Daily Babble: Shouldn't the Cavs be more compelling?

There’s only one reason – Mike Brown – doing a terrible job coaching their offense, just awful.

The Cavs have an identity, they’re a great defensive squad. That’s their identity.

I wouldn’t read too much into those numbers this early in the season. Until about a couple of weeks ago San Antonio were one of the worst defensive teams in the league. The stats need time and large samples to show what they show.

The Cavs defense has picked up in recent games. It’s really turned up another level. Getting all their pieces back (Sasha, Andy) and healthy (Hughes, Bron) is the biggest reason. Their defense will continue to get back on track and get stronger over the coming weeks.

But they do lack is an offensive identity … right now it’s get LeBron the ball and get out of his way

steve, as you said, there’s really no compelling storyline there.

i’d rather watch a train-wreck that’s the ny knicks to hear the “fire isaiah” chants and see the nth time isaiah tries a different starting lineup to no avail.

besides lebron, the only fun guy to watch in that team is varejao. there’s just too many players that either bore or annoy me in cleveland, notably hughes, ilgauskas, and damon jones.

has no one told hughes what a horrible jumpshooter he is? koz apparently he thinks he’s not since he continues to take them freely instead of taking it hard to the basket. btw is he still being baby-talked to by mike brown? remember last year in the finals when mike brown (afraid of hurting hughes’ feelings) refused not to replace an injured hughes in the starting lineup.

ilgauskas began the season better but seems to have returned to his usual nonchalant self. he gets my vote as the most boring cleveland player.

what about damon jones? he’s not playing, yet he bugs me. the guy acts he’s still all that after just that one good year in miami and that was 3 seasons ago.

lebron made up for all the suckiness by piling up triple-doubles in earlier games. but we’re right about time in the season when lebron brings it down several notches. not to fault lebron, lebron coasting is just his coping mechanism to get through yet another season with mediocre supporting players and coaching.

How about this. The Cavs just aren’t that good. They are strapped with horrible players with worse contracts. This team will lose Lebron James once his contract runs out and nobody will care about them anymore.

last year, i thought they stank and thought they would be the 1st team eliminated in the playoffs. surprize! this year, i appreciate them more. lebron is simply the best. varajao is one of a kind. the rest are dull role players, but when they all play their roles in concert with lebron, they are surpizingly efficient.

I’ve watched several Cavs games this season and I have to disagree on Ilgauskas. He’s playing very well and is a big reason the Cavs didn’t sink further with the rest of the cast under-performing. They still have the same pieces essentially as last year, and that still might be good enough to make a playoff run if Coach Brown gets them on the same page defensively.

Most people seem to see a trade in Cleveland’s future with Andre Miller or Mike Bibby the prime targets. Drew Gooden would probably be leaving in any deal as no one seems to want anything to do with Hughes.

James has got a long way to go to his opt-out year. Danny Ferry won’t wait past the trading deadline if the team still appears to be stuck in neutral. His primary job description must be to keep James happy.

The Cavs are unbearable to watch because of how the primadonna is “officiated”. He can take one dribble from halfcourt en route to a dunk and not be traveling. He can shoot without anyone within five feet of him and still go to the line.

There’s a three-tier standard for officiating. The primadonna gets officiated one way. The next tier, (Nash, Pierce, thugster, Anthony, Tank Carter, McGrady, and Kobe) get officiated another way, and everybody else has the rulebook applied to them unless they are guarding one of the above.

It’s beyond ridiculous and the fact that James is so ridiculously talented and doesn’t need the help doesn’t seem to phase Stern. But it makes them unbearable for me to watch unless they’re playing us.

When watching the Cavs, I can’t help but think of the what-if’s? What if the Bucks weren’t intent on matching any offer sheet for Michael Redd and the Cavs were able to acquire him instead of Larry Hughes? What if Carlos Boozer had honored the contract he had initially agreed to? It seems to me that a team that featured LeBron, Boozer, and Redd as their “Big 3” would be a force to be reckoned with. Now I can only get the feeling that this team has missed it’s opportunity to put a championship cast around LeBron who holds the keys to the kingdom in his hand with his short deal. It’s hard to blame the Cavaliers because I’m sure both Boozer and Redd were their first choices of players to surround LeBron with and they showed a willingness to spend money on what was available (Hughes, Marshall, Jones, etc). Can you really say that any other high-priced free agents in the last few years have worked out substantially better than those guys? The reality of the league is that marquee players very rarely become available as free agents and teams are left with short windows in which they must act quickly to build a title contender in fear of watching their young building blocks finagle their way out of town. The Cavs are now left to hope for a miracle development or they will probably see LeBron ride off into the sunset with ever hanging a banner in the Q. Nonetheless, Outside of the Pistons, LeBron and his Cavs remain in my mind the biggest Eastern Conference threat to end the Celt’s push for banner 17. The mere thought of what LeBron did the Pistons in that series by himself, makes me both afraid and excited to watch. No matter how lousy LeBron’s supporting cast plays, he alone makes that team dangerous. Unfortunately, they will probably never be considered “favorites” to do anything again in the Eastern Conference with their current lot of players, just a team with a puncher’s chance. Think the Minnesota Twins matching up in a playoff series with the Yanks or Sox and needing Johan Santana to win 2 or 3 games all by himself. This pointalone, I find both sad and compelling at the very same time.

On Mike Brown

He might just be the best defensive coach in the league today. The job he’s done turning some weak-to-ordinary defensive players into a top defensive team … just incredible.

He might just also be the single worst offensive coach in the league. In fact I can’t think of anyone that has consistently done less with the talent they have than Mike Brown.

And he has more than enough offensive talent. Hughes was a 20ppg slasher. Z is a 15-18ppg post presence. Gooden is well capabale of getting 15 points a night. Fun exercise whenever you watch the Cavs …. watch the number of touches Gooden and Z get in the post and watch the surprise on their faces when they actually get the pass. Then watch an old Larry Hughes game from GSW or Washington and see how he was successul, then look at any Cavs game and his struggles are right there.

Then watch Damon Jones who despite playing well is continually shot down and onto the bench. Look at difference from Miami to Cleveland.

It’s all about the types of touches the Cavs players get. That’s where their struggles are coming from and that’s on the coaching staff.

Terrible coach offensively. He has to hand those duties off, he just can’t do it. He has more than enough to work with. They shouldn’t be this bad offensively, especially with the leap LeBron has taken this season.

……

Mike Brown by the way is one of my favourite assistant coaches in the league. I loved the work he did with Stephen Jackson, how he molded Jacks into an NBA player during Jacks first season in San An while Jacks wasn’t getting a lick of playing time.

He isn’t head coach material right now. He just can’t coach offense and he won’t bring in someone to help him. Shame.

It was odd to see LeBron say negative things about Brown, while an assistant coach he was much admired for the relationships he built with players.