Are the 2008 Cavs just a reincarnation of the 2001 Sixers?

Dr. Anklesnap

Lebron’s 2008 Cleveland Cavaliers and Allen Iverson’s 2001 Philadelphia 76er’s have more in common than just captain Eric Snow. I’ll get to that in a minute though, for now I must say Cav’s GM Danny Ferry took a big risk before this year’s trade deadline, breaking up a group that just last year rallied to the NBA Finals. Obviously the road to the finals has gotten much tougher in the East this year with the off season trades and signings that created the juggernaut “Big Three” in Celtic nation, however the move Danny Ferry made in my opinion was nothing more than shipping out scoring talent and replacing it with hustle, and athleticism. Who got shipped: Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall, Ira Newble, Shannon Brown, and Cedric Simmons. Who they got in return: Joe Smith, Ben Wallace, Delonte West, and Wally Szerbiak. However, given Cav’s coach Mike Brown’s penchant for defense, it doesn’t surprise me that Ferry had the support of the Coaching staff on this one.

A lot of you may say, ‘hustle, defense, and athleticism, what’s wrong with that?’ And on some days in the month of May, I might even say you were correct given the grind it out style of play in the NBA playoffs. Every possession feels like double the value of a possession in the regular season. However, I would only agree with you if I hadn’t been a rabid NBA fan for much of my life and had no memory of Allen Iverson and the 76’ers legendary run in the 2001 NBA playoffs, that ended in a huge fan let down and subsequent Sixer’s drubbing by the high powered LA Lakers who were anchored by the perfect mix of scoring talent and role players.

What is the perfect mix for a championship team? See 2000-2001 Lakers team roster.

Every NBA analyst, Coach, and GM knows that throughout history virtually every NBA champion had at least two legitimate superstar scoring options, whom on any given possession could create their own shot. Think Michael and Scottie, Shaq and Kobe, Magic and Kareem, Shaq and Wade, even the trio of Rasheed/Billups/Hamilton qualify.

Since Ferry didn’t have enough valuable assets at his disposal to pull off a blockbuster trade to get Lebron a second legitimate superstar scoring option to draw some defensive attention away from King James, he is taking a page out of the former Sixer’s GM Billy King’s book. The theory I’m referring to is to surround your franchise scoring machine with highly attainable role players who are very unselfish, defensive minded, rebounding/shot blocking machines. Why are they so attainable? Because of their obvious inability to put the ball in the basket.

Don’t believe me…. let’s do a couple of quick comparisons. The Cavs utilitarian Ben Wallace (08) or the “Big Z” Zydrunas Ilgauskas can pretty much equate to what the Sixer’s got out of the timeless wonder Dikembe Mutumbo (01) in rebounding and shot blocking. Defensive minded, veteran leader Eric Snow is quite obvious as he was on both rosters in question (although he hasn’t got much court time in regular season, don’t be surprised to see him emerge in the post-season as a Mike Brown favorite in the rotation). Regardless, the Cavs current point guard of choice, Delonte West, brings similar tools to the table as Eric Snow in 2001 aside from some added jump shooting abilities. How about the wingmen? Iverson had Aaron McKie and George Lynch; and sure enough Lebron has similar specialists in Daniel Gibson and Wally Szerbiak. We all know with only one legitimate scoring option the superstar must put up a lot of shots, and I guess so did Billy King, as he brought in the likes of Mutumbo, Hill, and Lynch to crash the boards with reckless abandon, in the same way Danny Ferry has charged Big Ben, Big Z, and Joe Smith with the task of cleanup crew.

Still wondering about the 2001 Sixers to 2008 Cavs comparison? Here are the tangibles…

FOCAL POINT COMPARISON:

	PPG	FG %	3P %	Assists	Rebounds	Steals
Iverson (01)	31.1	42	32	4.6	3.8	2.5
Lebron(08)	30.7	48	31	7.3	8.1	1.8

SUPORTING CAST COMPARISON:

	PPG	FG %	Rebounds	Assists	Blocks	Steals
Mutumbo (01)	11.7	49	12	0.8	2.5	0.35
Ilgauskas (08)	13.5	48	10	1.4	1.7	0.43
McKie (01)	11.6	47	4.1	5	0.11	1.3
Gibson (08)	11.4	46	2.5	2.5	0.24	0.9
Hill (01)	9.6	47	9	0.6	0.4	0.5
Wallace (08)	5.1	40	8.7	0.6	1.4	0.8
E. Snow (01)	9.8	41	3.3	7.4	0.14	1.5
D. West (08)	9.0	41	3.6	4.5	0.76	0.83

Well enough with the numbers already, huh?

I’m not really much of a numbers guy anyway, as I like to look at the intangibles a player can bring to the table. And although I think GM Danny Ferry this year is making the same mistakes with the Cavaliers that Billy King made with the 76ers in 2001, because of Lebron’s proven leadership qualities and ability to defy the odds every playoff game he was in last year, I definitely wouldn’t feel comfortable betting against him.

I realize some of you out there may say, “what’s wrong with an NBA Finals appearance?”, well the answer is nothing. But if you want the real answer, go ask Allen Iverson or Lebron James if they are satisfied with their NBA Finals appearances…

In the mean time, my advice to Danny Ferry is simple, take less advice from ex-GM Billy King, and wherever possible take more advice from Celtics GM Danny Ainge, Suns GM Steve Kerr, Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak, and San Antonio GM R.C. Buford.

Pat Riley, the idiot or the genius?

April 4th, 2008 – Dr. Browntorious
What is going on with Mr. Pat Riley?

Let’s go back in time to the 2003-04 season for a minute. The Miami Heat, with Wade, Odom, Butler, and Eddie Jones were a pretty solid team. Dwayne Wade in his rookie season was averaging pretty decent numbers (17 ppg, 4.5 assists, 4 rebounds). Lamar Odom’s numbers were pretty much the same as they are today, Butler was still up and coming but contributing in multiple facets and averaging almost 10 ppg, and Eddie Jones led the team with slightly over 17 ppg. They made it to the playoffs, but were eliminated early. This team was a young team resting their future plans on the growth of Wade and Butler. Then the big trade happened. Odom, Butler, Grant and a first round pick were sent to LA for a disgruntled Shaquille O’Neal.

Shaq, already playing with the best player in the league (Kobe) and two future hall of famers (Payton, Malone), was not able to win his 4th championship. Shaq’s physical shape, resulting in a drop in his production was significant in comparison to his years winning championships. Shaq had become more of a liability against good defense’s than an asset (think of the ‘04’ Detroit series). So what was Riley thinking? He’s going to give up the future of the Heat for one, maybe two shots to make a deep post-season run?

The following year, Miami didn’t make it to the finals; they were wiped out by Detroit again in the conference finals. This is even after Miami landed the best back-up center in history, Alonzo Mourning, who played better that year than even Malone played sometimes filling in at Center for Shaq on the Lakers.

Finally, after Riley pulled some more moves getting Kapono and Jason Williams they managed to win the 2006 NBA Championship. Good job. What happened afterwards? In 2006-2007 Shaq went back to his lazy self as he was on the Lakers, and went on the injured list for the majority of the year, “saving himself for the stretch run”. All the hits Wade took finally caught up to him and he injured his shoulder missing a good part of the season. Although Wade tried to come back and play through the injury just before the playoffs began, it still resulted in Chicago sweeping the Heat in the first round. For a team that had almost no roster changes, they went from being the defending champions to losing to a team considered as “decent” or “mediocre” by most analysts in the league.

Now that brings us to this mess of a season for the Heat. Alonzo goes down with a career ending injury, another overweight, under motivated Shaq and an injured Wade resulted in Miami having the worst record in the league. What does Riley do? He trades Shaq for Marion. In my opinion this is where Riley pulls out his smart card. Phoenix wants to win now and they need to be able to fight against the big men in the West (Amare wasn’t enough?). They trade away Marion, who statistically is consistently one of the best players in the league every year, for Shaq. Shaq’s quoted as saying “I can run”. Yes Shaq, you might be able to run for a couple months, but we’ve seen how lazy you can get and your inability improve on your free throws; so how long can you run for? If history repeats itself, Shaq will be back to his lazy self by the start of training camp next year. What does Miami get with Marion? They get basically a Lamar Odom type player back and probably a number one draft pick next year(because of their position)…so it puts them approximately in the same position as they were in 2003-04.

Where are the Lakers out of that original trade to bring Shaq to Miami? Odom and Kobe are playing amazing together. Lakers rebuilt around Kobe, and have a YOUNG championship contending team for years to come. Sure, Gasol being shipped to the Lakers for nothing is quite inexplicable, but regardless the Lakers were still a top team this year with the way Bynum had been playing.

So now that Riley’s recent trade history is in the books. Is Riley the idiot or is Riley the genius? I vote at this point he is a genius. He managed to score another title, and has set himself up to be leading an up and coming young team for the future of Heat basketball. If he can get a solid draft pick, and fill the missing center position the team might have a chance to run for the finals in a few years. One key to Riley’s future with the Heat, will be Miami’s success or failure next year. If they miss the playoffs, he could be out a job. The Lakers were able to depart with Shaq and only miss the playoffs once (in the difficult west). Can Riley do the same for Miami?

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