Farewell, Timofey Mozgov

chuck0609 said:

What the hell were they doing in Denver? If Im one of their fans I'm asking management what the hell is going on there.

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Denver's a mess right now. Wouldn't be surprised if Mozgov just got lost in the shuffle.

This team is exactly what Mozgov needed though. His role is well-defined, we play him to his strengths, he knows the coach, and he's surrounded by brothers.

Oh, and the northeast Ohio winters are like Russia's.

chuck0609 said:

What the hell were they doing in Denver? If Im one of their fans I'm asking management what the hell is going on there.

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It's because of that rookie Bosnian center they have now. His rising stock made Mozgov expendable. He looks like a Mozgov clone.

His motor and overall effort level is off the charts. He doesn't take plays off, he is laser focused on the ball. Very high bball IQ, great footwork, great hands, great anticipation of where the ball is going to be, great at spacing, setting picks, moving around and not becoming a stationary target to let the opposing defense off the hook. Keeps his hands high to contest anything that is put up around the basket, has incredible lateral quickness for his size and can actually position himself quickly to discourage the drive to the lane. His quickness and athleticism is the biggest draw for me.

Combined with his motor, his ability to make up ground on defense quickly and to charge to the basket to take advantage of lobs and offensive rebound attempts is incredible. He is extremely polished and just a flat out intelligent basketball player. This is a unique big man that works well with floor spacers and guys that have a knack for finding the open man. You just have to be completely giddy about his fit on this team.

Jscc said:

Denver's a mess right now. Wouldn't be surprised if Mozgov just got lost in the shuffle.

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Absolutely. I think that Faried and other Nugget players' beef with Brian Shaw's system left Mozgov on an island- and that's why he's been so under the radar. Faried has a motor like Tristan's, and when he willfully shut that off, Mozgov becomes pretty ordinary, at least on paper.

Add to that a promising youngster C, Nurkic, breathing down his neck, and an expensive backup in Javale McGee, who you have to play, and you're left with a 3-headed monster- none of which are going to produce anything eye-popping.

Can't find the quote of Lebron saying he really didn't know who Mozgov was, even though it's his 5th year- classic. Google doesn't tell me. Rep to anyone who finds that.

Splitz said:

His motor and overall effort level is off the charts. He doesn't take plays off, he is laser focused on the ball. Very high bball IQ, great footwork, great hands, great anticipation of where the ball is going to be, great at spacing, setting picks, moving around and not becoming a stationary target to let the opposing defense off the hook. Keeps his hands high to contest anything that is put up around the basket, has incredible lateral quickness for his size and can actually position himself quickly to discourage the drive to the lane. His quickness and athleticism is the biggest draw for me.

Combined with his motor, his ability to make up ground on defense quickly and to charge to the basket to take advantage of lobs and offensive rebound attempts is incredible. He is extremely polished and just a flat out intelligent basketball player. This is a unique big man that works well with floor spacers and guys that have a knack for finding the open man. You just have to be completely giddy about his fit on this team.

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I'm impressed by his passing as well. Not only is he great at finding the right position for himself, but he's very good at seeing his teammates as well. How often do you see a center as the second man on the break, setting up the cutter with an alley-oop?

I never thought he'd be this good, and I think his teammates and the coaches have done an outstanding job of getting maximum benefit from his abilities. Him fitting in this well so quickly is really amazing, especially given that nobody on this team was used to playing with a guy like that.

And consider how fast we adjusted our defensive system to take advantage of his abilities. That just amazes me. As much of a defensive genius as MB was, we were often told it would take a full season or more for everyone to get it. We acquire Mozgov, make the decision to change the way we defend the PNR, and the benefits are palpable within a few games.

The adjustment on the fly by the entire coaching staff is really amazing.

The Human Q-Tip said:

I think everyone understands that, but that wasn't an option. Griffin said he'd been trying to acquire these players since before the season began, but the other teams weren't willing. Speculation that we somehow "could" have gotten Mozgov for only one pick is simply baseless, because the fact is that Denver was not willing to do that deal until we offered a second pick, and a third of the season already was gone so it didn't seem like Denver was just posturing.

As to the trade value of a low first round pick...well, I don't want to turn this into a Dion-bashing thread, but he clearly was not working out here at all and did not have a lot of value around the league. In exchange for that not-valuable guy, we got Shumpert, Smith, and a first round pick. Considering that some would have done that deal even without the pick, I'd say that pick doesn't really have enormous value.

But the bottom line is that the second first-rounder was necessary to get Mozgov.

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I don't think that's true. If we had another decent center we could've held on until the trade deadline. Denver easily could've been posturing knowing how bad we needed a big. That's exactly what I'd do in their shoes. THEY were the ones who could afford to wait, and it payed off. Maybe Denver had flexibility on Mozgov's price, maybe they didn't, but we couldn't afford to find out because we needed him ASAP and everyone knew it. I'd probably give the trade around a C in retrospect simply because it was deal done out of desperation, and we were forced to pretty much just give Denver what they wanted.

I'm sure the OKC pick didn't have tremendous value, but let's not get it twisted. JR had negative value at the time of the deal and Shump was an oft-injured soon-to-be-RFA. I was really relieved when I heard we had gotten that pick in the trade. Also, even though OKC traded their pick for a "not-so-valuable" guy in Waiters, that doesn't mean we couldn't have gotten more value out of it. Like say, by combining it with the Haywood contract. Never know what kinds of opportunities might turn up.

I have March 4th circled on my calendar, looking forward to seeing Timofey go up against Valanciunas.

Enes Kanter is in a bit of a conundrum. He wants to get traded before the deadline not because he wants to win but because he wants to get paid. He honestly wouldn't even want to come here where he would be the 4th big this season and likely the 5th big next season once Andy comes back. That doesn't translate to getting paid. He probably is hoping someone like Boston or another scrub team were to trade for him. He wants minutes.

malus said:

I don't think that's true. If we had another decent center we could've held on until the trade deadline.

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But...we didn't have another decent center. That's the entire reason we had to trade for Mozgov.

Griffin obviously tried to play hardball during the summer, training camp, and during the season. Didn't work. Then Andy went down, and we went from just having a "weakness" to having a giant glaring hole.

And there's absolutely no reason to believe things would have been different at the deadline. Denver didn't have to trade Mozgov. They still had an option on him, and still probably could have gotten a low first rounder in trade for him after the season. We had very little leverage.

On the other hand, the more a Varajao-less Cavs team racked up losses heading to the deadline, the more leverage Denver would have had. The bottom line is if we get to the trade deadline, and Denver holds firm at two first rounders, we're going to end up pulling the trigger. In the meantime, we'd have played 15 more games without anyone manning the middle, and likely been out of contention for a top 4 seed.



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tocov said:

Nowhere. I designed it in photoshop lol

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Ahem..In response to a post by X on Jan 13th.

KB said:

Found this messing around online and thought of you good sir since you finally got your center.

http://tee2thedome.com/products/10899909-mozgod

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The Human Q-Tip said:

But...we didn't have another decent center. That's the entire reason we had to trade for Mozgov.

Griffin obviously tried to play hardball during the summer, training camp, and during the season. Didn't work. Then Andy went down, and we went from just having a "weakness" to having a giant glaring hole.

And there's absolutely no reason to believe things would have been different at the deadline. Denver didn't have to trade Mozgov. They still had an option on him, and still probably could have gotten a low first rounder in trade for him after the season. We had very little leverage.

On the other hand, the more a Varajao-less Cavs team racked up losses heading to the deadline, the more leverage Denver would have had. The bottom line is if we get to the trade deadline, and Denver holds firm at two first rounders, we're going to end up pulling the trigger. In the meantime, we'd have played 15 more games without anyone manning the middle, and likely been out of contention for a top 4 seed.



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I know, and that was exactly my point. You pretty much repeated what I said back to me. We were forced to pay a lot because of terrible bargaining position, not necessarily because Mozgov is worth two firsts or that Denver absolutely would not let him go for less. Denver may have been willing to lower it's price, but we'll never know. I'm echoing the sentiment of wanting to hold onto that extra first. Now you might say, "It wasn't possible" but there was more to this deal than just this season's negotiation.

Why was our center depth so bad? Why was the extremely injury prone Varejao (Who I always thought of more as a PF anyways) our starting center to begin with? Ever since we lost Shaq and Z we've been clamoring for another true C. We had 4 seasons to do something about this and it finally bit us in the ass this year. We passed on Valanciunas, Drummond, Dieng, and traded Zeller. Even a guy like Festus Ezeli would've been great. I would have been able to accept having such a gaping hole in the roster if we were loading up on promising talent elsewhere, but all we accomplished was becoming the laughing stock of talent scouting. It's frustrating.

People have been talking a lot about how much of a steal we got, and yet I'm not sure with how good Mozgov has played that we could even get two firsts back for him. He's a role player, I love him and he really fits us, but most teams have a center or two that they could throw out there instead of having to pay that kind of price.

It's not that big a problem, because we ended up with a good team anyway. But we could've saved ourselves a lot of headache in terms of our embarrassing first half and potential overpay if we had constructed the roster better to begin with.

I still remember when Grant was asked about the center position in a post-draft interview. "Andy isn't a center?" Jesus Christ.

malus said:

Denver may have been willing to lower it's price, but we'll never know....

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True. But for the reasons I already gave, I don't see it as being a reasonable possibility. Certainly not by the break anyway. Just a materially different situation from what Minnesota was in when they were going to lose a superstar at the end of the season if they didn't trade him. Mozgov still had an option.

t's not that big a problem, because we ended up with a good team anyway. But we could've saved ourselves a lot of headache in terms of our embarrassing first half and potential overpay if we had constructed the roster better to begin with.

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Sure, if we'd drafted Dieng or Drummond. But I don't see how any of that is remotely relevant to the decisions Griffin had to make.

The Human Q-Tip said:

True. But for the reasons I already gave, I don't see it as being a reasonable possibility. Certainly not by the break anyway. Just a materially different situation from what Minnesota was in when they were going to lose a superstar at the end of the season if they didn't trade him. Mozgov still had an option.



Sure, if we'd drafted Dieng or Drummond. But I don't see how any of that is remotely relevant to the decisions Griffin had to make.

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I'm not criticizing Griffin in particular. I'm stating that it would've been a reasonable possibility with better forethought in roster construction from the previous management (as well as by the owner if he's as meddling as we're led to believe). And I'm stating that because of those mistakes we either overpaid or spent the most you can reasonably spend on a guy like Moz. It's not like it isn't the team's fault that they ended up in crap bargaining position in the first place.

Griffin has done his best to undo the mistakes that have been made until now, and I'm mostly happy with the roster. But that trade is the result of a lot of frustrating decisions that we've been forced to sit by and watch happen for the last handful of years.

Could you just stop? Just f..king stop. Do you just love the sound of your voice? Tonns of words but this is so NOT important now. Cavs got what they needed for the price they could afford, just stop here. It's start to become really boring and "oh shit not again"-ful.

We coudnt ended up with a better center than mozgov imo. He a very skilled player, plays excellent defense, doesnt take any play off and is very mobile for his size plus his contract is just a complete steal for the level of play he provides for this team.