Cleveland Cavaliers Blog

  I’ve tried to make my trade/offseason grading more structured, this is what I have come up with.  Standard US grading system A through F where C is average.  Average here means average for the league which means you have to get slightly better from a trade to get a C because the overall talent level is still increasing.  Then the gap between a C move and an F, D, B or A is basically the impact of the move relative to league average.  Drafting Giannis at #15 is (retrospectively) an A+.  You don’t get an A for getting Ricky Rubio to play backup PG, you don’t get an A because you made a savvy move that netted you 2 2nd round picks instead of 1.  You get an A for large, impact moves that last for several years.  You get a C+ if you make a modest improvement that should last for 2-3 years, and you might get a C if you make a big upgrade that will cost you significantly in the future.   Naturally you have to take into account time line, trad...

  The Cavs traded for the artist formerly known as Baby Dirk, and while nicknames are fun and early career comparisons are often terrible, why hasn’t Markkanen even come close to living up to that potential?  That is the question for today. However the question here is not ‘why didn’t Lauri become Dirk-like’, because that is a very obvious simple answer, Dirk was one of the greatest mid range shooters in history and he used that elite (as in how elite should be used, nearly unparalleled) skill to force defenders into positions where they would foul, and then he cashed those FTs in at an 87% clip. That is the difference between Dirk and most other good shooting bigs, he could draw contact in the midrange the way that most bigs could only do at the actual basket.  The combination of traits that it took to produce that outcome (not the least being the IQ to recognize how to work the situation and the willingness to exploit it on every damn possession in the half court) are w...

  The Cavs landed Lauri Markkannen- the twitter (ie possibly incorrect) details are 4 years 64 million in a Sign and Trade.  The Cavs are sending Larry Nance Jr to the Blazers and a 2nd round pick to the Bulls. Unpacking this a little, the really simple stuff: Markannen is 24 Jarrett Allen is 23 Sexton is 22 Garland is 21 Okoro is 20 Mobley is 19 Unless someone takes the QO or there is a PO in Lauri’s deal the Cavs have full control over this group of players for the next 4 years.  Only Kevin Love is older than 27 on this roster now, and Cedi is the 2nd oldest expected rotation player at 26. The most important thing for rebuilding teams is to get young players, with potential, under contract at a reasonable rate.  On that metric this trade succeeds, especially considering they didn’t have to send out a first rounder to consummate it.   That doesn’t automatically make it a good deal though, because Nance does have value and making this swap when a better dea...

  The NBA is a zero sum game, one team wins the title, one team wins each individual game and the way to win is to be better than your opponents.  When you start a rebuild you need to keep in mind that small, incremental changes are absolutely not the way to go if you hope to win a title.  Those small changes happen after you have hit on some huge wins that have put you well above the average team and all your ammo up until that point should be aimed at big upside plays.   This is obvious but you have to repeat it because bad teams constantly make the mistake of thinking they have already hit a huge upside win and start doing dumb stuff.  The Bulls just went through a year of doing incredibly dumb stuff because they have… Zach Lavine? Does anyone think Lavine is a top 10 player?  Is he honestly in the top 20?  If he is who cares, he would be at the bottom end of the top 20, and if you have the 18th best player in the NBA you are a bit behind a tea...