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LeBron James

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This team has bigger problems than LeBron Jame's aging and attitude.
 
JSS2306 said:
This team has bigger problems than LeBron Jame's aging and attitude.
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None of which will matter unless the guy that our young talent is supposed to look to as the leader starts buying into the system. Yes, there are some personnel and strategical issues, but the idea that this team was annihilated by Detroit is sort of a joke. Even shorthanded, there's really no excuse for it.

This was supposed to be the new and improved LeBron who "went to college" and matured. Now, 30 games into the season, the drama is already next level.
 
Wade/lebron arnt the only close friends in the league. They should have had the conversation after the game like every other player does not in front of cameras.
 
Snarly said:
Well this all started and ended quick.
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perhaps it needed to get out , because he says and does things in a calculated manner..by hiding his mouth , he knew he trying to be secretive but at the same time, someone would pickup on it. But I agree with whoever said he could have done that after the game when they talk..we all know they do.
I trust very few people, and none in the sports world.
 
I'm reading all this and it is some of the saddest shit ever. I don't know what Lebron said or what his plans are or his grand schemes if he has any, but who the fuck cares? Do you even enjoy the actual games? It gets to a point that you probably shouldn't even watch sports if you get your panties in wad from a video of Lebron mumbling something about something to Wade.

For your own mental health, maybe some of you should just step away.
 
Rimage said:
I'm reading all this and it is some of the saddest shit ever. I don't know what Lebron said or what his plans are or his grand schemes if he has any, but who the fuck cares? Do you even enjoy the actual games? It gets to a point that you probably shouldn't even watch sports if you get your panties in wad from a video of Lebron mumbling something about something to Wade.

For your own mental health, maybe some of you should just step away.
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After watching this game tonight, I am convinced that this is all a message from our top players that these players suck and big changes need to be made.

It might not even have much to do with Blatt. This team is awful.
 
I don't agree. LeBron wanted Jones and Miller here. The other guys..I mean he joined them. He knew Tristan Thompson had no touch around the rim. He knew Dion Waiters was a streak player who complains a lot.

Look, they weren't supposed to win the game tonight. No team missing 4 starters is supposed to win games. But this game DOES give you a glimpse of what another season led by Kyrie, Waiters, and Thompson would have looked like. And again I'm reminded why I'm happy we don't have to watch that, lying to ourselves that eventually those 3 were going to be good enough to compete.

And in before someone complains that this isn't fair to those 3 guys. That if LeBron hadn't have come back, the supporting cast around those 3 would have been better. All you'd be describing is last season, where we had players like Jack and Deng and still had a shit show. I'm fully reminded why I was ready to blow this roster up before LBJ's announcement.

LBJ certainly hasn't been perfect, but I know I've got way more hope in the future of this team than if we had Wiggins and some overpaid guy like Monroe. That team...the future of that team would be bleak as hell.
 
Asshole couldn't have bolted from the bench faster when we went down 17 in the first half tonight. His buddies Rich and Randy followed right behind him and Randy was motioning up to someone in a suite, I believe. Didn't see him the rest of the game.
 
Rich said:
LBJ certainly hasn't been perfect, but I know I've got way more hope in the future of this team than if we had Wiggins and some overpaid guy like Monroe. That team...the future of that team would be bleak as hell.
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I have to take exception with this.

One of the best points you consistently make is that the Cavs should be giving Alex Kirk more burn. He isn't going to get better sitting on the bench. I think Blatt is so concerned about wins right now that he isn't trying guys he isn't convinced are ready to play. But those guys never get ready to play always sitting on the bench.


How Grant, Cavs botched the Thunder's blueprint

The news of Chris Grant's surprising dismissal as general manager of the Cavaliers has been the topic du jour in NBA circles since the news was handed down Thursday.

"I was actually talking to my owner about it," said a rival GM. "We agreed that GMs should be fired way more often than they are. If you're going to fire somebody, the coach shouldn't always get the axe."

On his way out the door, one of David Stern's final declarations was that his final collective bargaining agreement would create a new era of management, in which the failures or successes of teams would revolve around the planning and execution of their front-office executives. So far three GMs have exited this season -- Glen Grunwald was fired in September by the Knicks, Gersson Rosas resigned in October from the Mavericks, and Grant was put down amid a six-game losing streak and a 16-33 start in what had been heralded by owner Dan Gilbert as a season for returning to the playoffs.

"We all know who is really running that team -- it's Dan Gilbert," said a rival executive, who believed the arrival of Andrew Bynum damaged the team socially. "It's obvious that those players don't enjoy playing together," he went on. "They're all looking around to see who the second-best player is, and each one of them thinks he's it."

The Cavs have gone 80-199 since they were abandoned by LeBron James. The curse set forth by Gilbert that night in 2010 has boomeranged against him and his franchise karmically. "Chris had one of the toughest jobs you could possibly have -- high picks in really bad drafts," said the rival GM of Grant, who was hired to replace Danny Ferry in that lost summer of 2010.

Like so many rebuilding teams, the Cavaliers tried to follow the example of the Thunder, who continue to be one of the most-copied and least-understood franchises in the NBA. The formula of Oklahoma City GM Sam Presti has been boiled down to the first-round picks he made in three successive drafts:

2007: Kevin Durant (No. 2), Jeff Green (No. 5 via trade with Boston)

2008: Russell Westbrook (No. 4), Serge Ibaka (No. 24)

2009: James Harden (No. 3)

Those look like no-brainer picks now. But in fact, Durant was the only obvious star at the time of those drafts. There was no clear-cut choice to be made at No. 5 in 2007 when Presti settled on Green, who has turned into the third-most productive player from his draft (after Durant and Al Horford, who went No. 3 to Atlanta). Four years later, Presti would trade Green in order to create more opportunities for Ibaka and Harden.

In 2008, I could find no one in the league apart from Presti who believed that Westbrook could be a star. After being tipped off that Presti was deciding between Westbrook and Brook Lopez, I remember calling rival GMs and scouts who laughed at the idea of picking Westbrook as high as No. 4; some highly respected executives believed that he lacked the basic point guard skills to start in the NBA.

In 2009, Harden was in danger of sliding in the draft. If the Thunder had not taken him at No. 3, the Bucks were optimistic at that time that he might be available for them at No. 10 (where they wound up with Brandon Jennings instead).

Westbrook and Harden turned out to be far better than anticipated by many rival teams, but here is the neglected aspect of their rise to the top of the league: They joined a franchise that invested fully in their improvement. The staff of coach Scott Brooks, who took over 13 games into Westbrook's rookie year, has set the standard for developing young talent. Consider the long list of homegrown players who have thrived in Oklahoma City, including Durant, Green, Westbrook, Harden, Ibaka, and now Reggie Jackson and Jeremy Lamb. This does not happen by accident.

The Seattle SuperSonics (as they were known then) had been trying to win for two years when Presti arrived in 2007 and immediately traded All-Stars Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis. They endured one and a half horrible seasons before showing improvement in the latter half of 2008-09, which was the prelude to their 50-win breakthrough in 2009-10.

So many teams that are rebuilding through the draft think of their losing years as a lost time that must be suffered like a plague. For Presti and Brooks in Oklahoma City, for Larry Bird and his coaches at Indiana, and for other teams that have built up through the draft, the years of losing are not a waste of time. They become years of investment, during which the GM and coach establish, under stress, how they will behave when they are on top of the league.

It is the secret of rebuilding. If they don't focus on their daily work as if they're winning already, then they never will win.

The approach of Brooks when his team was 3-29 is the same as his approach now that they're pursuing a second NBA Finals in three years. Jackson and Lamb and rookie Steven Adams are benefiting from the same daily regimen of intensive work that made stars out of Westbrook and Harden when few saw the potential in them.

It is true that Grant had the misfortune of running Cleveland's draft in years when there was a dearth of franchise talent. It's also true that he made a terrific 2011 deadline trade to absorb the expensive contract of Baron Davis in exchange for the unprotected pick that turned into Irving. Much as Durant fell into the lap of Presti, so too did Irving arrive like a miracle in Cleveland.

Otherwise, Grant's drafting record wasn't terrific. Three spots after landing Irving, he used the No. 4 pick on Tristan Thompson. Grant could have gone instead with center Jonas Valanciunas, who slid to No. 5 to Toronto because he would be forced to finish his European contract overseas for one year; the Cavaliers could have withstood that absence. "The one I criticize the most is Valanciunas," said a rival GM. "He isn't setting the world on fire, but I was surprised they didn't go for him in that situation."

"Chris traded well, but he didn't draft well," said another GM. "Pick Klay (Thompson, who went No. 11 to the Warriors) or Valanciunas instead of Tristan Thompson."

Dion Waiters (No. 4 in 2012), Tyler Zeller (No. 17 in 2012 after a trade of picks with Dallas), Sergey Karasev (No. 19 last year) and especially Anthony Bennett, the reigning No. 1 pick, have been disappointing in one way or another. While the Cavs have had a pair of No. 1 picks in the last three years, it needs to be remembered that Grant tried to trade the pick last year and could find no takers because the draft was so weak.

"I still think Bennett will turn out to be a pretty good NBA starter," said a GM, in spite of Bennett's numbers (3.3 ppg, 28.9 percent shooting overall). "He'll wind up being in the top 10-15 in the league at his position."

There are two ways to look at the disaster in Cleveland. Maybe Grant should have drafted better. Or maybe -- and more importantly -- the Cavaliers haven't been focused, with discipline and perseverance, on developing the young talent they've acquired over the last few years. Would Tristan Thompson have become a better player in Oklahoma City?

The Cavaliers as they exist today are an underachieving and disorderly team. The dismissal of Grant may ultimately have had less to do with the players he chose than with the way he developed them once he had them.
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After LeBron left, the Cavs screwed up the first time trying to make the playoffs without him. The Cavs continued screwing up switching coaches mid-rebuild. Andrew Bynum, Luol Deng... they screwed up again with the playoff mandate/trading Henry Sims, two draft picks and Earl Clark (who had a team option for this year) for 2.5 months of Spencer Hawes.

The Cavs appeared to have finally course corrected with the hiring of Blatt. Golden State wanted him. The hiring was universally lauded. Kyrie Irving had bought in from the jump.

One of the biggest problems the Cavs have right now is finding someone to guard the freaking perimeter. Here is an article from today about Sergei Karasev's defense: SOURCE
"This is just your hustle," Karasev said about his ability to navigate picks and close out on shooters. "Just like, you should go your hardest. Just scramble every time, and that's what I do really well, especially at the end of the game."
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Here's Karasev flying back on defense to intercept a pass which he accidentally saves to Joakim Noah:


DAT SMILE AS HE GETS UP

The article mentions Karasev played for Blatt in the Olympics on the Russian national team. That would've been interesting.

Here's highlights from Andrew Wiggins game last night:


Here's multiple angles of the monster jam:



The future of this team would not have been bleak.
 
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