LeBron James

[cavsfever]

Heck, Darius Miles might've been the 2nd best athlete on the team. Diop was also on that team. Imagine the athleticism of a Wagner - LeBron - Miles - Boozer - Diop lineup. The fact that 3 of them had a negative basketball IQ nothwistanding

Athleticism doesn't matter if you suck.

 

[tristan+kyrie=$]

http://www.foxsports.com/ohio/video?vid=334089795949

 

[bobcat22]

Yeah I was thinking about Showtime. It's not perfect but probably the closest we have.
Magic is my favorite player of all time but I think Lebron is actually better when you consider how much better he is at on defense. After that I think the comparison falls short somewhat on the perimeter. Dion may become as good as defender as Scott but between Scott, Worthy (who was freakishly quick for a guy his size: reminds me in some ways of Lebron), and of course Cooper they were a very strong perimeter defensive teammate. This is where it's important for Dion and Delly to improve because. Also the other issues is the comparison is the lack of size: thrown in Rambis/Green and Jabbar/Thompson they at least had the size to take up space

LeBron is a better defender than Worthy, Waiters can become Scott on defense with less emphasis on scoring now, Cooper is better than Marion, but Marion was an all-time great defender. I think you are severely under rating our "potential" on the defensive side of the ball.

As for size, Haywood and old Jabbar are basically the same player defensively. No foot speed, can still block shots now and again. Thompson, Love and Varejao are pretty damn good size-wise. By the way, that's not a shot at Kareem. It's just a fact that age really took its toll on him defensively.

 

[Pioneer10]

LeBron is a better defender than Worthy, Waiters can become Scott on defense with less emphasis on scoring now, Cooper is better than Marion, but Marion was an all-time great defender. I think you are severely under rating our "potential" on the defensive side of the ball.

As for size, Haywood and old Jabbar are basically the same player defensively. No foot speed, can still block shots now and again. Thompson, Love and Varejao are pretty damn good size-wise. By the way, that's not a shot at Kareem. It's just a fact that age really took its toll on him defensively.

-Marion is old though and his defensive numbers went down last year: I think he bounces back this year with less minutes but it's a tough comparison versus a prime Cooper who was one of the greatest defensive players of all time.

-Mychal Thompson played a lot of minutes once Jabbar got older and he's bigger then anybody we have and also more competent then a guy like Haywood

-I would say I'm not underrating our potential more pointing that we are basing a lot of emphasis on potential in the first place with regards to defense. If Marion and even Lebron have bounce back seasons, AV stays healthy, and DIon/Delly improve then I do think we're pretty equivocal to the Showtime Lakers. I agree the odds of this happening aren't bad at all but to play devil's advocate other things like AV getting hurt or Dion not meshing or age catching up with Marion wouldn't actually surprise people either. To keep this Lebron related, I hope that we don't become overly dependent on him on defense and wear him out.

 

[bobcat22]

-Marion is old though and his defensive numbers went down last year: I think he bounces back this year with less minutes but it's a tough comparison versus a prime Cooper who was one of the greatest defensive players of all time.

-Mychal Thompson played a lot of minutes once Jabbar got older and he's bigger then anybody we have and also more competent then a guy like Haywood

-I would say I'm not underrating our potential more pointing that we are basing a lot of emphasis on potential in the first place with regards to defense. If Marion and even Lebron have bounce back seasons, AV stays healthy, and DIon/Delly improve then I do think we're pretty equivocal to the Showtime Lakers. I agree the odds of this happening aren't bad at all but to play devil's advocate other things like AV getting hurt or Dion not meshing or age catching up with Marion wouldn't actually surprise people either. To keep this Lebron related, I hope that we don't become overly dependent on him on defense and wear him out.

I agree Marion is old. My point isn't to say he will be Michael Cooper off the bench, just that the comparison is there despite him being older. That's his role on this team. On the Mavericks he started and he's used to starting his whole career. This should be a nice change of pace for him.

I think you are suffering from nostalgia regarding Mychal Thompson rather than objectivity. He was 6'10 226. Tristan is very comparable to him in terms of size and Love weighs more than him. Thompson came to the Lakers midway through the 1986-87 season at the age of 32 and played 4 more seasons averaging 25 minutes a night. Tristan is very capable of doing that off the bench. MT's last year in Portland before he was traded he was shooting 43.6% from the field. In the last 33 games for the Lakers he shot 48% and shot better than 50% the rest of his career. He averaged 10 points and 6 rebounds off the bench and 1 block per game. Tristan can easily put up similar numbers for this team.

As far as health goes, the Celtics picked up Bill Walton before the 1985-86 season and he played a whole season, every single game, off the bench which is something he had NEVER done previously. You don't think the Celts were worried about him? Who else did they have behind Bill? Nobody, that's why they lost in 1987 when he went down. You don't think the Lakers were worried about Kareem playing heavy minutes at his old age? Injuries happen, but you can't live in fear of what might happen.

 

[Pioneer10]

As far as health goes, the Celtics picked up Bill Walton before the 1985-86 season and he played a whole season, every single game, off the bench which is something he had NEVER done previously. You don't think the Celts were worried about him? Who else did they have behind Bill? Nobody, that's why they lost in 1987 when he went down. You don't think the Lakers were worried about Kareem playing heavy minutes at his old age? Injuries happen, but you can't live in fear of what might happen.

This is where I think is the only point of disagreement. I'm comfortable letting Dion and Delly develop and I have enough confidence that they'll improve their defense that we don't have to go after someone like Tony Allen to make up for that. On the other hand I'm very uncomfortable with the center spot. At PF we can use Lebron and Marion but at the big we are way too dependent on AV. At least the Celtics still had a Parrish and McHale to the C. The talk from the Cavs is we'll move Tristan over there. He's a guy who's had a 20+ Opp PER at the C last two years and we're in a conference where the playoff teams actually have good offensive centers. Maybe I'm battle scarred from the Orlando series but I hate to waste a season with a team which should otherwise be historically good because we didn't have an adequate backup C (and right now we are just throwing bodies in there in the hopes it works with Tristan and Haywood: this is a lot different then the Lakers with Thompson and Walton who were both coming off the bench. I'd be willing to roll the dice too if that was what we had: the equivalent would be for example having Varejao backup a guy like Mozgov or Mahinimi)

 

[bobcat22]

This is where I think is the only point of disagreement. I'm comfortable letting Dion and Delly develop and I have enough confidence that they'll improve their defense that we don't have to go after someone like Tony Allen to make up for that. On the other hand I'm very uncomfortable with the center spot. At PF we can use Lebron and Marion but at the big we are way too dependent on AV. At least the Celtics still had a Parrish and McHale to the C. The talk from the Cavs is we'll move Tristan over there. He's a guy who's had a 20+ Opp PER at the C last two years and we're in a conference where the playoff teams actually have good offensive centers. Maybe I'm battle scarred from the Orlando series but I hate to waste a season with a team which should otherwise be historically good because we didn't have an adequate backup C (and right now we are just throwing bodies in there in the hopes it works with Tristan and Haywood: this is a lot different then the Lakers with Thompson and Walton who were both coming off the bench. I'd be willing to roll the dice too if that was what we had: the equivalent would be for example having Varejao backup a guy like Mozgov or Mahinimi)

I think our point of disconnect is you think the Cavs big guys are no good outside of AV. Love has been proven to be a very solid post defender, it's his pick and roll defense where he struggles. As for Thompson and Haywood, all they are being asked to do is come in, hustle, and use all their energy in the time they are in the game. Tristan and Haywood will be sharing the backup center role, so AT MOST they will be playing a combined 20 minutes a game at center, 10 minutes each. Is that really so bad? Mychal Thompson averaged 25 minutes a game at the age of 32 coming off the bench for a 39 year old Kareem. We have a 23 year old Tristan Thompson and 35 year old Brendan Haywood coming off the bench for a 32 year old Varejao. Plus, we can put K Love at the 5 and go small and absolutely wipe the floor with everybody offensively. We don't have to play straight up to win.

Let's go through the teams that have offensive centers in the East. Chicago has a great front line, but Noah is not an offensive center. Indiana has Hibbert, but they are not a contender. Al Jefferson is great, but he can't play a lick of defense himself. Gortat isn't a big threat. Brook Lopez is not considered a great defender and he has his own injury problems. Al Horford is undersized. The only guy that I consider a big threat is Bosh, but he doesn't post up much anymore. It is not as big a problem as you make it out to be. Think about it. Our biggest problem is BACKUP center. The Heat's biggest problem their whole four years? STARTING power forward once Bosh moved to the 5. They still won two titles. The Spurs start Danny Green at SG and Tiago Splitter at center. I'd say they do just fine.

 

[Pioneer10]

I think our point of disconnect is you think the Cavs big guys are no good outside of AV. Love has been proven to be a very solid post defender, it's his pick and roll defense where he struggles. As for Thompson and Haywood, all they are being asked to do is come in, hustle, and use all their energy in the time they are in the game. Tristan and Haywood will be sharing the backup center role, so AT MOST they will be playing a combined 20 minutes a game at center, 10 minutes each. Is that really so bad? Mychal Thompson averaged 25 minutes a game at the age of 32 coming off the bench for a 39 year old Kareem. We have a 23 year old Tristan Thompson and 35 year old Brendan Haywood coming off the bench for a 32 year old Varejao. Plus, we can put K Love at the 5 and go small and absolutely wipe the floor with everybody offensively. We don't have to play straight up to win.

I don't think you've convinced me at all that I should be less worried about the center spot. The point is not that we don't have two quality bigs and a decent roleplayer (Love and AV, I'm not as high on TT as others on this board), it's that we're very weak at C which is not the same as being strong at PF. AV is not even a traditional C: he's more of a hybrid. And on top of that he's a guys who hasn't made it thru a full season in 3 years! So after him the only person you have automatically pegged who is a C is Haywood who is not only old but is coming off an injury which caused him to miss the entirety of last year.

The optimism also fails to address that TT did not guard opposing centers well the last 2 years according to OPP PER and that Love's pick and roll defense actually means not having a traditional rim protecting center hurt us more then say if had a guy like Bosh

Let's go through the teams that have offensive centers in the East. Chicago has a great front line, but Noah is not an offensive center. Indiana has Hibbert, but they are not a contender. Al Jefferson is great, but he can't play a lick of defense himself. Gortat isn't a big threat. Brook Lopez is not considered a great defender and he has his own injury problems. Al Horford is undersized. The only guy that I consider a big threat is Bosh, but he doesn't post up much anymore. It is not as big a problem as you make it out to be. Think about it. Our biggest problem is BACKUP center. The Heat's biggest problem their whole four years? STARTING power forward once Bosh moved to the 5. They still won two titles. The Spurs start Danny Green at SG and Tiago Splitter at center. I'd say they do just fine.

You're missing two big men: Chicago can place Noah at C and the Wizards can do the same with Nene. Both play for playoff teams who are better this year and have had success against Cavs players (TT has had a rough time with Gortat and Nene at points in the past for example). And yes backup center is going to be important as it's very likely with the injury history of this team, that the backup will be a starter. We didn't fair well the last time this happened when we depended on one defensive big and he got (Wallace: who I'm still convinced if he was healthy we would have beaten Orlando).

I should also point out that I still like our chances against anybody because the overwhelming talent at our other spots but this has the potential to be a big Achilles heel for us no matter how many we try caps lock starting vs backup

 

[Frank Stallone]

Curious what people think about this quote.

 

[bobcat22]

I don't think you've convinced me at all that I should be less worried about the center spot. The point is not that we don't have two quality bigs and a decent roleplayer (Love and AV, I'm not as high on TT as others on this board), it's that we're very weak at C which is not the same as being strong at PF. AV is not even a traditional C: he's more of a hybrid. And on top of that he's a guys who hasn't made it thru a full season in 3 years! So after him the only person you have automatically pegged who is a C is Haywood who is not only old but is coming off an injury which caused him to miss the entirety of last year.

The optimism also fails to address that TT did not guard opposing centers well the last 2 years according to OPP PER and that Love's pick and roll defense actually means not having a traditional rim protecting center hurt us more then say if had a guy like Bosh



You're missing two big men: Chicago can place Noah at C and the Wizards can do the same with Nene. Both play for playoff teams who are better this year and have had success against Cavs players (TT has had a rough time with Gortat and Nene at points in the past for example). And yes backup center is going to be important as it's very likely with the injury history of this team, that the backup will be a starter. We didn't fair well the last time this happened when we depended on one defensive big and he got (Wallace: who I'm still convinced if he was healthy we would have beaten Orlando).

I should also point out that I still like our chances against anybody because the overwhelming talent at our other spots but this has the potential to be a big Achilles heel for us no matter how many we try caps lock starting vs backup

You are overhyping the center position. We're not playing prime Kareem or Wilt here. Nobody in the East at the center position is as good as prime Dwight. We are weakest at the weakest position in the entire NBA. That's my point. Our weakest position is the position with the least amount of quality players in the league so that's why I'm not too worried. The Clippers have Deandre Jordan and can't get out of the West. The Pacers couldn't beat the Heat despite Hibbert's huge size advantage. Patrick Ewing couldn't get past MJ's Bulls with Bill Cartwright at center. The Spurs have survived with Tiago Splitter starting at center. Even OKC has survived with Kendrick Perkins' corpse at center. This isn't the 70's when centers ruled the NBA. There are a few quality offensive centers, but their teams are not good enough to beat us. The Wizards are too young, the Pacers are stripped down, the Heat are a shell of themselves, the Nets aren't contenders, and so on and so forth. We couldn't have a better position to be weak at.

By the way, who would you recommend we get? There is nobody on the free agent market so that means we'd have to trade for one. Who are you willing to give up?

 

[MirORich]

Curious what people think about this quote.

Seems pretty spot on. Huge difference being 29, the undisputed best player in the game, with 2 rings and 4 straight finals appearances than being the 24-25 prodigy who has not yet won a ring and got swept in his lone Finals appearance. Could he have tried harder? Maybe. Would it have made a big difference back in that 2006-2009 context? Not so sure.

 

[Pioneer10]

You are overhyping the center position. We're not playing prime Kareem or Wilt here. Nobody in the East at the center position is as good as prime Dwight. We are weakest at the weakest position in the entire NBA. That's my point. Our weakest position is the position with the least amount of quality players in the league so that's why I'm not too worried. The Clippers have Deandre Jordan and can't get out of the West. The Pacers couldn't beat the Heat despite Hibbert's huge size advantage. Patrick Ewing couldn't get past MJ's Bulls with Bill Cartwright at center. The Spurs have survived with Tiago Splitter starting at center. Even OKC has survived with Kendrick Perkins' corpse at center. This isn't the 70's when centers ruled the NBA. There are a few quality offensive centers, but their teams are not good enough to beat us. The Wizards are too young, the Pacers are stripped down, the Heat are a shell of themselves, the Nets aren't contenders, and so on and so forth. We couldn't have a better position to be weak at.

We'll have to agree to disagree here. For every Chicago situation, you have examples of us losing to Dwight and just last year Nene destroyed the Bulls. I'm not worried about teams with defensive centers like Hibbert and Perkins but defending teams with Pau Gasol, Nene, Bosh and in the Finals possibly guys like Duncan and Howard. The total amount of offensive centers aren't many but they get concentrated in playoff caliber teams. The other examples are very weak IMO (Duncan is a center just doesn't like be listed as one and the one reason Perkins has survived is that he does only one thing well: defend other centers!).

There is also a matter of degree here. I don't think you need to have a HOF guy at Bill Walton for us at backup. In fact if AV stays healthy, we can easily survive and my concerns would be mitigated with what we have l but unfortunately AV is not Cal Ripken here. Interestingly there was a long run in the 80's where every team that did pick up a quality backup center went on to win titles (Walton with the Celtics, Thompson with the Lakers, and then Detroit with Edwards)

By the way, who would you recommend we get? There is nobody on the free agent market so that means we'd have to trade for one. Who are you willing to give up?

I think Mozgov is ideal: right age, in his prime, reasonable contract, decent numbers. Should be able to start if AV goes down and play big minutes. I'd be willing to give up the 2018 first round for him

 

[bobcat22]

We'll have to agree to disagree here. For every Chicago situation, you have examples of us losing to Dwight and just last year Nene destroyed the Bulls. I'm not worried about teams with defensive centers like Hibbert and Perkins but defending teams with Pau Gasol, Nene, Bosh and in the Finals possibly guys like Duncan and Howard. There amount of offensive centers aren't many but they get concentrated in playoff calibre teams. The other examples are very weak IMO (Duncan is a center just doesn't like be listed as one and the one reason Perkins has survived is that he does only one thing well: defend other centers!).

There is also a matter of degree here. I don't think you need to have a HOF guy at Bill Walton for us at backup. In fact if AV stays healthy, we can easily survive and my concerns would be mitigated with what we have l but unfortunately AV is not Cal Ripken here. Interestingly there was a long run in the 80's where every team that did pick up a quality backup center went on to win titles (Walton with the Celtics, Thompson with the Lakers, and then Detroit with Edwards)



I think Mozgov is ideal: right age, in his prime, reasonable contract, decent numbers. Should be able to start if AV goes down and play big minutes. I'd be willing to give up the 2018 first round for him

I would love Mozgov but the Nuggets aren't biting. The Cavs have already tried, but if he comes available at the deadline I agree. You can't force the Nuggets to trade him.

I'm not sure why you are hung up on Mychal Thompson being the lynchpin for the Showtime Lakers. He shot 43 percent from the field before he came to the Lakers. Tristan can easily put up the numbers MT did and be just as successful, plus he's a lot younger than MT was with the Lakers. You are critiquing Tristan's defense as if he's a finished product, but he's only 23.

As for the power forwards you are listing, Love is a very good post defender. He can more than hold his own. The guys you are referencing aren't taking him off the dribble, they are posting him up. That kind of defense is what he does well. Varejao is a very good pick and roll defender, so if they try to abuse Love in that way, you switch the matchup to Andy. Rome can't be built in a day.

 

[Pioneer10]

I would love Mozgov but the Nuggets aren't biting. The Cavs have already tried, but if he comes available at the deadline I agree. You can't force the Nuggets to trade him.

I'm not sure why you are hung up on Mychal Thompson being the lynchpin for the Showtime Lakers. He shot 43 percent from the field before he came to the Lakers. Tristan can easily put up the numbers MT did and be just as successful, plus he's a lot younger than MT was with the Lakers. You are critiquing Tristan's defense as if he's a finished product, but he's only 23.

As for the power forwards you are listing, Love is a very good post defender. He can more than hold his own. The guys you are referencing aren't taking him off the dribble, they are posting him up. That kind of defense is what he does well. Varejao is a very good pick and roll defender, so if they try to abuse Love in that way, you switch the matchup to Andy. Rome can't be built in a day.

I think this discussion has run it's course: I watched nearly every game of the Showtime Lakers (lived in LA at that time) and I'm much more confident of Mychal Thompson being able to defend centers then Tristan. Like I said I think Tristan is over-rated as a defender particularly at the center spot which other people don't agree with (that being said the defensive stats that we do have back me up: Tristan did not have a good defensive RAPM last year nor did he have a good OPP PER at C)

As noted, I agree if Andy is available we can make it work but two presumptions (certain guys can shoot over Love even if he plays good post defense as he doesn't have a great wingspan and not to sound like a broken record, AV stays healthy). This is my last response as I don't want to hijack this thread any longer

 

[Ruken]

Seems pretty spot on. Huge difference being 29, the undisputed best player in the game, with 2 rings and 4 straight finals appearances than being the 24-25 prodigy who has not yet won a ring and got swept in his lone Finals appearance. Could he have tried harder? Maybe. Would it have made a big difference back in that 2006-2009 context? Not so sure.

Also he is actually recruiting this time and no one is questioning his long-term commitment