All-Stiff Team -- Small Forward Poll (And damn, do these guys really suck...)

This is the one for which some of you -- or at least @Randolphkeys -- have been waiting. LeBron James aside, stiffs around the world consider it an insult to be lumped in with the group of "players" who have tended to occupy the Cavs' small forward position. I would wager that there is no other team in the NBA who managed to accumulate so much shitty talent at a single position during the last half century. For some, small forwards are the core of "positionless basketball", but the only sense in which these stiffs are positionless is that they were unable to play any position, including small forward.

And unlike Anthony Bennett being the prohibitive favorite in the power forward slot, there is no clear frontrunner among the collection of busts, rejects, and spazzes that comprise the small forward category. Because the poll function can only accommodate 10 names, I had to omit Darius Miles. Yes, he unquestionably sucked too. But compared to these other guys, merely "sucking" makes you pretty damn good.

Vote for 3.

My first vote is going to this guy, who could give Ty Lue a run for his money in a "most vacuous expression by a Cavalier" contest:


Winston Bennett -

Bennett completes the "I run like I have a stick jammed up my ass" trifecta of Earl Clark, Marquese Chriss, and of course Bennett himself. In his nearly 3 seasons with the Cavs, Bennett put up a line of 4.8 ppg, 3. rpg, and 0.9 apg. And those weren't the per game numbers of a benchwarmer -- Bennett actually started 92 of the 134 games he played as a Cavalier. Mercifully for Cavs fans, Bennett was as traded at the deadline in his third season to the Miami Heat, who saw him play for exactly two games before concluding he had no business playing in the NBA, and that was it for his career.

Bennett was a mind-numbingly bad offensive player, and it's not just the raw numbers that say that. In 2 of his 3 seasons with the Cavs, Bennett's eFG% was below 40%, and his TS% was below 50%. He had a negative offensive box plus/minus every single year. So if he couldn't shoot or pass, you might wonder what he was doing out there...

Bennett was allegedly a defensive-oriented small forward, except the only sense in which he was defensive-oriented was just that he sucked marginally less on that end of the court. Because he also had a negative defensive box plus-minus in each of his three seasons. He never averaged more than 0.4 steals per game, or 0.2 blocks per game. How is that possible?? A 6'7" "defensive specialist" who doesn't get steals, and only blocks one shot every five games? Obviously, Bennett is in that elite group of stiffs who had a negative OBPM, negative DBPM, and negative VORP every single season.

Yes, Karasev, Welsch, Keys, Casspi, Stauskas, Chievous, Newble (@AllforOne ) etc....they all sucked too. And on any other team, they'd each be a shoe-in for the All-Stiff team. But here, on the Cavs, my vote goes to Bennett.

I think so, anyway. Because in looking through that list of names in the poll...it's hard not to make a compelling case for all of them. Derrick Chievous and that ridiculous band-aid may sway me yet.

Only one guy on this list sucked so bad I adopted him as my alter ego for life.

Randolphkeys said:

Only one guy on this list sucked so bad I adopted him as my alter ego for life.

Click to expand...

Keys, Bennett, and Chievous were all on that 89-90 squad. And that team still won 42 games. That's remarkable.

I did a "compare" on Basketball Reference for those 3 guys. You can make a great case for any of them, but I did see that Keys played 12 playoff minutes that season, and managed a -19.6 BPM. That shouldn't be possible, but he managed.

Bennett played more minutes than the other two, so seeing that much suck get so much playing time really stood out. Chievous wore that ridiculous band-aid, and Keys had the worst advanced stats of the three. It's basically choosing which one gets to be Moe among those three stooges.

The Human Q-Tip said:

Keys, Bennett, and Chievous were all on that 89-90 squad. And that team still won 42 games. That's remarkable.

I did a "compare" on Basketball Reference for those 3 guys. You can make a great case for any of them, but I did see that Keys played 12 playoff minutes that season, and managed a -19.6 BPM. That shouldn't be possible.

The number of truly horrible small forwards who have played for the Cavs is incredible.

Click to expand...

The reason Randolph Keys stands head and shoulders above the other two was causation. The selection of Randolph Keys by Embry marked his first glaring error as the Cavs GM after an amazing run of draft picks and trades. Selecting Keys was the move right before the Ron Harper trade, leaving a glaring hole at a key swingman position. Mind you around this same time Dell Curry is a rookie shooting guard who Embry has to expose a year later in the expansion draft because Keys couldn't take minutes from Mike Sanders, further deepening the Embry Career Death Spiral to come later.

Bennett was the third rounder that same year, the last year a third round existed, and beat him out for minutes behind Sanders from the beginning. Embry still knew small forward was a nightmare on an otherwise contender. So then Embry trades three second round picks for Band Aid Man Chievous to cover his error... but Band Aid Man also sucked. The next draft he goes after Chucky Brown to play a reserve swingman position in the second... so covering up the hole made by the Danny Ferry trade ends up being Wayne Embry's priority, ruining the promise of that late 1980s core.

And it all starts with the name terrible RCF posters unwillingly curse on a regular basis: Fucking Randolph Keys!

Just think of some of the guys we had to omit -- Gerald Paddio, Jawad Williams...what a complete cesspool of suck at the SF position. Williams probably should have made the cut.

The Human Q-Tip said:

Just think of some of the guys we had to omit -- Gerald Paddio, Jawad Williams...what a complete cesspool of suck at the SF position. Williams probably should have made the cut.

Click to expand...

Personally, I don't want to include players brought in on minimum salaries, or players that weren't expected to be part of the rotation. Yeah, Jawad sucked, but he was brought in as the 15th guy as a personal favor to LBJ I thought.

Now someone like assfingers was brought in to have a definite role, and at the time, the idea of an expanded role. That shit was a colossal failure in all regards.

I didn't vote for Casspi but Assfingers is the second best nickname for a player on this site, behind Elk Shyt for CJ Miles.

Man Called X said:

Personally, I don't want to include players brought in on minimum salaries, or players that weren't expected to be part of the rotation. Yeah, Jawad sucked, but he was brought in as the 15th guy as a personal favor to LBJ I thought.

Now someone like assfingers was brought in to have a definite role, and at the time, the idea of an expanded role. That shit was a colossal failure in all regards.

Click to expand...

I did say initially that we should avoid end of bench guys/D-League guys who didn't get to play, etc.. So guys like Sir 'Dom Pointer wouldn't qualify.

But Jawad Williams was with the team for 3 years, played in 90 games, started in 7 of them, and played over 1100 minutes for the team. So he did see enough playing time to be fairly evaluated. And if the only reason he was brought on board was because of LBJ, that just explains why he was such a stiff. Also, it should be noted that the Cavs signed him to his last deal -- for the 2010-11 season -- after LBJ had already taken his talents to South Beach.

You're kind of arguing for biggest disappointments. That's not quite the same thing as biggest stiffs, though there is obviously some overlap. Anyway, there are so many other strong contenders for small forward that I don't mind omitting Williams. Especially since he was sometimes listed as a PG, so we can include him there.

Gotta go with Jiri Welsch... The fact that the Cavs (thanks Paxson!) gave up a 1st fucking rounder for that stiff in a trade is just absolutely mind-boggling. But hey, at least we were able to get a 2nd round pick back for him a year later.

The best part about all of this? 18 months after we gave up a 1st rounder for him, he was out of the league for good.

Deezus said:

Gotta go with Jiri Welsch... The fact that the Cavs (thanks Paxson!) gave up a 1st fucking rounder for that stiff in a trade is just absolutely mind-boggling. But hey, at least we were able to get a 2nd round pick back for him a year later.

The best part about all of this? 18 months after we gave up a 1st rounder for him, he was out of the league for good.

Click to expand...

I almost felt bad not voting for any of those guys. It was like every shred of small forward talent to which the Cavs were entitled over a half-century was given to LBJ, and then the other guys divided up the less than scraps that remained.

By the way, I just realized that this is literally the Cavs Half-Century All-Stiff team. Quite an honor for these guys.

This is the worst position of all five, that said Ira Newble doesn't belong on the list over players like Gerald Padio….Newble occasionally would actually win us a game.

Lee said:

This is the worst position of all five, that said Ira Newble doesn't belong on the list over players like Gerald Padio….Newble occasionally would actually win us a game.

Click to expand...

I agree. But then someone -- perhaps even you -- should have nominated Paddio in the nomination thread. But nobody did. I just thought of him after the fact, which is why I mentioned him in here. I can't change the poll once it is posted, but if you want to add anyone to be considered for SG or PG, just add them to the nominations thread and ping me to let me know.

SpanishCavsfan said:

I didn't vote for Casspi but Assfingers is the second best nickname for a player on this site, behind Elk Shyt for CJ Miles.

Click to expand...

Assfingers is my favorite.
I always think "Chuck Jumpers" when I hear CJ Miles.