Friday, June 20, 2014

On Predictability and Viability

I'm not the type to say I told you so in writing, but if you've read anything here this week, you'll know that I'm not surprised and not displeased by the David Blatt hiring from the Cavs.  It's a little bit of a gamble, but it's a little bit of a genius all-or-nothing move.  That's as Cleveland as it gets.  Or at least it should be.  It's at least how I see the younger generation here: making the well-informed gamble, because the old way of doing things with limited resources (IE, doing the same thing everyone else does, but worse because it's all we can afford) just doesn't cut it anymore. 

I just hope my LeBron tea-leaf reading lines up with my Blatt prediction.  Granted, there was a lot more to go on with Blatt. 

We're just under a week from the draft now, and I promise, next Friday or Saturday is the latest I'll write a post about nothing but Basketball for awhile.  I might even try to roll something else in in the meantime. 

But for now, I got this one right, and I think the Cavs did too. 

One underrated (in other words, heretofore unmentioned elsewhere) aspect of the Blatt hire is the sorts of places he's worked: Israel, Russia, Hungary: he's worked in places that put the blue-collarness of Cleveland to shame.  He's seen the best and the worst of what Europe has to offer.  There's going to be no pretention about the guy.  He's on record as saying he went to Europe because he wasn't good enough to play in the NBA.  He worked his way up from next to nothing in the basketball world.   That's a good thing for someone moving to Cleveland.  He'll appreciate the grittiness and the struggle. David Blatt's career is not unlike a rollicking metaphor for Cleveland's last 40 years. Sure, Tyron Lue would be happy just to have a chance as an NBA coach.  But he's spent two years in LA and some time in Boston before that.  I'm not saying he'd be opposed to being in Cleveland, but he has ridden some pretty expansive coattails to nearly guaranteed success year in and year out under Doc Rivers.  I'm sure he'll be a fine head coach someday (actually, I have no idea, I'm just saying that because it's the sort of thing you say at this point in this sort of paragraph), but Blatt fits Cleveland a little better. 

I had to talk myself into Mike Brown.  I feel like I'm struggling to dislike anything about this move.  He doesn't have NBA head coaching experience.  But either did Greg Popovich when he took over the Spurs.  If Blatt is 1/5th as successful, Cleveland will be euphoric.

-Zack

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

On LeBron

I learned in 2010 that predicting what LeBron James will do is a fool's game.  He's a person who keeps his decisions close to the vest.  That being said, it made perfect sense after the fact, given a few tips LeBron left, but might not have known he left.

LeBron was always adamant that he wouldn't talk about his impending free agency.   Nothing has changed there.  At the time, I took what he said for what it was worth: he didn't want to discuss the future during the season.  And then he left.  It could just as easily been that he was planning on leaving but knew he couldn't admit that during the season if he wanted to continue the Cavs quest for a championship. It's easy to see it that way now, true or not.

But LeBron did talk about one thing that season: his number.  At some point, and I think it was actually right after the Cavs had pummelled the Heat in Miami, LeBron claimed he'd be changing his number, and that he believed every team in the league should retire 23 in honor of Michael Jordan (which, by the way, makes Jordan's public schoolyard jibing of LeBron all the more galling: MJ passes up no chance to denigrate his greatest supporter.  Stay classy MJ, and keep drafting less than mediocre UNC grads far too high).
 
It's a strangely little known fact that the Heat, at that point, had only retired 2 numbers: 13 for Dan Marino, and 23 for Michael Jordan.  Neither of which ever played for the Heat, but who's keeping track?  Saying what he did about league-wide retirement, when only one team, at this point, has done that, was among the clearest ways LeBron could have said he's going to Miami without coming right out and saying it.  We all missed it though.  I mean, I'm sure someone in Miami or some backwater internet locale might have pieced it together.  But we wouldn't have believed it then anyway.  Everytime I say we in this, I mean the general public, but more specifically, the general Cleveland public. 
 
Fast-forward four years.  It doesn't look like anything so clear ever came out.  LeBron is still deflecting talk.  He said recently that he owes it to his teammates to talk to them before making a decision.  That could just as easily mean he owes it to them to tell them he's leaving first.  That's a graciousness he never gave the Cavs, so it would mean he's learned from his mistakes.
 
Once more though, LeBron has taken a stab at league wide policies.    He's talked a few times about how he thinks he deserves a max deal at some point in his career (a tautology if there ever was one).  He's also said that he thinks he'd make 50 million a year if there weren't a max level in the NBA.  Maybe I'm reading the tea leaves too much, but that sounds a bit like the number retirement talk.  LeBron feels like he deserves more money.  That's never easy to hear from a multi-millionaire, but if it's ever been true of any multi-millionaire, it's LeBron.  He's worth 4-5 times what he's getting paid.  No matter how set for life you are, there's a level of professional pride in making what you deserve.
 
Certainly, it could still all just be that he's meaning exactly what he says, and he has no idea.  That would appear to break with how he handled things in 2010.  Was the jersey number thing dispositive proof back then?  Well, it did turn out to be true.  Who can say if his mind was already made up?  It probably, at least, proves that he was thinking about Miami as a destination at that point. 
 
It does feel like we have less to go on this time around.  That's fine too: LeBron is a human who can make his own decisions as late or early as he'd like.  But everyone around the Heat has made it sound like an era is over.  Whatever happens, there's going to be a shift out of this Big Three world.  Maybe it's a new Big Three for LeBron in another city, or maybe it's LeBron and 11 guys not on the roster right now.  Last time LeBron made a speech about the way things should be, he ensured that he wasn't part of the problem as soon as he could and switched his number.  Could he do the same and at least insist on getting max money somewhere?
 
It's still a fact that LeBron keeps a house in Bath Township and spends as much time there as possible.  He can obviously afford the nicest temporary home wherever he lives, but there's a pretty clear indicator that Akron is his home and no matter how far his career takes him, he'll always return.  Maybe he's reached a time in his life where being home, actually home, most nights, is more important than a scorched earth pursuit of titles.  Honestly, Cleveland+LeBron is probably better than Miami-LeBron, even last years iterations.  Did it really look, even when they were blowing the Pacers off the court, like that team could win 30 games without LeBron? 
 
From a basketball perspective, LeBron is almost too good.  He can say he wants to go where he's in the best position for a title, but wherever he goes automatically becomes that.  He could go to Boston or Milwaukee and they would be contenders.  It's not just because of how good he is, but how easy it becomes to get quality free agents when he's there.  That was as enduring a theme during the Miami run as the Big Three itself.  Teams in the lottery this season almost invariably have more than enough cap space to add LeBron and 2 or 3 of the top other non-max Free Agents (or better).  This is professional basketball.  It doesn't take much more than that with the right coach.  When we're talking about "the right situation" some are probably better than others.  But LeBron is so good and so attractive, he could make even the worst team better than almost (if not) every other team.  I think he knows that, because he's now experienced it.   Why did the Spurs beat the Heat then?  Because they're the Spurs.  They had the right amount of a chip on their shoulder, rest, and the best coach in the world strategizing for a whole year.  That's what it takes to beat LeBron on an otherwise lottery-caliber team.  Imagine LeBron with the first overall pick in "the best draft in decades" and last year's all-star game MVP.  That's a big 3 better than any combination Miami put forward this year (seeing Dwyane Wade is barely a shell of the shell of his former self). 
 
Cleveland or not though, LeBron's actions now seem to suggest that he's in a similar place as 2010.  The results may, in fact, mirror those.  I don't know that he'll come back, but it seems, right now, that the smart money might actually be on him leaving.  We don't have much evidence, but what we do have, and what we know about the past, suggest it. 
 
I'd say he probably at least opts out and demands a max deal requiring Wade and Bosh to opt out and take cuts so they can still get the right free agents to be competitive again.  If they don't opt out, I don't see him returning to Miami: he rightfully feels like he deserves a max contract and will go where he can get one. 
 
Those are my thoughts at least; only time will tell.
-Zack

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Help Wanted: In Search of a Coach

Outside the box, for sure.
I know I don't typically post specifically about sports on a more than macro level.  When I do though, it does tend to be about the Cavs.

After Cleveland was up in arms about how long it took the Browns to hire a coach, the Cavs are getting all sorts of good press for their prolonged search.  In the best light, Cleveland fans are like parents who understand which child responds to what correction/praise best.  In the worst light, we pick narratives and define whatever we see through them.  The Browns are weak and shiftless, so their search looked indecisive.  The Cavs are run by an impulsive mad-man, so their search looks refreshingly thoughtful.

I believe the Browns were being thoughtful and that this current search is actually either needlessly prolonged or a smoke screen.

The man pictured above, who is giving new meaning to the word "blazer," is David Blatt, the outgoing coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv: essentially the San Antonio Spurs of the Euro-league (in the well-coached, winning when they shouldn't on paper sense).  He's a Princeton Alum who never got a shot in the NBA, so he went abroad and became Europe's Phil Jackson.

For years, the NBA has been importing the best Euro players (often to great success, sometimes to Ricky Rubio mediocrity or Christian Eyenga irrelevance).  After communism wasted Arvydas Sabonis, there's always been a steady stream.  Now, for the first time, the Cavs are thinking about importing the best Euro Coach, even if he is an American.

I'll be honest, like most of Cleveland and the U.S., I had no idea who David Blatt was about a week ago.  But he's quickly become my favorite for the job.  The other options have coached in the NBA but none of them have championship.   0.  Indeed, the amount of coaches who end up winning championship on their 2nd or 3rd NBA job is very low, especially if they were fired from their first.  I've always liked George Karl's style, but I don't want to lose in the 2nd round of the playoffs every year.  I was impressed when the Grizzlies made their run over the last few seasons, but surprise second place finishes seem to be Lionel Hollins' ceiling.  Mark Jackson could be the aberration because he never quite got to finish his run and wasn't fired for anything on the court.  As it sits though, I get the sense that all of the guys with coaching experience available don't have what it takes to win a Finals series.  Granted, it seems that you either have to have LeBron or a pact with the devil (how else could Popovich keep whatever he's doing up?) to do that these days, but I'd rather give someone a shot to see what they've got, then sign up for likely failure before the season even starts.

David Blatt knows what it takes to win in Europe.  That's not the NBA, but if we're so sure Colt McCoy got a raw deal because "he's a winner" we need to give Blatt the same benefit of a doubt.  That doesn't fit the aforementioned Cleveland sports narratives we love as a city, but it's the rational step.

As I said, I think this all might have been a smoke screen, all of the interviews with assistants and old coaches.  You see, though the Cavs failed to snag Calipari (before they officially fired Mike Brown...), and though it's been about a month, Blatt has only been on the open market for about a week, since his team wrapped up their title early last week.  David Griffin seems like the nicest guy in the world, but he also seems like the guy most likely to actually be a vampire.  What I mean by that is that you get the sense he's always up to something.  It's never something you see coming (Spencer Hawes?  It's so unexpected but it was perfect.  The Cavs make the playoffs last year if they execute that trade last off-season instead of signing Bynum).

Word on the street is that Griffin has done a lot of Euro scouting so he's been familiar with Blatt for quite some time.  Could it be that Blatt was the plan from the start (post-Calipari at least) but the Cavs had to buy time til they could talk to him?

I'm not saying it's a done deal, but I've got my suspicions.  If they hire him quickly, it will seem pretty clear that he was the number 1 guy and the interview answered any questions they had.  I don't think that's an outlandish thought at all.

So what does it mean then?  It means the Cavs will either christen a new era in NBA coaching or close the door for Euro coaches forever.  I don't really care about that: I want the Cavs to win a championship.  Will the Euro style work here?  I honestly don't see why not.  I think concentrating on how styles work in a certain league is a bit misguided.  It's not so much about if a style works as it is can you run it consistently enough to put up points and keep the other team from putting up more.  That's facile, certainly, but if it scores points, it can work with the right personnel.

I'm no Mike D'Antoni fan, but his teams never won a title because he only coached half a game: same with Mike Brown.  It's not about style as much as it is wholeness of competence.  The 2 Mikes who got fired this year would make 1 great coach.  Unfortunately, half a coach won't win a title, even with LeBron or Nash/Amare in their primes.  Erik Spoelstra proves everyday that you can win titles with decentish schemes on both ends of the floor, but you can't with elite defense but terrible offense, and the reverse.  That's why Popovich would be deified upon retirement, if Adam Silver were Ovid.

In the end, like everyone in Cleveland, I just want a title.  I'd prefer a Cavs title first, because I'm a bigger NBA fan than any other sport.  But if the Indians pull it together, or the Browns shock the world first, I'd take that too.

As a city, we need to realize that the goal is a championship parade down Euclid, to end the bleeding of our City's collective sports heart.  That's more important than how it's done (save for illegally or point-shavingly, of course).

If David Blatt can do it, I'll take it.  If a pink pony from Portugal named Petunia was the coach and got the job done, I'd be fine with that too.  Deep down, I think we all would.

-Zack

Friday, June 6, 2014

Summering

For my summer internship, I'm required to write a weekly blog.  Feel free to check it out at

http://dwellworksinternship2014.blogspot.com/

I find myself writing about Cleveland most of the time.  You can read only my contributions by clicking "legal" at the top.  Or you can read them all and see how the other interns are finding the summer as well.

-Zack