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When Streak Ends, What's Cavs' Course?

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When Streak Ends, What's Cavs' Course?

By Marc Stein
ESPN.com

DALLAS -- There is that gleaming practice facility back in Cleveland envied by so many other teams. The owner, whatever you think of his unforgettable letter to LeBron James, has never been afraid to spend. And the salary? Good coaching money in this economic climate.

It all adds up to a job that Byron Scott says he couldn't possibly regret taking.

Not even after 35 losses in 36 games and the longest winless run this league has ever seen.

"Not at all," Scott said, willingly plopping down for a quick chat about the "R" word on the night his Cavaliers would slink away with their record 25th straight defeat.

"I still think," Scott insisted, "that this is one of the best jobs in the NBA."

He's stubborn enough to believe it, too. He's stubborn enough to believe it even after what happened late Monday in Dallas, where the Cavs sealed a 99-96 loss to the Mavs and a historic slice of futility with a fittingly agonizing sequence that seemed to have been drawn up especially for this dubious occasion.

Just a 3-pointer away from forcing overtime -- against an elite-but-disinterested team that frankly played like it wanted the visitors to finally win a game for the first time in 51 days -- Cleveland walked off with the memory of the buzzer sounding with the ball still stuck in Antawn Jamison's hands because Jamario Moon passed to Jamison when he should have hoisted.

"We're in the record books, we all know that, something we didn't want to be a part of," Jamison said. "But it is what it is. We can't turn back the hands of time. We just have to move forward.

"Has it been tough? Yes. Do you ask the question, 'Why?' Yes. … I won't lie. After the games it's tough, man. So many losses in a row. But I still have to wake up the next morning, try to do my job and make it fun as well."

Jamison is a lot like his $4 million-a-year coach. He's the closest thing that the post-LeBron Cavs have to a star, stubbornly professional like Scott, and patiently answers the same questions over and over, starting at the morning shootaround and staring right at a plight that isn't his fault, either.

The steepest decline in NBA annals -- no team has ever gone from the best record in the league to the worst in the space of one season -- obviously began with LeBron James' decision to defect to Miami in free agency in July. Gilbert angrily (and regrettably) vowed that the Cavs would win a championship before LeBron ever did, amid a flurry of far angrier farewell rantings to Ohio's former favorite son, but the spiral has taken them far deeper into the abyss, starting with the 28-point hammering that James and the Heat inflicted in his return to Cleveland on Dec. 2.

Yet the notion that the Cavs' spirit was irretrievably broken that night, nearly two months ago, is a clear embellishment of LeBron's might and his old team's misery. Check out this roster. As one Eastern Conference scout colorfully explained in a recent Weekend Dime, Cleveland minus the injured Anderson Varejao and Mo Williams is "a summer-league team and Antawn Jamison." Spirit is hardly their biggest issue.

Even with Varejao and Williams -- accomplished role players who snapped so specifically well into a LeBron puzzle -- Cleveland's margin for error was minimal after the departures of Shaquille O'Neal, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Delonte West along with James. Without Varejao and Williams? There is zero margin for error, especially inside and on the boards. Varejao was supposed to be Cleveland's own Tyson Chandler, anchoring the D and playing goalie. The Cavs' defense vanished almost as soon as the Brazilian banger's ankle injury was deemed to be season-ending.

You have to say they're still trying, though. The Cavs' average margin of defeat in those 25 straight Ls is nearly 14 points, but if their spirit was truly crushed would they have managed to be tied or take the lead in the fourth quarter in each of the last four games?

It was just a few days ago that Mavs swingman DeShawn Stevenson memorably explained that the two things you don't want to do in today's NBA is lose a home game to the Washington Wizards (with their 0-25 road record) or lose anywhere to the woebegone Cavs. Yet there was plucky Cleveland, wiping out a 15-point deficit and generating audible groans and then boos from the home crowd when they pulled even at 79-79 in the fourth quarter against the team with the league's longest active winning streak.

J.J. Hickson is starting to play harder even though he's being forced to operate as a woefully undersized center, which translated here to 26 points and 12 boards that stood out along with the Cavs' repeated ability to abuse the Mavs' lazy transition D, leading to a stunning 34-9 edge in fast-break points. In short? A team half-filled with no-name kids has convinced itself that it's getting closer to a breakthrough.

"Let's be honest," Jamison said of James. "One guy did a lot for this organization, for the city of Cleveland, for the game in general. [But] before the season we had Andy, Mo, myself, a couple veterans here and there. You think 'This is still a unit that can win and compete.' We believed that. And still believe that.

"[Now] we've just got to keep competing. We're doing something we love to do. I tell people every day, 'If this is the only problem I have to worry about, I wouldn't want to take it, but I'll take it.' A lot of people are doing a lot of things and have worse problems than what we have."

The toughest stuff, if Jamison were prone to confessions, would surely be the growing likelihood that he'll have to spend the rest of the season as a Cav. NBA front-office sources say that few teams have been as active in recent weeks in trying to swing a trade or two before the Feb. 24 deadline than Cleveland -- with Jamison high on its list of movable assets -- but increasing apprehension about how restrictive the next labor agreement will be has prompted several teams to back off on deal-making.

Sources say New Orleans, for example, has a level of interest in Jamison, but also expressed skepticism that a suitable deal can be assembled before the deadline to send out the 35-year-old anywhere. It's true that Jamison has only one year left on his contract after this season, but that one season is valued at a meaty $15.1 million, which means Cleveland would almost certainly have to take back multiple players back to make the salary-cap math work.

The Cavs' apparent preference, like many teams out there unsure about what the future holds for the NBA's financial landscape, is preserving flexibility and accumulating young assets to take into the league's new frontier unless a trade delivers an undeniable talent upgrade. Cleveland also still possesses a $14.5 million trade exception created in the sign-and-trade transaction that official dispatched LeBron to South Beach, but importing more pricey vets like the Cavs did so often in vain during the LeBron era -- in hopes of convincing King James to stay in Cleveland -- doesn't sound too appealing now.

With word reaching us this week that the Cavs also see little benefit to buying out Jamison (one of their few coveted assets) if no trade materializes in the next two-plus weeks, odds start to increase that Jamison will be brought back with Scott for the new season -- whenever that might be post-lockout -- given how admirably they've been coping with what's happened since Cleveland's forgotten 7-9 start.

"I'm not a loser," Scott said. "I'm not used to this. I'm very used to winning. It's going to take us a little time, but we're going to get back to it.

Reminded later in the evening that the Cavs' next three games are all at home against the Pistons, Clippers and Wizards, Scott added: "Just like I said to the guys afterward: 'We've got to keep playing like that and it's going to happen.' It's going to happen real soon."

Said the Mavs' Mark Cuban, who regards Gilbert as one of his longtime allies among owners: "It's got to be brutal for Dan, brutal for the players themselves. … [But] in 60 days, all of a sudden, your fans are talking about [whether] they get the first pick [in the draft] and who will they draft and what will you do with cap room. And that's exciting. It creates a ton of hope. No one remembers last year ever. Ever. In 60 days, it's last year."

http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/page/dime-110208/daily-dime

Interesting take on Jamison. And I like what Cuban said. This is rock bottom. There is no where to go but up after this season.
 
I thought it was a really well written piece. It covered a lot of different angles of the Cavs' decline/futility in a pretty objective light. It also pointed out an obvious and disheartening theme; the assets we all thought were so strong going into the deadline have quickly deteriorated. Jamison's contract has scared off suitors because of the impending lock-out, Varejao's injury, Mo's injury, our reluctance to part with Hickson... There just isn't the mutual interest we hoped there would be for a deadline deal to maximize our future assets. A lot of very unfortunate timing.
 
I think all the woe is me is being fostered upon the organization from the national writers. In reality the CAVS are in a better position than a lot of teams. They can only go up from here. They were able to contract there decline to 1 summer. They have a lot of draft picks going forward and here is what I think is most important. They are not going to be able to get free agents this year so they will have at least 2 years worth of very high draft picks to go with an evolving young core. I couldnt care less if they lose the rest of their games this year. That has nothing to do with their outlook going forward especially if Hickson and Eyenga continue to develop.
 
If the Cavs win their next game then that means that they have lost 34 of the last 36 games. Nothing really changes except of the illusion that it creates in peoples head. Some of the games during this losing streak have been intense and exciting but they need to figure out how to close out games.

*EDIT*:

Also, this losing streak means nothing once the team rebuilds, starts winning and competes for the championship. Did people really care that the Nuggets and Nets held the record before? No!
 
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Jamison is a lot like his $4 million-a-year coach. He's the closest thing that the post-LeBron Cavs have to a star, stubbornly professional like Scott, and patiently answers the same questions over and over, starting at the morning shootaround and staring right at a plight that isn't his fault, either.

I personally think he single handidly lost at least 5 of the games during this streak. He is just an awful player. If he was a good team player, then sure feel bad for him, but he is NOT.
 
That is an excellent article and I enjoyed reading it.

I don't care honestly that we have a record number of losses. I do admit that the losing leaves a sour taste in my mouth, but I'm willing to take it as a fan as I look at the history of the franchise and of most NBA teams, which go through ups and downs.

I (like I hope the front office is) am thinking five years ahead when whatever team we have at that time is well-built and not just surviving, but contending. We did it before without superstar players and we will do it again. We have no choice but to do it without superstars unless one stumbles onto the Cavs in a future draft--I see NO stars in the 2011 draft.

As for Jamison, I think we should embrace him given that he's likely going to be here. He obviously needs to do some work on most aspects of his game, though.
 
Great read. Love the Cuban dime
 
I personally think he single handidly lost at least 5 of the games during this streak. He is just an awful player. If he was a good team player, then sure feel bad for him, but he is NOT.

He's an ex-wizard. You'll notice in the interview how he puts a focus on making sure he's still having fun.
 
Very good article. This part was strange though:

Reminded later in the evening that the Cavs' next three games are all at home against the Pistons, Clippers and Wizards, Scott added: "If we don't win one of those games, I'm going to jump off the 480 bridge laughing like a stoned 13-year old all the way down."
:rolleyes:
 
I personally think he single handidly lost at least 5 of the games during this streak. He is just an awful player. If he was a good team player, then sure feel bad for him, but he is NOT.

This is just ridiculous.

You can just as easily say that without Jamison's ability to score, we aren't even in the same zip code in a lot of these games.

Jamison's the closest thing we have to a legit scorer.

Don't get me wrong, there are times that I find myself yelling at the t.v for him to make the extra pass, but to call him an awful player is just absurd.
 
This is just ridiculous.

You can just as easily say that without Jamison's ability to score, we aren't even in the same zip code in a lot of these games.

Jamison's the closest thing we have to a legit scorer.

Don't get me wrong, there are times that I find myself yelling at the t.v for him to make the extra pass, but to call him an awful player is just absurd.

Look at the numbers dude. He hasn't shot above 50% in the last ten games. In this little four or five game streak of good games we have put together, he's shooting absolutely ABYSMALLY, and he's taking a LOT of shots, I think he's around a 36% clip while taking ~19 some shots per game. Meanwhile the rest of the Cavs have been shooting pretty well, in the 46-47% range or so.

Jamison hurts more than he helps. He does good when the team does bad. I love the guy, but he's a career loser. I wouldn't say he's an awful player or even that he's responsible for five of our losses, but he really isn't helping. I'd rather see those ten shots distributed to other players.
 
This is just ridiculous.

You can just as easily say that without Jamison's ability to score, we aren't even in the same zip code in a lot of these games.

Jamison's the closest thing we have to a legit scorer.

Don't get me wrong, there are times that I find myself yelling at the t.v for him to make the extra pass, but to call him an awful player is just absurd.

Your just not watching then. What abilty are you talking about? Tons of players would score 18 to 20 points witht the amount of shots he is taking. He does not draw double teams, he rarely makes the right pass, he can not guard a lamp post. We would without question be better without him.

The only thing he is "legit" at is missing shots and losing.
 
We would without question be better without him.
.

I'm not going to sit here and sing Jamison's praises, but this is ludicrous. We lack talent so badly to the point that if it was anyone else chucking up those shots Jamison is, they would actually probably be doing worse. Jamison would not give us addition by subtraction at this juncture because of how poor this team is as a whole. Without Jamison, you would see Hickson immediately regress and our guards would get even less penetration than they are now,
 
Said something about this the other day in regards to wanting Jamison gone. I think Avon has a point that we COULD be better without Jamison .. although I don't think it's accurate to say that it's without question or to think we'd be winning any more/less often then present. There's a tendency, at times, for some young players on a team to begin resenting the vets. While I don't think it's reached Detroit levels (talk about some division within a team), it's something to watch. Fortunately, if we have to hang onto Jamison through the rest of the season, the young guys we have seem like they'll go with the flow. On the other hand, personally anyways, I'd like to see one or more of the Manny/Eyenga bunch be a little more assertive on both sides of the ball. But they seem to defer to Jamison too often, with what seems like Scott's blessing. It reaches a point where it begins to get irritating to watch, both as a teammate and a fan.

EDIT - That isn't to blame anyone (Scott, Jamison, etc.). I guess it's just more of an indictment of the situation and having to play the hand you're dealt.
 

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