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The Kyrie and Dion chemistry conundrum

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I think management has let Scott know that developing our players takes priority over getting wins at this point. That means letting them learn while on the floor and accepting their mistakes when they make them and allowing them to learn from them. This obviously results in a losing effort many nights, especially with as many young players as we have. If they were to tell Scott that we have to make the playoffs and get as many wins as possible (possibly next year) I could see him not giving the younger players as much room to make mistakes and relying on veterans in order to keep his job, thus possibly stunting the younger players' growth.

It would be perfect if we could get wins while playing our young players and letting them grow, but as we all know that is much easier said than done.
 
Both players obviously need to get better but it is Waiters who has to change. Irving can already spot up and run off screens and work off the ball. On the other hand Waiters will never be the primary ballhandler here so he needs to develop the SG skills to complement Irving and give the team what it needs as well.

His shot and shot selection just has to get better as a starter and he has to be able to spot up at a high clip and be able to use screens without the ball and not back oit every catch off a pin down to run his own 2 man game.

In general, th!ere is little to no weakside action in the Cavaliers offense and that's a scheme problem. They seem to be content with having whichever guard doesn't have the ball to just stand on the other side of the floor. The staff simply has to do more.

If you know who does come back Waiters will have the ball even less. If he doesn't change he will pigeonhole himself as a specialist bench player.
 
Both players obviously need to get better but it is Waiters who has to change. Irving can already spot up and run off screens and work off the ball. On the other hand Waiters will never be the primary ballhandler here so he needs to develop the SG skills to complement Irving and give the team what it needs as well.

His shot and shot selection just has to get better as a starter and he has to be able to spot up at a high clip and be able to use screens without the ball and not back oit every catch off a pin down to run his own 2 man game.

In general, th!ere is little to no weakside action in the Cavaliers offense and that's a scheme problem. They seem to be content with having whichever guard doesn't have the ball to just stand on the other side of the floor. The staff simply has to do more.

If you know who does come back Waiters will have the ball even less. If he doesn't change he will pigeonhole himself as a specialist bench player.

Agreed. The Cavs don't seem to run any one particular scheme exceptionally well. Instead, whichever guard has the ball would prefer to make an isolation play. Irving leads the league in isolation play scoring (8.1 points per game), but for the overall team it doesn't do that much good. The backcourt players need to do a better job of feeding the ball to the frontcourt players, who in turn need to work on getting better positioning.

Waiters definitely needs to work on his shot selection. No more chucking contested jumpers, and I would love it if he would go to the basket even more.
 
Both players obviously need to get better but it is Waiters who has to change. Irving can already spot up and run off screens and work off the ball. On the other hand Waiters will never be the primary ballhandler here so he needs to develop the SG skills to complement Irving and give the team what it needs as well.

His shot and shot selection just has to get better as a starter and he has to be able to spot up at a high clip and be able to use screens without the ball and not back oit every catch off a pin down to run his own 2 man game.

In general, th!ere is little to no weakside action in the Cavaliers offense and that's a scheme problem. They seem to be content with having whichever guard doesn't have the ball to just stand on the other side of the floor. The staff simply has to do more.

If you know who does come back Waiters will have the ball even less. If he doesn't change he will pigeonhole himself as a specialist bench player.

Absolutely agree.

The biggest change that Waiters needs to undergo is mental. Obviously he needs to keep improving his jumper, just like any other player in the league, but I think the off ball stuff for him is all mental. We've seen him run off screens and catch and shoot jumpers with nice success about 5 times this season. He has the ability to shoot off curls and screens, but it isn't being implemented.

I love Byron's personality for this young team...I'm just skeptical of his actual ability to develop these guys in the way they need to be sculpted.
 
Looking at Tristan's development as of late gives me some reason to trust in our player development.

Byron Scott was also a damn good SG and I'm sure he's sharing his experience of playing with a great talent at the PG and the idiosyncrasies of the SG position with Dion . I think Dion will be fine.
 
Livingston and Boobie are the only guards who regularly roll to the weak spots of the defense on the weak side. They also have the most experience. I have to believe part of this is scheme, but also a basic understanding of how to help a team without the ball in your hands. I usually hate football metaphors for basketball, but Dion can be like that great tailback who has no idea how to block: he has been the center of offenses his whole career but in the NFL you have to learn how to support the offense as a whole.
 
I didn't necessarily agree with the drafting of Waiters I understood it. The Cavaliers wanted another guard who can will take the creating pressure off of Irving and while Waiters can do that he currently lacks the other skills to complement Irving. You can damn near run everything you run for Jason Terry or Ray Allen for Irving. You can't say that about Waiters.

The Cavaliers knew this and obviously think Waiters can development into the right complement and still be able to create and use the core strength of his game. If it is going to happen then it will take time and possibly a lot of time.

I also think the Cavaliers, in particular Byron Scott, believe it's going slower than they anticipated which is why Waiters was moved to bench for "balance." In no way was that the plan when they drafted him.

I'm really not sure how they will fix it. Waiters, like the majority of NBA players, believes he's better than what he is right now. It's up to Scott to break his bad habits and Irving's for that matter so they can grow together and not apart.

We've already seen Golden State say no to Curry-Ellis and Scott Skiles didn't like his Jennings-Ellis pairing. You don't want those kinds of situations here
 
I didn't necessarily agree with the drafting of Waiters I understood it. The Cavaliers wanted another guard who can will take the creating pressure off of Irving and while Waiters can do that he currently lacks the other skills to complement Irving. You can damn near run everything you run for Jason Terry or Ray Allen for Irving. You can't say that about Waiters.

The Cavaliers knew this and obviously think Waiters can development into the right complement and still be able to create and use the core strength of his game. If it is going to happen then it will take time and possibly a lot of time.

I also think the Cavaliers, in particular Byron Scott, believe it's going slower than they anticipated which is why Waiters was moved to bench for "balance." In no way was that the plan when they drafted him.

I'm really not sure how they will fix it. Waiters, like the majority of NBA players, believes he's better than what he is right now. It's up to Scott to break his bad habits and Irving's for that matter so they can grow together and not apart.

We've already seen Golden State say no to Curry-Ellis and Scott Skiles didn't like his Jennings-Ellis pairing. You don't want those kinds of situations here

I think the Cavs drafted Waiters because they thought he was the most talented player at that spot.

It's up to the coaching staff to develop that talent and make it work together.

I still think Waiters's best spot is coming off the bench a la Manu/Harden with OKC. He can be a fantastic ball of energy and force the tempo.

It's probably a pipe dream at this point, but if we can get a well-rounded starting 5 fleshed out in the next two years, then bring Dion/AV off the bench... damn that would be fun to watch.
 
I think the Cavs drafted Waiters because they thought he was the most talented player at that spot.

It's up to the coaching staff to develop that talent and make it work together.

I still think Waiters's best spot is coming off the bench a la Manu/Harden with OKC. He can be a fantastic ball of energy and force the tempo.

It's probably a pipe dream at this point, but if we can get a well-rounded starting 5 fleshed out in the next two years, then bring Dion/AV off the bench... damn that would be fun to watch.

The difference between Ginobili and Harden and what's currently going on with Waiters is that Ginobili had no issues playing alongside Tony Parker and Harden often finished games with Westbrook and thrived.
 
I would like to see Dion take a page out of Delonte's book and be a guy who can catch and shoot and post up on smaller guards and just generally be a guy you have to pay attention to if he doesn't have the basketball. Delonte is an excellent example of a combo guard who can thrive with other playmakers/scorers/ ball handlers, but also be a guy who can take on the facilitator role if need be. Obviously I would expect Dion to do it at a higher level because he is more talented, but Dion is going to have to diversify himself if he can't be the main guy on the court.
 
The difference between Ginobili and Harden and what's currently going on with Waiters is that Ginobili had no issues playing alongside Tony Parker and Harden often finished games with Westbrook and thrived.

Exactly. If Waiters can't be an important part of the team on the floor in the last 6 minutes of the game, he will have been a poor pick even if he contributes some points off the bench. And with a team now that is not going to make the playoffs, and a future superstar in Kyrie who will be drawing 38-40 minutes a night when this team does make the playoffs, Waiters needs to carve out a role beside him in the offense.
 
Ginobili's PER his first 3 years
14.7
18.5
22.3
Ginobili came over when he was a 25 yo who had played for years at a high level in the best Euro leagues

Harden's PER his first 3 years
14
16.4
21.1

Give it some time. Dion's PER is a bit lower then the two guys but he's played significantly better since the start of the year (his TS% in January was over 50% which is a big jump for him). With talking about what these guys will become give it two to three years: if you don't see a big jump by the end of next year then you start getting concerned for sure. Right now as long as you see the potential you're OK (compared to guys like Wesley Johnson or Austin Rivers; guys who just don't look like they belong)
 
There's no reason for waiters to play the end of games. He can't take the ball out of Irving's hands. He's not as good of a shooter as Ellington. He can't defend like gee and Livingston. There's no reason for him to be on the court end of game situations.
 
Sure he can take the ball out of Irvings hands. Because Irving doesn't always need the ball in his hands. This type of analysis is terrible and frankly, this whole thread is terrible. Useless fan dribble that makes little sense.

My guess when Irving throws a few stinkers up at the end of the games, this thread will be brought back up and brought back up again. Chemistry issues are mainly about feel and who has the hot read. When Irving is getting tripled teamed, Dion will be a nice nice outlet.
 

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