title":{"rendered":"Glass Half Full View of the Season (or, how consistently wrong can I be about this team?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"70765481\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I have a vague theory. \u00a0Every time I write pessimistically about the Cavs, they immediately embark on a hot streak. \u00a0If I take an optimistic tone, an ensuing\u00a030-point loss becomes inevitable. \u00a0Seriously, look it up (Edited Note:\u00a0 I began writing this on Sunday evening.\u00a0 Within an hour, Kyrie had injured his biceps)<\/em>. \u00a0Sum up the team’s record in the two games after each negative article I write.\u00a0\u00a0It is\u00a0the equivalent of the 1996 Bulls. \u00a0Combining every set of two games following a positive article, they resemble the current 76ers. \u00a0Most recently, after offering a thumbs down<\/a>, the team won twice on the road against Western Conference playoff contenders.<\/p>\n

So far, this season has not gone as planned. \u00a0The Cavs made three big free agent acquisitions this past summer and\u00a0selected two first-round draft picks, including #1. \u00a0This season’s salary commitments for those five players approached $23 million, and due to Bynum’s odd deal, counted nearly $30 million towards the 2013 – 2014 salary cap. \u00a0At gotbuckets.com, we recently created a RAPM-based\u00a0wins equivalent, SWAgR<\/a>. \u00a0Through March 10th, Andrew Bynum, Jarrett Jack, Earl Clark, Anthony Bennett and Sergey Karasev combined for negative 1.5 SWAgR. \u00a0Based on that stat, replacing their minutes with available, reference level\u00a0players like Alonzo Gee, Nazr Mohammed and Darius Morris wins the Cavs 1.5 more games. \u00a0And that is not meant as a complement to the latter three guys.<\/p>\n

That is a rotten summer and a wasted season. \u00a0But this is not a negative article. \u00a0Balancing last week’s piece, here are silver linings from the 2013 – 2014 season. \u00a0But don’t worry, I have taken special considerations to ensure I don’t jinx the Wine & Gold!<\/p>\n

For Dion Waiters<\/strong><\/em>,\u00a0a primary positive is\u00a0that he’s draining 37% of his threes. \u00a0He converted a similar rate at Syracuse (36.4% his sophomore year), and Dion becoming a threat from deep really helps his career. \u00a0The other bright side is the incremental improvements in his defensive play. \u00a0His on-ball play frequently looks strong, and his off-ball work periodically thrives, too; as an example, in the GSW game, he ran two guys off the three point line in the same possession. \u00a0My\u00a0preferred defensive stats are RAPM and large sample APM<\/a>. \u00a0Last year, RAPM considered\u00a0Dion the 427th ranked defensive\u00a0guy of 469 NBA players.\u00a0 This year, that trends upwards to 270th of 469. \u00a0Even more dramatic, 2-year APM graded him as the 380th defensive player of 393 qualifiers last year. \u00a0While obviously still including last year’s play, his 2-year APM ticks up to 292nd of 391 this year. \u00a0 Waiters is not a 3 & D guy, but being good at both of these things significantly improves his value.<\/p>\n

Prediction:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Dion will miss his next 20 three pointers. \u00a0Instead of chasing his man around screens, he will spend most of his time at that end of the court standing by the bench drinking Gatorade.<\/p>\n

For Tyler Zeller<\/em><\/strong>\u2026he’s a totally legitimate NBA player! \u00a0Pick your stat of choice: RAPM, PER, Win Shares, Wins Produced; the 2nd year big man is an average-ish NBA player. \u00a0He looks a lot more capable of dealing with NBA physicality this year, and is knocking down his jumpers to boot. \u00a0From outside of 8 feet, he is hitting 50%. \u00a0I expect to see continued growth heading into next season.<\/p>\n

Prediction:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Zeller will switch onto Russell Westbrook on Thursday.\u00a0\u00a0Westbrook will post Zeller up, knock him over, and dunk on him.<\/p>\n

Then, Derek Fisher will do the same thing.<\/p>\n

Tristan Thompson<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>increased his free throw shooting percentage from 55 to 61 to 67 over his three seasons.<\/p>\n

Prediction:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Encouraged by his switch from left to right handed, Tristan begins shooting his free throws with a \u00a0two-handed set shot. \u00a0 This fails horribly, ruining his confidence, and many backboards along the way. \u00a0He never bests 55 percent again.<\/p>\n

In D-League competition, Sergey Karasev<\/em><\/strong> is averaging 13.5 points, 5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.7 turnovers and 1 steal on pretty nice 45 \/ 42 \/ 84 shooting. \u00a0For reference, he is seven months younger than Anthony Bennett and nineteen months younger than Kyrie.\u00a0\u00a0Sergey has moved to the USA, accliminated to playing here and is performing solidly. \u00a0With Kyrie now missing some time, I hope the Cavs make a serious commitment to\u00a0get \u00a0Sergey 15 minutes per night over the final month this season. \u00a0There is little reason to play Jarrett Jack 40 minutes a night, or Alonzo Gee 10, at Karasev’s developmental expense.\u00a0\u00a0There also should be a\u00a0serious inclination to\u00a0get\u00a0him playing time in 2014 – 2015, similar to what Denver has done with French youngster, Evan Fournier. \u00a0I don’t doubt Karasev can become a very solid two-way NBA player.<\/p>\n

Prediction:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Sensing upcoming Russian world dominance, tomorrow Karasev announces he is leaving Canton for Kazan. \u00a0After seven years, during which he wins Olympic gold medals in 2016 and 2020, he forces Cleveland to trade him to Miami. \u00a0Once there,\u00a0helps towards Lebron’s tenth ring.<\/p>\n

Prior to his injury, Anthony Bennett<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0made decent strides. \u00a0Our friend @laughingcavs was publishing PER graphs on twitter, showing rolling 30-day PER for a few players. \u00a0Here is Bennett. \u00a0By mid February, his rolling 30-day PER was a respectable 12.5.<\/p>\n

\"BhQikawCYAAI4BH.jpg-large\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Prediction:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>The only thing Bennett ever exceeds 12.5 in, is the “over” for the question “Over orUnder, Anthony Bennett misses 12.5 open dunks in 2014 – 2015.”<\/p>\n

CJ<\/em> Miles<\/em><\/strong> has been pretty good for 2 years, $4.5 million.\u00a0\u00a0The Cavs\u00a0should re-sign him. \u00a0Certainly in hindsight, wrapping up Shaun Livingston and Wayne Ellington last summer\u00a0for half of the price of Jarrett Jack would look amazing. \u00a0In the three guard lineups the Cavs run so frequently, Livingston would actually have decent size as a small forward. \u00a0Miles provides solid play and\u00a0roster consistency, all at a likely reasonable price.<\/p>\n

Prediction:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Miles inks another 2 year, $5 million deal to stay in Cleveland.\u00a0 He\u00a0retires in October 2014 though, hoping to seek a hip-hop career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a vague theory. \u00a0Every time I write pessimistically about the Cavs, they immediately embark on a hot streak.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[198],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-24987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2013-2014"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24987"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25027,"href":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24987\/revisions\/25027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24987"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=24987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}