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Cleveland Cavs (2016 NBA Champions)



From all that I have read this team and locker room is in total disaray. Something had to be done, I'm not at all surprised by this move. Grant has done a nice job of making trades to gather assets but has not been able to much of anything with said assets.
 
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From all that I have read this team and locker room is in total disaray. Something had to be done, I'm not at all surprised by this move. Grant has done a nice job of making trades to gather assets but has not been able to much of anything with said assets.

I have been thinking about that... Grant has done a nice job of gathering assets... how hard is it? You have an owner willing to take on money. Right there opens every door you can find. Couldn't any other GM do just as well and maybe even better than Grant did? I tend to think yes.

Always hard to turn those assets into REAL players that fit as a team. And that is where Grant has failed miserably.
 
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The dominos begin to fall! Who's next?

Everyone south of Gilbert needs to go. Sanitize and start from scratch. Maybe keep Mike Brown to teach the kids how to play defense until his offensive ineptitude gets in the way. Everyone on the current roster is infected with the disease of losing if they remain in Cleveland. See how many future picks they can get and find a GM that can build through the draft.
 
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i think it's quite likely at this point that mike brown remains for the rest of the year. cleveland is now going into tank mode, and he seems to be the perfect captain for that. as it stands, cleveland is #4 in the lotto rankings, and really not that far from moving to 3 or 2.

but there is a ton of info coming out about the total dysfunction on that team. obviously the coaching staff is a failure. but the stories of kyrie irving's laziness, ineptness, and outright refusal to do what he is told is more troubling. at least mike brown had the balls to bench him last night and tell him to sit the fuck down when irving tried to check back into the game.
 
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i think it's quite likely at this point that mike brown remains for the rest of the year. cleveland is now going into tank mode, and he seems to be the perfect captain for that. as it stands, cleveland is #4 in the lotto rankings, and really not that far from moving to 3 or 2.

but there is a ton of info coming out about the total dysfunction on that team. obviously the coaching staff is a failure. but the stories of kyrie irving's laziness, ineptness, and outright refusal to do what he is told is more troubling. at least mike brown had the balls to bench him last night and tell him to sit the fuck down when irving tried to check back into the game.

Maybe Irving IS the reason the team is so messed up and not so much Waiters calling him out on his attitude and play. Or is this team jacked up from the ground up and a total house cleaning is due?
 
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Maybe Irving IS the reason the team is so messed up and not so much Waiters calling him out on his attitude and play. Or is this team jacked up from the ground up and a total house cleaning is due?

This is what worries me most. Is Irving a Vince Carter type? More about himself than team. And since he sees a not so good team he doesn't even want to try??? Or, could it be he is a 21 year old player that has had NO older veteran that can put him into place and show him what needs to be done? The one problem of a super young team, they have no idea what it is like to be in the NBA. And if you don't get the right old vet to show them, they will develop bad habits that can spoil the whole team.
 
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This is what worries me most. Is Irving a Vince Carter type? More about himself than team. And since he sees a not so good team he doesn't even want to try??? Or, could it be he is a 21 year old player that has had NO older veteran that can put him into place and show him what needs to be done? The one problem of a super young team, they have no idea what it is like to be in the NBA. And if you don't get the right old vet to show them, they will develop bad habits that can spoil the whole team.

that's also the job of the head coach. and going by the gossip floating about, mike brown has failed miserably in that regard. it's a far different dynamic than having lebron, who despite being young, did things the right way on the court and in the locker room, and he was surrounded by vets that all did things the right way. it's a far different dynamic than the lakers, which was a veteran team that sort of ran itself.
 
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I can't say Grant has failed miserably.....the Deng trade was a great move. He nailed on Irving when many said Derrick Williams. The Bennett pick I won't rag on, too early to tell and in a draft where just about everyone has sucked.

What I do rag on him for is his coaching selection. He doomed himself.

Irving, Waiters, Deng, Thompson, Varejao with Jack, Miles, Bynum, etc. should have had this team battling for the 3 seed. He put good enough talent that this is a playoff team but the coaching staff is an utter joke that no one takes seriously, has no accountability, and quite honestly it doesn't seem like Mike Brown even enjoys coaching.

Give me George Karl, or Lionel Hollins, or whoever....but can the staff ASAP.
 
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Did Irving have these problems with Byron Scott? .... just sayin

yes. the only difference was that scott didn't care about defense and allowed the offense to go into playground mode, where irving shines. there was an anonymous quote from a cavs player the other day that said "at least losing under byron scott was fun". so really, irving did the same things under scott. scott simply didn't give two shits.
 
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THANK GOD!!! Did not want him to make a trade to try to save his job but screw us in the future.
Something had to be done, I'm not at all surprised by this move. Grant has done a nice job of making trades to gather assets but has not been able to much of anything with said assets.
The firing of Grant tells me that the Gilbert is ready to blow this team up NOW. There are still two weeks until the trade deadline, and it's obvious that Gilbert didn't want Grant in charge of the upcoming re-rebuild.
 
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that's also the job of the head coach. and going by the gossip floating about, mike brown has failed miserably in that regard. it's a far different dynamic than having lebron, who despite being young, did things the right way on the court and in the locker room, and he was surrounded by vets that all did things the right way. it's a far different dynamic than the lakers, which was a veteran team that sort of ran itself.

You are right... I was really hoping Mike Brown would be able to command these guys. But he just simply can't. Maybe it was a really underrated step having Paul Silas around to mentor LeBron in his first few years, the vets didn't come in until year 2-3 of his career... two words...Ricky Davis.
 
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Here's a look at the Chris Grant legacy.

The 2009-10 Cavaliers finished with a record of 61-21, the best record in the Eastern Conference.

Then came The Decision.

The 2010-11 team, the first of the post-Lebron era, finished with a record of 19-63, and included a 26-game losing streak. The highlight of the season came on February 24th, when the Cavaliers traded Mo Williams and Jamario Moon to the L.A. Clippers for Baron Davis and a first-round draft choice. Davis was a salary dump, but the first-round pick turned out to be the number one overall in the 2011 draft. The Cavaliers also had their own selection, at #4.

This is the Cavaliers' roster at the end of the 2010-11 season:

Baron Davis
Semih Erden
Christian Eyenga
Alonzo Gee
Daniel Gibson
Joey Graham
Luke Harangody
Manny Harris
J.J. Hickson
Ryan Hollins
Antawn Jamison
Anthony Parker
Samardo Samuels
Ramon Sessions
Anderson Varejao

It would be difficult to assemble a worse team than that, and it's not surprising that the Cavaliers were such a terrible team - Davis and Jamison were aging veterans, way past their primes; Gee and Sessions were decent bench players; and Varejao a solid starter or sixth man. The rest of the roster was garbage.

In the NBA, there are really three ways to build a championship-level team - around a point guard (Magic, Isaiah, John Stockton, Iverson), around a dominating big man (Olajuwon, Ewing, Shaq, Tim Duncan), or around a high-scoring wing player (Jordan, Kobe, James, Durant). There are a few exceptions to the rule, like the 2007-08 Boston Celtics, who had four very strong starters (Garnett, Pierce, Allen, Rondo) but no true superstar.

So, entering the 2011 draft, the Cavaliers had one legitimate building block (power forward Varejao) and two high draft choices. Of course, I don't know how Chris Grant preferred to build the team (around a point guard, a big man, or a wing), but he didn't really have any choice. Kyrie Irving was clearly the best player in the draft, and he was a point guard. So, Grant (wisely) selected him first overall. The Cavaliers now had their potential superstar to build around.

With his second pick, #4 overall, Grant made the first of his "hipster" selections (credit to Ken Carman of 92.3 The Fan for that term). Thompson was an undersized power forward with limited offensive skills. However, he was a hard worker and good character guy who was a decent rebounder. Even though Thompson played the same position as Varejao, I can't kill Grant for that pick - in the short term, Varejao could play center alongside Thompson, and in the long term, after the Cavaliers acquired a true center, one could go to the bench and be a valuable rotational player.

The problem with Grant's drafting began in 2012. After another dreadful season (21-45 in a strike-shortened year), the Cavaliers again had the #4 overall selection; they were also able to trade for the #17 selection.

Although Kyrie Irving is a budding superstar, he still has some weaknesses - he is undersized, he shoots too much, he doesn't play well off the ball, and he plays no defense. So what does Christ Grant do with the #4 pick in the 2012 NBA draft? Selects Dion Waiters, an undersized guard who shoots too much, doesn't play well off the ball, and plays no defense. And he's a shooting guard who can't shoot - Waiters is shooting .413 from the field, and there are 17 players in the NBA who are currently shooting better than that from three-point range! (Waiters is shooting .333 from behind the arc). And top top it all off, Waiters had known work ethic and character issues at Syracuse, a program that is not known for producing good citizens. If Jim Boeheim had problems with Waiters, then he must have been pretty bad. So to sum up Dion Waiters - no shot, no defense, bad fit with Kyrie, bad guy in the locker room. If any one move doomed Chris Grant, it was the selection of Dion Waiters.

Very few NBA teams besides the Cavaliers (probably none, actually) had Waiters rated as the fourth-best player in the 2012 draft. In overvaluing Waiters, who was a complete misfit for the Cavaliers, Grant passed on small forward Harrison Barnes and center Andre Drummond, each of whom (especially Drummond) would have fit in better with Kyrie on the court, and wouldn't have been a problem in the locker room.

At #17, Grant took Tyler Zeller. Of course, you don't really expect #17 picks to be All Stars, but Zeller has been exceptionally bad, averaging just 6.6 points and 4.9 rebounds for his career. Zeller is an end-of-the-bench guy. Again, you can't expect much from mid-round picks, but Grant did pass on Jared Sullinger to select Tyler Zeller.

In the 2013 draft, Grant again had the #1 overall selection, and again he made a strange selection - Anthony Bennett. Clearly a tweener, Bennett doesn't have the athleticism to play small forward, especially on defense. Although his rookie campaign has been historically bad to date, Bennett has enough skills to eventually become a functional NBA player. The problem is this - Bennett is a power forward, and the Cavaliers already have two in Anderson Varejao (the original building block of the post-Lebron era) and Tristan Thomson (the #4 selection two years prior). Again, another mismatch on the court.

With the #19 pick in the 2013 draft, Grant selected Sergey Karasev, a 6-foot-7 shooting guard. Karasev is a long-term project.

The players whom Grant brought in for the start of this season - Andrew Bynum, Jarrett Jack, and Earl Clark - have all been busts. Luol Deng, who was acquired for Bynum, has severely underperformed in Cleveland despite being a two-time All Star.

Finally, Grant brought in Mike Brown as head coach for the 2013-2014 season. Brown is a defensive-minded coach who has excelled with veteran teams, and Grant gave him a bunch of youngsters who had no interest in playing any defense (especially Irving and Waiters). Another bad fit, and it is showing on the court.

It is clear at this point that the Cavaliers have quit on the season. They don't respect their head coach, and they don't get along with each other. Mike Brown and Dion Waiters will have to go - those moves must happen. The big question is this - Is Kyrie Irving part of the problem, or part of the solution? If Waiters and Brown are sent packing, will Kyrie be able to flourish with a new head coach and a new running mate at shooting guard? If not, then the Chris Grant's tenure in Cleveland will have been an even bigger failure, as his cornerstone player will also have to be moved in a complete tear down of this team. That is not a happy thought.
 
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