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Demetri Inembolidis


b1f36f47e5037b843781c37460de02db-getty-141605830The Cleveland Cavaliers ended their three game losing streak on Monday night against the New Jersey Nets.  The win required an incredible showing and effort from the duo of Cavaliers rookies.  Tristan Thompson and Kyrie Irving combined for 53 points and both looked great in the starting lineup.  

The final score was a 105-100 win for the Cavs.  The biggest statistical edge that Cleveland had was in rebounding.  Cleveland pulled down 55 rebounds compared to 37 for the Nets.  Because of the rebounding, the Cavs had the opportunity to take 8 more shots than the Nets.  In addition, the Cavs shot better from the field than their opponent.  Cleveland converted on 46.1% of their shots and New Jersey did so on 42.0%.  The difference was all of the extra shots and the superior shooting.  Cleveland only won by 5 points, but it is fairly clear that the extra effort on the glass is something that paid dividends.  Sometimes a team does not shoot the ball particularly well or they struggle with turnovers, but they can make up for it in other areas.

Cleveland had another great fourth quarter.  The effort was capped off by Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson who combined for 20 points on 63.6% shooting in the final twelve minutes.  Once again, an encouraging sign was not only that they both played so well, but that Byron Scott trusted them to play together when it really mattered.  They both played for the entire fourth quarter.  

Up until recently, the two rookies had limited time on the floor together.  Ever since Byron Scott named Thompson as a starter, they have finally gotten extended time in the same five man group.  The experiment is short-lived, but worked very well against the Nets.  To put it into perspective, Irving has only assisted to Thompson four times prior to the Nets game and they connected three times on Monday night.  Running offensive plays for Tristan Thompson is something that good teams will be able to account for, but there’s no reason that they should not have better chemistry on the pick-and-roll.  There were some definite encouraging signs in that department.

Daniel Gibson left the game with an ankle injury in the third quarter.  Injuries are never a positive thing, but this allowed for Byron Scott to get an extended look at Donal Sloan.  The rookie point guard scored 11 points on 4-6 shooting and he also contributed 3 rebounds and 1 assist.  The biggest play that he made was a 3 point basket in the fourth quarter which shrunk the Nets lead to three and was a turning point in the game.  

For the Nets, Gerald Wallace played his second game after being traded to the Nets.  He had a very nice outing for his new team and recorded 27 points and 12 rebounds.  Gerald Wallace is a very good player who can do incredible things to help his team win, but the Nets appear to have given up too much in their trade for him.  The Nets are fully committed to making the Deron Williams experiment work and have given up multiple first round picks to get him and in an attempt to surround him with teammates that will make him happy.  One does not need to be a clairvoyant to predict how things will end for the Deron Williams and New Jersey Nets relationship.  

The Cavs are probably a far way from being considered a playoff team, but the efforts of the rebuild are on display when the rookies play as well as they did against the Nets.  Tristan Thompson isn’t going to regularly score 27 points on 75% shooting, but he is showing that he is capable of stepping up and playing like a lottery selection.  This may not always result in wins, but the growth of the young players during games like these that are truly encouraging.

The Good: The 2011 Cavaliers draftees looked great.  They combined for 53 points, 17 rebounds and 8 assists.  Regardless if these types of performances are far and few between, it is fun to watch as it happens.  

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Demetri Inembolidis

nba espn1A few days have passed since the Cleveland Cavaliers traded Ramon Sessions and Christian Eyenga to the Lakers for their 2012 first round pick, the right to swap picks in 2013 and other pieces.  Sessions made his season debut for the Lakers on Friday.  He came off the bench and played relatively well.  It has been quite some time that the Lakers didn’t rely on Derek Fisher’s diminishing skills to run the offense, so the result was national media and Lakers fans being a little too overjoyed about his 7 points and 5 assists.  

Cleveland is getting killed nationally for what is perceived as giving Sessions away for nothing.  As Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal pointed out in his article “Lack of Scoring Punch Could Cause Cavs to Regress Next Season,” what is being overlooked is the fact that Cleveland was going to lose Sessions to free agency after this season.  Isn’t it better to get a first round pick and am improved pick next year as opposed to keeping Sessions as the backup point guard during the second half of a season that will not result in a playoff birth?  

ESPN’s David Thorpe is one of the national media members who believes that Cleveland did not make a good trade.  He was on the NBA Today podcast with Henry Abbott on Friday.  When the topic of the Sessions trade came up, he had the following to say:

“There’s lots of irony here that the owner of Cleveland who was so concerned about guys like David Stern doing everything they can to help the big market teams and Cleveland may have given LA literally a real chance to get back to the finals now.  I don’t know if they will. but adding Sessions who is a legitimate point guard and is a quick little guy that they needed (because) they get destroyed by quick, little point guards against other teams.  This was a nice coupe for the Lakers.  I don’t know what Cleveland was doing.”

If there are two things that bother me with the NBA media, it is laziness and easy narratives.  The problem with this quote is that it ignores one major aspect of the Sessions trade: Dan Gilbert was not doing it to help the Lakers.  There are clear-cut benefits to making this trade for the Cavs and ignoring them is an easy way to take a jab at Cleveland in a post-Comic Sans letter world.  The Cavs were able to pick up an extra draft pick and have the ability to potentially move up multiple draft spots next year, but it is easier to call the Cavs hypocritical for vetoing the Chris Paul trade to the Lakers.  

Another lazy aspect to that comment is that it was not solely Dan Gilbert‘s doing to renege on that trade.  The NBA got into a can’t-win situation when it allowed for the Hornets to be owned by the other 29 teams.  To assume that one of the 29 NBA owners had enough pull within the entire NBA to cancel a trade between the Lakers, Hornets and Rockets is is baffling.  It is a fact that Dan Gilbert was not happy with the cancelled trade, but it is ridiculous to assume that one owner was the reason that Chris Paul ultimately ended up with the Clippers.  One confusing aspect of the backlash towards the NBA for nixing the Chris Paul trade is that the Hornets appear to have gotten a better package from the Clippers because they are getting young and talented players as opposed to overpaid veterans who are on the downturn of their career.  It is fashionable to joke about the NBA’s explanation for canceling the trade, but I feel that they got a better package.

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Andrew Clayman

cavshawks31812Unseasonably warm weather, St. Patty’s hangovers, and March Madness in full swing… sounds like a great time for a Sunday matinee of Cavaliers basketball! What’s that? You had no idea they were playing the Hawks today at the Q? Oh, well don’t sweat it. Literally any other activity would have been preferable to watching this game, including two hours spent perched over the edge of a toilet bowl in a state of pure self-loathing and regret.

Playing shorthanded and undersized, Atlanta (26-19) took a 7-4 lead three minutes into the first quarter and never relinquished it en route to a 103-87 win—their sixth straight over the Cavs (16-26). Now, the optimists among us might choose to emphasize Kyrie Irving’s first ever professional double-double (19 points, 10 assists), Alonzo Gee’s career-high-matching 20 points, or Cleveland’s bold third quarter comeback, which saw a 19-point Hawk lead trimmed to just six.  But since there are no optimists left in this town, we can just move on to the business at hand.

If you’ve been keeping up with the news in CavalierLand, you know that this was the team’s first game since trading away backup point guard Ramon Sessions and professional pine-rider Christian Eyenga to the Lakers for a first round draft pick and a couple of gnarly surfer dudes. Tragically, one of those dudes— the perennially one-dimensional triple-launcher Jason Kapono—was waived by the Cavs before he could even make his grand return to Cleveland. For the newly acquired Luke Walton, however, it was time to get back to doing what he does best—racking up “Coach’s Decision” DNPs and shaking off the contact high from his last chat with his papa.

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Gary Benz

Chris Grant

Cleveland: a city where the skies are grey, the sports teams are consistently rebuilding and the front offices are always saying the same thing.

At about the exact same time that Cavaliers general manager Chris Grant was explaining why the Cavs traded away an opportunity to get into the playoffs now for an opportunity to get into the playoffs later, Browns' president Mike Holmgren and general manager Tom Heckert were offering similar reasons when explaining to season ticket holders why not doing anything now will give them a better opportunity to do something later.

The Cavs on Thursday traded Ramon Sessions to the Los Angeles Lakers in order to acquire another first round draft pick. That gives them seven first round picks over the next four years, which is less impressive then it sounds since the NBA draft is but two rounds. Still, the Cavs also have four of the first 40 picks in the next NBA draft. So to the extent that the next draft is deep, the Cavs legitimately benefit by acquiring 10% of the 40 best players available.

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Demetri Inembolidis

Chris-Grant

For what seemed like an infinite amount amount of time, it was assumed that the Los Angeles Lakers would make a trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers for Ramon Sessions.  Part of the reason that this was almost a foregone conclusion is because Byron Scott was having a difficult time finding minutes for Kyrie Irving and Ramon Sessions.  Additionally, the Lakers have been in dire need of a starting point guard for a long time.  Derek Fisher has been the point guard for the Lakers since 2007 and before that Smush Parker played the majority of minutes for the Lakers before him.

Besides being good trading partners, the other reason that the Lakers made a play for Sessions is because he had a player option after this season.  The Cavaliers had to trade Sessions or risk losing him for nothing on July 1st.  Sessions had interest in playing for a team where he can start, so clearly Cleveland was not the right fit for him.  There are not many teams in the league who are not set at the point guard position.  The only teams besides the Los Angeles Lakers that could use an upgrade in Sessions are Miami, Charlotte, Dallas, Portland and possibly Utah and New Orleans.  If the desired return for Sessions was a first round pick, he would almost certainly have to go to a playoff team.  Chris Grant and the front office would be hard-pressed to find a team that is willing to trade a lottery pick and a shot at Anthony Davis for Ramon Sessions.  Essentially, the Cavs had very few trading partners available that would fit the needs of both teams and Ramon Sessions.  It is for this reason that the trade was a good one for both teams.

The final report on the trade is that the Cavs sent Ramon Sessions and Christian Eyenga to the Lakers for their 2012 first round pick, Luke Walton, Jason Kapono and the right to swap the Heat pick with the Lakers in 2013.  In addition, the 2012 draft pick is top-14 protected.  

The trade was not a home-run for the Cavs.  The team had to take on the contracts of Jason Kapono and Luke Walton in order to get a draft pick that will likely be later in the first round.  Luke Walton is averaging 1.3 PPG and 1.6 RPG in only seven minutes per game.  Jason Kapono is going to make his return to the Cavs after being drafted by the Charlotte Bobcats in the supplemental draft in 2004.  Known for his three point shooting, he is having a poor year from beyond the arc and converting on only 29.6% of his attempts.  Luke Walton is under contract until the end of the 2012-2013 season and is slated to make 5.8 million dollars after this season.  Jason Kapono’s contract is expiring after this year and he is making the league-minimum.  

Luke Walton has been pretty terrible for the Lakers in the past few seasons and is not living up to his contract.  In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter.  The Cavs are going to struggle staying above the salary cap floor and his contract is going to help in that regard.  Once again, Kapono and Walton are not going to have positive impacts for the Cavs, but it was the price that the team had to pay in exchange for having a second first round pick in the upcoming draft.

Overall, the Cavs did pretty well at the trade deadline.  These sort of deals always take time to assess.  Many Cavs fans were happy with the trade that brought Omri Casspi to Cleveland in exchange for JJ Hickson, but time is changing that narrative.  Ultimately, whether or not it is a good deal depends on what kind of player the Cavs draft with the draft pick which was included.  As far as the Lakers go, they desperately needed an upgrade in talent but I do have to question how well Sessions will fit in.  The Lakers are having growing pains as a result of moving away from the Triangle Offense which incorporates a lot of ball movement and players cutting.  Ramon Sessions tends to dominate the basketball and relies heavily on pick-and-rolls.  Mike Brown will have his hands full incorporating Ramon Sessions into a system where Kobe Bryant likes to shoot a lot.  He will also have to get better at getting the ball to rolling big men off of screens.  The trade for Sessions was a smart one for the Lakers, but I do have to question his fit in Hollywood.  Regardless, he is an improvement in talent and they managed to cut salary as well.  

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