Omar The Horse
Universally unique
- Joined
- May 31, 2012
- Messages
- 5,075
- Reaction score
- 8,729
- Points
- 113
Top of the List
Top Offensive Player: Most teams have one, perhaps two dominant scorers that are responsible for carrying their teams offensively on any given night, but the new Cleveland Cavaliers are a completely different animal altogether. Obviously LeBron James, who finished third in the league in scoring last year, is one of the most versatile and efficient scorers in the NBA, having scored 27.1 PPG last year on a blazing .567 field goal percentage, comfortably the highest of any player among the top 25 scorers last season. But Kevin Love finished fourth in the league in PPG last year with 26.1 PPG, and Kyrie Irving finished 14th at 20.8 PPG. Obviously all three of those guys won’t post numbers quite that high since they’ll be splitting the load, but that’s as many as 74 points a night from just three players. These three guys will be the most potent scoring trio the league has seen in quite some time.
Top Defensive Player: Back in 2013, when LeBron James was narrowly edged out by Marc Gasol for Defensive Player of the Year, he really wasn’t happy about it, lambasting the vote and making a strong point that he had been robbed. “I mean, I guard everybody on the floor,” he said back in April of 2013. “I don’t know if there’s one player NBA history who’s guarded one through five (positions).” Of course, James also didn’t make the All-Defensive First Team last year for the first time since 2008, and his defensive statistics did drop a bit. However, he’s still a tenacious defender that really can guard anybody on the floor, and that’s something he’ll need to be even better at this year considering the defensive deficiencies of his high-profile teammates.
Top Playmaker: If you watched the All-Star game last winter, you know that Kyrie Irving can do pretty much anything he wants to with a basketball in his hand, and with the additions of James and Love this season, the floor should be more spaced out than ever before, allowing Irving to do his thing and cut through traffic at will. LeBron can handle the ball, too, but in the last four years in Miami he never came close to playing with a point guard this good. Irving being as creative as he is with the ball takes a lot of pressure off of James to do all those other things that make him the most gifted all-around basketball player alive.
Top Clutch Player: According to Michael Beuoy’s Win Probability Added metric, LeBron James put up an effective field goal percentage of 72.6 percent in clutch situations in last year’s playoffs, obviously better than any other player in the league. He has long since put away any questions about his ability to score big baskets when it matters, and when games matter this year in Cleveland, it will be LeBron who decides what to do with the ball.
The Unheralded Player: When James put out his “I’m Coming Home” letter in Sports Illustrated, he specifically mentioned Anderson Varejao, the only player remaining from his previous stint with the Cavaliers, and actually Varejao should be a pretty good fit alongside the current batch of superstars heading to Ohio. He’s an apt scorer but doesn’t need the ball, and he certainly is big enough and tough enough to clean up the boards when his high-volume shooting teammates are having bad nights. He is coming off a foot injury that cost him the bulk of last season, but once he’s healthy (and if he stays that way), he’s going to be a big help for Cleveland. He’d better be, at least, as the Cavs don’t have much behind him at the center position.
Best New Addition: It’s not every offseason that a team acquires two of the league’s top-ten players in a single summer, but James and Love, for the myriad reasons outlined above, have made this team a title contender just by showing up.
– Joel Brigham
Who We Like
1. David Blatt: With all the hubbub surrounding LeBron James and Kevin Love this summer, the signing of new head coach David Blatt really hasn’t received the attention it deserves. A championship head coach at essentially every level short of the NBA, Blatt is a really brilliant guy and would have been a terrific find for the Cavaliers even if James and Love hadn’t have ended up in Ohio. While he’s new to the NBA head coaching ranks and a lot of the players on this team haven’t played together yet, the kinks will eventually work themselves out, and by year’s end we may be talking about Blatt the same way we did Tom Thibodeau after his first full year coaching the Chicago Bulls.
2. Shawn Marion: All offseason, one of the biggest questions about the Cavaliers has been how they’ll fare defensively, but the addition of Marion—still a strong defender even at 36 years old—should help keep opposing second units from running rampant over Cleveland’s middling bench. He was a great bargain for them in free agency and should fit in nicely with this star-studded lineup.
3. Tristan Thompson: As a sure-fire reserve this year, the pressure is off of Thompson, who now can just focus on using his athleticism to grab rebounds and hit easy shots around the rim. While it’s possible he’ll be traded at some point this season, the reality is that this former No. 4 overall pick never has quite lived up to his draft spot, but he should fill a nice role on the second unit this season.
4. Mike Miller: This team is going to shoot the lights out from deep, in part because of Miller. Having both him and James Jones aboard provides some measure of continuity for James, who is very familiar with both having played with them at various times over the course of the last four years, but it also puts guys in that locker room who understand what it means to make the NBA Finals and win a championship ring. Irving and Love have never even played an NBA playoff game. Having that veteran experience in the locker room could go a long way, and the fact that Miller can shoot the way he does is definitely an added bonus.
5. LeBron James: He’s the most physically gifted player alive, and he’s made the decision to go back home. There isn’t a single thing not to love about that.
– Joel Brigham
Top Offensive Player: Most teams have one, perhaps two dominant scorers that are responsible for carrying their teams offensively on any given night, but the new Cleveland Cavaliers are a completely different animal altogether. Obviously LeBron James, who finished third in the league in scoring last year, is one of the most versatile and efficient scorers in the NBA, having scored 27.1 PPG last year on a blazing .567 field goal percentage, comfortably the highest of any player among the top 25 scorers last season. But Kevin Love finished fourth in the league in PPG last year with 26.1 PPG, and Kyrie Irving finished 14th at 20.8 PPG. Obviously all three of those guys won’t post numbers quite that high since they’ll be splitting the load, but that’s as many as 74 points a night from just three players. These three guys will be the most potent scoring trio the league has seen in quite some time.
Top Defensive Player: Back in 2013, when LeBron James was narrowly edged out by Marc Gasol for Defensive Player of the Year, he really wasn’t happy about it, lambasting the vote and making a strong point that he had been robbed. “I mean, I guard everybody on the floor,” he said back in April of 2013. “I don’t know if there’s one player NBA history who’s guarded one through five (positions).” Of course, James also didn’t make the All-Defensive First Team last year for the first time since 2008, and his defensive statistics did drop a bit. However, he’s still a tenacious defender that really can guard anybody on the floor, and that’s something he’ll need to be even better at this year considering the defensive deficiencies of his high-profile teammates.
Top Playmaker: If you watched the All-Star game last winter, you know that Kyrie Irving can do pretty much anything he wants to with a basketball in his hand, and with the additions of James and Love this season, the floor should be more spaced out than ever before, allowing Irving to do his thing and cut through traffic at will. LeBron can handle the ball, too, but in the last four years in Miami he never came close to playing with a point guard this good. Irving being as creative as he is with the ball takes a lot of pressure off of James to do all those other things that make him the most gifted all-around basketball player alive.
Top Clutch Player: According to Michael Beuoy’s Win Probability Added metric, LeBron James put up an effective field goal percentage of 72.6 percent in clutch situations in last year’s playoffs, obviously better than any other player in the league. He has long since put away any questions about his ability to score big baskets when it matters, and when games matter this year in Cleveland, it will be LeBron who decides what to do with the ball.
The Unheralded Player: When James put out his “I’m Coming Home” letter in Sports Illustrated, he specifically mentioned Anderson Varejao, the only player remaining from his previous stint with the Cavaliers, and actually Varejao should be a pretty good fit alongside the current batch of superstars heading to Ohio. He’s an apt scorer but doesn’t need the ball, and he certainly is big enough and tough enough to clean up the boards when his high-volume shooting teammates are having bad nights. He is coming off a foot injury that cost him the bulk of last season, but once he’s healthy (and if he stays that way), he’s going to be a big help for Cleveland. He’d better be, at least, as the Cavs don’t have much behind him at the center position.
Best New Addition: It’s not every offseason that a team acquires two of the league’s top-ten players in a single summer, but James and Love, for the myriad reasons outlined above, have made this team a title contender just by showing up.
– Joel Brigham
Who We Like
1. David Blatt: With all the hubbub surrounding LeBron James and Kevin Love this summer, the signing of new head coach David Blatt really hasn’t received the attention it deserves. A championship head coach at essentially every level short of the NBA, Blatt is a really brilliant guy and would have been a terrific find for the Cavaliers even if James and Love hadn’t have ended up in Ohio. While he’s new to the NBA head coaching ranks and a lot of the players on this team haven’t played together yet, the kinks will eventually work themselves out, and by year’s end we may be talking about Blatt the same way we did Tom Thibodeau after his first full year coaching the Chicago Bulls.
2. Shawn Marion: All offseason, one of the biggest questions about the Cavaliers has been how they’ll fare defensively, but the addition of Marion—still a strong defender even at 36 years old—should help keep opposing second units from running rampant over Cleveland’s middling bench. He was a great bargain for them in free agency and should fit in nicely with this star-studded lineup.
3. Tristan Thompson: As a sure-fire reserve this year, the pressure is off of Thompson, who now can just focus on using his athleticism to grab rebounds and hit easy shots around the rim. While it’s possible he’ll be traded at some point this season, the reality is that this former No. 4 overall pick never has quite lived up to his draft spot, but he should fill a nice role on the second unit this season.
4. Mike Miller: This team is going to shoot the lights out from deep, in part because of Miller. Having both him and James Jones aboard provides some measure of continuity for James, who is very familiar with both having played with them at various times over the course of the last four years, but it also puts guys in that locker room who understand what it means to make the NBA Finals and win a championship ring. Irving and Love have never even played an NBA playoff game. Having that veteran experience in the locker room could go a long way, and the fact that Miller can shoot the way he does is definitely an added bonus.
5. LeBron James: He’s the most physically gifted player alive, and he’s made the decision to go back home. There isn’t a single thing not to love about that.
– Joel Brigham
