Hoops Analyst

1.    The Cavs Make Me Want To Puke: Before the season, I thought that the Cavs looked like the clear worst team in the NBA.  I was pleasantly surprised to Cleveland get off to a respectable start at 7-9, only to go 1-34 run since and be in the throes of a 25-game losing streak.  Could the Cavs really be this bad?  In a word…yes.  This is the worst offensive and defensive team in the NBA  Their best player is Ramon Sessions, a decent guard, and the only other above-average player right now is Antawn Jamison.  While they have taken an odd route to get to 8-34, ultimately, this is a typical terrible team.

Going forward, though, the historic losing streak should come to an end very soon, with nine straight home games coming up.  It’s not that Cleveland is that much better at home (5-17 versus 3-27 on the road) but the slight difference should come up once in a nine-game stretch.  When will the win actually come?  Let’s take a look at the possibilities:

-2/9 v. Detroit: The Pistons are a terrible 6-21 on the road.

-2/11 v. L.A. Clippers: The Clipps have played better but are still 3-17 on the road

-2/13 v. Washington: Of course, everyone, has this one circled on the calendar.  The Wiz are a remarkable 0-25 on the road.

-2/16 v. L.A. Lakers: Ummm…this is probably not a candidate for a win for the Cavs.

-2/23 v. Houston: Houston should win but they aren’t great on the road (11-18)

-2/25 v. New York: Respectable 12-14 on the road but they were the last team the Cavs beat so far this season.

-2/27 v. Philadelphia: A poor 7-19 on the road.

-3/2 v. San Antonio: The best road team in the NBA…should be fun.

The Cavs are legitimately awful team but not so bad that they shouldn’t snap the streak soon.  As much fun as the Wiz game could be if both teams come in with bad streaks, I think the chances are that Cleveland beats Detroit or the Clipps first.  In fact, the Cavs could end this home stand at 3-6 or 4-5.  Not great but I’m guessing Cleveland fans would take it.

Of course, all this is much ado about nothing.  Whether they are historically awful or merely regular awful, the Cavs are in rebuilding mode.  I’m sure Dan Gilbert feels like a schmuck for his boasts post-LeBron right now but the goal should be to put the team in the position to get good quickly.  The team is almost devoid of young talent and Gilbert should not be shy about dumping the players who worked with LeBron but not so well as primary players for picks/cap room.  Unfortunately, the best trade chip, Anderson Varejao, is out for the season and, therefore, unmovable.  In meantime, Cleveland should focus the rest of this year seeing if J.J. Hickson can develop into a good player and trading Jamison if possible.

2.    Best of the Worst: Bill James once observed that one of the problems with bad teams is that they tend to blame their best players for futility when, in fact, the ire should be focused on the bad players.  The tendency, is to wonder why the stars can’t transcend the scrubs when the question should be why the team can’t amass fewer scrubs.  With that in mind, I thought we could look at the worst teams, record wise, for the last 20 years to see how good their best players were and whether the “stars” ended up being a meaningful players for the future of the franchise.  We’ll pick best player as the regular player with the highest PER (I know PER is not the absolute answer in player assessment but works most of the time):

Year	Team	W-L	Best Player	Age	PER	Afterwards
1990-91	Nuggets	20-62	Michael Adams	28	22.3	Traded for Lottery Pick (Mark Macon)
1991-92	T-Wolves	15-67	Pooh Richardson	25	17.6	Traded for Chuck Person, Micheal Williams
1992-93	Mavs	11-71	Derek Harper	31	15.9	Traded in middle 1993-94 for Tony Campbell
1993-94	Mavs	13-69	Tim Legler	27	16.1	Released after the season
1994-95	Clipps	17-65	Loy Vaught	26	17.1	Injured back after two more decent seasons
1995-96	Grizz	15-67	Greg Anthony	28	18.6	Left as free agent after one more season
1996-97	Grizz	14-68	Shareef Abdur-Rahim	20	17.4	Had four more good years for Grizz
1997-98	Nuggets	11-71	Johnny Newman	34	14.9	Left as free agent after the season
1998-99	Grizz	8-42	Shareef Abdur-Rahim	22	20.7	Traded for Pao Gasol after 2000-01
1999-00	Clipps	15-67	Derek Anderson	25	16.9	Left as free agent after the season
2000-01	Bulls	15-67	Elton Brand	21	20.4	Traded for Tyson Chandler after season
2001-02	Bulls	21-61	Jalen Rose	29	18.4	Traded for Antonio Davis in mid-2003-04
2001-02	Warriors	21-61	Antawn Jamison	25	17.1	Traded to Dallas for Nick Van Exel one year later
2002-03	Cavs	17-65	Zydrunas Ilgauskas	27	19.4	Remained with Cavs for the rest of the decade
2002-03	Nuggets	17-65	Juwan Howard	29	17.2	Left as a free agent after the season
2003-04	Magic	21-61	Tracy McGrady	24	25.3	Traded for Steve Francis after season
2004-05	Hawks	13-69	Ty Lue	27	16.2	Traded for Mike Bibby in mid-2007-08
2005-06	Blazers	21-61	Zach Randolph	24	16.9	Traded to Knicks in 2007
2006-07	Grizz	22-60	Pau Gasol	26	24.1	Traded in mid-2007-08 for Kwame Brown
2007-08	Heat	15-67	Dwyane Wade	26	21.5	Still with team
2008-09	Kings	17-65	Kevin Martin	25	19.2	Traded to Rockets in mid-2009-10
2009-10	Nets	12-70	Brook Lopez	21	20.1	Still with team

So, the vast majority of bottom dwellers dumped their best players rather quickly, with the notable exception of Ilgauskas.  This doesn’t mean it was always a great move.  Notably, Elton Brand could’ve really helped the young Bulls in the mid-2000s.  More recently, the Heat worked to keep D-Wade (though they didn’t exactly try to avoid losing that season) and the Nets have refused to trade Lopez too.  For the Cavs, there isn’t really much worth keeping and they are sure to purge most of this roster rather quickly.

1.    Good Player, Bad Team: Pretty much the only news in the NBA these days is the perpetually pending trade of Carmelo Anthony to the Nets.  There are compelling reasons for both the Nets and Nuggets to get this trade done but some have questioned why Anthony would want to go to a lottery bound Nets team when Denver is a pretty good team already.  The speculation has surrounded the fact that Anthony wants to return to the East Coast where he grew up and where his wife can pursue a recording career.  Also, Anthony wants to lock in a contract extension before the lockout might change the ceilings on max contracts.

All this makes some sense but still does not explain why he is so desperate to get to Jersey, other than the fact that he wants to get near New York and the Nets are the only team with the assets to get a deal done before the inevitable lockout of 2012.  As with the LeBron move last summer, there may be more here than meets the eye.  We’ll wait for the actual deal to happen before teasing out all the angles but, in the meantime, I thought we could look at other big trades of young stars who forced trades and how it turned out since 1990 and whether they regretted it.  While plenty of lottery draft picks were traded, I could only find two who were big stars who forced their team to deal them:

–Chris Webber, 1994: I won’t review the circumstances of this deal for the millionth time but most remember that Webber was able to force a trade from Golden State after his rookie year.  The team Webber preferred was the old Washington Bullets.  This made little sense from a talent stand point.  The Bullets were not a good team or well run by management, which had not been to the playoffs since the 1980s at that time.  What they did have was Webber’s old buddy from Michigan, Juwan Howard.  Webber obviously thought that the two young forwards would make a contending team.  There were a few problems with this:  Webber and Howard weren’t nearly enough to make a good team when the rest of the starting line up was Scott Skiles, Calbert Cheaney and Gheorghe Muresan.  The Bullets did add a little more talent but Webber couldn’t stay healthy and rest of the team just wasn’t that good.  It’s not clear that Webber would’ve been better off staying in Golden State, which had talent but was poorly run. The lesson here was if Webber wanted a trade, he should’ve chosen a better destination.

–Alonzo Mourning, 1995: Zo was the Hornets anchor and he wanted a huge money extension.  The Hornets balked at paying too much after Larry Johnson’s back injury left them on the hook for millions that were not well spent.  Mourning and his agent David Falk brokered a trade to the Heat.  In this case, the Heat weren’t a great team but offered a chic city, a Pat Riley-led team, and promise that they would spend money.  The Heat lived up to their bargain and Miami acquired Tim Hardaway, Dan Majerle, Jamal Mashburn, and PJ Brown and formed a serious contender.  They never won a title with Mourning in Miami (until Shaq and Wade came to town) but Mourning chose well.  (It should be noted that the Hornets were no slouches after Zo left town and he would’ve contended with him).

Without knowing the precise motivation/goals of Anthony, it’s hard to speculate why he wants the Nets but he should look at the Webber situation carefully.  CWebb wasted four years of his prime before moving on to Sacramento and contending.  Going to the Nets isn’t as bad as the old Bullets.  Jersey appears to have a real front office, some talent, and a sharper owner.  Indeed, there is some indication that another star may be on the way at some point but, for the moment, Anthony-to-the-Nets does not seem like an ideal solution for Carmelo at least.

2.    Return of Ason: When he first came up with the Mavs years ago, Jason Kidd was known as the best player without a jump shot in the game.  Kidd shot .385% as a rookie and .272% from three.  He improved his threes to .336% his second year but still struggled from the field.  Kidd’s three-point shot varied wildly in Phoenix (37% his first year and floundered around 31-32% in other seasons) but his two-point shooting began creeping up above 40%.  The net effect was to push Kidd’s true shooting percentage above 50% most years and make him one of the most valuable points in the NBA in Phoenix and later in Jersey.

When the Mavs re-acquired Kidd from the Nets in 2007-08, Kidd re-made his shooting strategy.  Kidd usage rating, which had peaked up at 26% with the Nets immediately fell down to 13.5% in 2008-09 with Dallas.  Kidd essentially turned into a spot up shooter.  His last two years in Jersey, Kidd shot took 11 shots per 36 minutes and 4.6 of them were threes.  In Dallas, he got off about eight shots per 36 minutes but but still took the same amount of threes.  Somehow, Kidd was able to hit 42% of his threes, which was a bit above his career average.

This year, the bottom has fallen out.  Kidd is shooting .343% from the field and .329% from three, despite the fact that he is still averaging about the same amount of shots per-minute.  Moreover, Kidd has stopped getting to the line, averaging only one free throw per 36 minutes, a career low.  The other parts of Kidd’s game (passing, boarding, and stealing) are intact but the question is whether this huge drop in shooting prowess is a random cold streak or a permanent drop.  Kidd has had cold three-point seasons before (2003-04, 2001-02, and 2000-01) but back then he could score other ways.  Moreover, the track record of point guards in their late 30s and shooting slumps are not good.  Virtually every single guard who started to lose his three-point shot (or his regular shooting stroke) after age-35 did not recover.  Kidd is cut from a different cloth than most players but it is more likely than not that he Kidd won’t see 40% shooting in his career.