kovanovich
Sixth Man
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- Jul 4, 2009
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Try to look at the injuries as a blessing instead of a recipe for irrelevancy. None of the injuries are serious and this was never going to be a good season. Instead of winning around 27-32 games the Cavs will probably win around 20-25 games and have more ping pong balls to show for it. Hopefully both individually and as a team they can begin to show more signs of growth by February/March.
Next season is the year. If they don't make a jump to the playofs then the rebuild is not on schedule.
At least a couple of interesting questions raised in this thread...
1. Will the possible Browns' resurgence have any impact on the Cavs' strategy? Dan Gilbert is not an idiot and surely realizes, all things being relatively equal, Cleveland is a Browns town first and foremost. However, if he perceives whatever (minimal) attention the Cavs now attract eroding, will he encourage (subtly or otherwise) Grant to speed up the rebuild? The lack of success by the Browns (and Indians) the last couple of years may have been a bit of a blessing for the Cavs, since their home town sports competition has been equally unwatchable. Plus, unlike the Browns and Indians, the Cavs at least have had a valid excuse for being so bad. But this residual sympathy will only further wane as the Browns improve. If you thought the Cavs TC wasn't covered this year, can you imagine what it would be like if the Browns were a playoff team?
2. What is the Cavs' 2013 off-season strategy? Jason Lloyd wrote a nice piece the other day where he implies, or maybe speculates in the better word, the Cavs likely won't be adding much payroll this coming year:
http://www.ohio.com/sports/cavs/jason-lloyd-mythical-salary-floor-for-next-season-won-t-thrust-cavaliers-into-free-agent-market-1.356591
But can the Cavs really afford being bad again in 2013-14? And I mean even 35 win bad, let alone an excruciating 20 win bad (which seems where we could be headed in 2012-13). Brian Windhorst in his RCF podcast at the beginning of this year raised the question of how long the Cavs would be willing to adhere to their strategy. To really build a team through the draft requires considerable patience. Given how difficult it is to win in the NBA, it's hardly any wonder that most teams seem content with merely achieving relevance (however that is defined -- for most markets, it means making the playoffs, I suspect). Can the Cavs reasonably expect to make the playoffs next year by staying the course and building via the draft without adding a significant veteran or two?
Personally, all things considered, I could hardly blame Gilbert/Grant if they were to make significant moves this off-season. Let's just hope that if this is what happens it doesn't land the team the likes of Okafur/Ariza.