2010 NBA Team Preview: Cleveland Cavaliers: David Berri

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2010 NBA Team Preview: Cleveland Cavaliers​

Opinion by David Berri
(17 Hours Ago) in Sports / Cavaliers​

Arturo Galletti – of Arturo’s Silly Little Stats (which are certainly not silly) – is a wizard when it comes to spreadsheets. He is also fairly amazing when it comes to blog posts. And this morning he figured out how to import one of his blog posts into this forum (and this means what Arturo does can now be easily re-posted here).
What follows is Arturo’s review of the Cleveland Cavaliers. And this means we only have seven more teams to review – via Wins Produced – before the seasons starts (and Arturo and Andres think we will get this done).​

Jake Taylor: I play for the Indians.
Chaire Holloway: Here in Cleveland? I didn’t know they still had a team!
Jake Taylor: Yup, we’ve got uniforms and everything, it’s really great!
-Major League​

The opening quote is from one of my favorite movies. For those who are not familiar with it it’s a movie about a plucky Cleveland team of re-treads, has-beens and never was who overcome all the odds to make it to the playoffs and face a hated and historically superior rival. For some weird reason, this seemed like an appropriate movie reference to serve as a narrative frame for my review/preview of the Cleveland Cavaliers. (go here for the Basics if you’re new here)​

The Cavaliers in 2009-2010​

Harry Doyle: Just a reminder, fans, comin’ up is our “Die-hard Night” here at the stadium. Free admission to anyone who was actually alive the last time the Indians won a pennant. -Major League​

“Now, I make fun of Cleveland because everybody makes fun of Cleveland. I mean, every country has one city that people make fun of. In Russia, we used to make fun of Cleveland.”— Yakov Smirnoff​

Recently Forbes did a poll of the most miserable cities in the US. Unsurprisingly, Cleveland won but other than that It’s been a long time for Cleveland fans. 1964 and the Browns was the last title but since then it’s been a long and torturous journey. Unlike Cubs fans, Hawks fans and Lions fans whose teams toil away in obscurity and mediocrity, Cleveland get to suffer the ignominy of good to great teams that never,ever get a break and can never vanquish their tormentors. Sometimes it was Elway with the drive, sometimes Jordan with a shot, sometimes it was Art Modell upping the team to Baltimore (and driving Belichek to New England) and once it was Edgar Renteria. But this one probably hurt the most.
Local Boy makes good is an old story. It’s well know that Lebron is an Ohio native. He willed his team to the 2007 finals but management didn’t get him enough help. But this version of the Cavaliers was finally supposed to have all the pieces around LeBron necessary for a championship run. Cleveland won 61 games last season and 66 the year before. To put this in perspective, the Cavaliers are only the second team to win sixty games two years straight and fail to make the NBA finals (the other team was Lew Alcindor’s 1972 & 73 Bucks (63 wins and 60 wins), a team which ran into the 1972 & 73 Lakers (69 wins and 60 wins) and won the 1971 title and lost in seven in the finals in 1974). This team made the finals in 2007 but they can’t point to any banners hanging in their stadium and much like Milwaukee before them they can’t even point to their superstar anymore.
Who were these Cavs? Let’s take a look:
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This team lost 7251 of their minutes and 30.39 wins produced . On the surface by that math you would expect this team to drop precipitously in the standings.Lebron was the best player in the regular season and the playoffs according to WP48 and as you might have heard he’s in Miami now. So they lost the best player in the league and now they’re a 27 win team right? Not so fast there cowboy all hope is not yet lost. There’s still players to be added and minutes to be doled out before we come to a final conclusion.​

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This didn’t help the cause however.

<DD style="POSITION: static; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px">The Cavaliers in 2010-2011

Board Member 1: I’ve never heard of half of these guys and the ones I do know are way past their prime.

Charlie Donovan: Most of these guys never had a prime.
Rachel Phelps: The fact is we lost our two best players to free agency. We haven’t won a pennant in over thirty-five years, we haven’t placed higher than fourth in the last fifteen. Obviously it’s time for some changes.
Board Member 2: This guy here is dead!
Rachel Phelps: Cross him off, then!
-Major League​

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The Cavs brought in four free agents and two rookies to replace the players they lost and a simple projection shows that their roster as built only gets the to about 31.1 wins. A more complicated projection (see herefor detail on how this was done) look like this:
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So after I figure in some development for the players and logically allocate the minutes the Cavs look like a 36 win team and the good news is that’s probably good enough for an eight seed in the playoffs. The scrappy team will make a run at the playoffs. Sadly the bad news is that as is Cleveland’s birthright, the villian of the piece, Lebron and his new cohorts, the Heat, await to crush them. Because we all know an eight seed can never beat a one seed.​

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Right Baron?

35 wins sounds about right. This team does have a major league vibe to it with J-Moon always laughing and smiling, Jamison as Jake Taylor, Mo and Gibson having something to prove and Hickson as Ricky Vaughn.

If Cavs do make the playoffs and face the Heat, if the Cavs were able to push the series to 6 or 7 games, would the NBA/Refs pull for the upset? Would be a great story and ESPN and the NBA would be able to rip apart the Heat all summer.


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[Silky Smooth]

think of we make the playoffs and face the Heat and take them to game 7 every Cav player needs to morph into James Harrison and take every Heat player out. It's just that simple.

 

[djlofi]

Mo (as Dorn) to JJ (as Rick Vaughn) during crunch time:

"Box THIS GUY out" (censored for cable TV) :chuckles:

 

[Jon]

Andy was cast long ago as the Wild Thing...

Any comments about how this guy using "wins produced" came up with such a drastically lower number than Avon with "win shares" in another thread? Is either method deemed more accurate? It looks like LeBron has a much higher value based on wins produced, then win shares.

 

[nime]

Andy was cast long ago as the Wild Thing...

Any comments about how this guy using "wins produced" came up with such a drastically lower number than Avon with "win shares" in another thread? Is either method deemed more accurate? It looks like LeBron has a much higher value based on wins produced, then win shares.

Maybe Manny Harris over Danny Green is indeed worth 14 more wins.....

 

[djlofi]

Andy was cast long ago as the Wild Thing....

True, but in the context of this season, Hickson is more Rick Vaughn. He's got all the freaky talent, he just needs to focus it. I'm hoping that means a nice pair of James Worthy goggles to see the ball coming off the rim better.

 

[nime]

True, but in the context of this season, Hickson is more Rick Vaughn. He's got all the freaky talent, he just needs to focus it. I'm hoping that means a nice pair of James Worthy goggles to see the ball coming off the rim better.

Scott = Lou Brown
Jamison = Jake Taylor (Bad knees and all)
JJ Hickson = Ricky Vaughn (Super talented, just needs to bring it all together. Scott might be that guy to take JJ to a new level)
Mo/Sessions/Gibson backcourt = Willie Mays Hayes (Kickstart the offense, if these 3 have it going offensively, going to be tough to beat the Cavs on most nights)
AV/Parker = Eddie Harris (Supporting vets and glue guys)
J-Moon = Roger Dorn (comedic relief with some talent left in the tank)
Eyenga = Pedro Cerrano (Eyenga's voodoo magic is going to cause LBJ to miss the entire season due to injury)

 

[abraxas]

I have a love/hate relationship with statistical analysis like these. On one hand, it gives a picture of what's going on with the team (as anyone that follows teams from box scores knows). On the other hand, so many things make up a win, not just statistics (as anyone that has played and/or watched lots of live games knows).

But I'd say this team is built for the 35-45 win range, if all goes according to plan. I'm excited for this team and I'd say to all the "experts" out there - and that's Windy too - don't sleep on this team.

 

[TJ Detweiler]

Scott = Lou Brown
Jamison = Jake Taylor (Bad knees and all)
JJ Hickson = Ricky Vaughn (Super talented, just needs to bring it all together. Scott might be that guy to take JJ to a new level)
Mo/Sessions/Gibson backcourt = Willie Mays Hayes (Kickstart the offense, if these 3 have it going offensively, going to be tough to beat the Cavs on most nights)
AV/Parker = Eddie Harris (Supporting vets and glue guys)
J-Moon = Roger Dorn (comedic relief with some talent left in the tank)
Eyenga = Pedro Cerrano (Eyenga's voodoo magic is going to cause LBJ to miss the entire season due to injury)

You shouldn't have made that comparison. Hayes faked an "injury" in ML2 and also called HR's at every at bat. Too much sass. You should have compared Mo alone to him.:chuckles:

 

[CleveRocks]

Well it is preseason so these kind of slurry statistics are about all we have to go on. But statistics about players are a tricky business, and in some ways its like trying to drive looking in the rear view mirror. The statistics show what players have done, and we extrapolate that to what the will do...

I think that is pretty fair for a player in the stable part of his career. Mo and Andy, probably Moon are good examples. But Hickson, Sessions, Hollins and Gibson are not as they are very likely to improve with minutes and years, while Jamison and Parker are going the other way.

Another thing that makes these kinds of projections iffy, is that they don't account for coaching ability or style as it relates to the players. Look for example at Phoenix which always seems to get more wins out of the players they acquire, or the consistently surprising Nellie Ball teams.

I am not saying that we will win more than 35 games, exaclty, only that we might. And the reasons that we might have to do with the idea that the team last year was coached to rely on Le____. This team will be coached to rely on conditioning and upside. These teams seldom win it all. But they are often competitive throughout the season. in those games when the superstars mail it in, teams like this one can win, just because the game seems important to them.

But we will have to see. Everybody looks different in preseason. Right now Orlando is demolishing all comers. But is that real... If the Cavs have a really good first half, I look for them to use the trade exception and or Jamison's contract to improve significantly. otherwise I think we will be headed for a lottery, because that is where the FO will want to go.

 

[AvonCavsFan]

Andy was cast long ago as the Wild Thing...

Any comments about how this guy using "wins produced" came up with such a drastically lower number than Avon with "win shares" in another thread? Is either method deemed more accurate? It looks like LeBron has a much higher value based on wins produced, then win shares.

I was trying to figure out just how he attains his numbers and I can't. Quite a few "stats experts" don't hold wins produced in a very high light..http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=344&t=1001662

I also think he has the number of minutes off in his estimates.

The "expert analysts" peg us to win under 29.5 games this year...but ALL of the advanced metrics suggest that we will win anywhere from 33 to 50 games. These metrics are plugging in what our players did in the past...but it is safe to say, that some of our players will produce more due to more opportunity as well as the new system fits most of our players MUCH better. This is why my OPINION thinks they will be on the higher end of the projections.

For the most part playing with a mega star always hurts the teammates numbers in the end. Look at Mo for example, he can easily get 7 or 8 assists a game. But playing with Lebron that number is lowered for two reasons. First, less opportunity to control the ball. Second, when he did pass to Lebron, instead of shooting the ball, Lebron would STOP, take a few dribbles back..and THEN shoot the ball--no assist for Mo. This is why so few of Lebron's baskets were actually assisted. Lebron ends up with the same or in a lot of cases worse shot by doing this back up and dribble crap.

This is why I don't like PER by itself....When you sum the PER of the top 3 or 4 players from the good teams, the TOTAL is generally pretty close. Because Lebron's USG rate was >30, this impacted his teammates PER. I like comparing USG rate to PER to gain some insight to EFFICIENCY of a player. Guys like Moon and AV are gold, because they have a higher PER than USG rate, which is VERY rare. Lebron was damn close to matching his PER with his USG and for someone with that high a USG, that is very impressive. The most over rated players in the league are guys with PER's that are 8+ pts or so lower than their USG rate...guys like Granger, Kaman, Monta, etc These players post pretty stat lines at the EXPENSE of their team mates and team success. There is a reason why the Clippers, Pacers and Warriors sucked..these "legit stars" were a large part of it.

 

[InBoobieWeTrust]

I'd rather win 21 than 36. 36 is probably worst-case-scenario.

 

[Chris]

I'd rather win 21 than 36. 36 is probably worst-case-scenario.

What, you don't want to get a shot at beating the Heat? It'd be so cool!