cleveland cavaliers

A Closer Look At The Cavs Hot Start

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The biggest positive story of the new season is Cleveland’s 15-0 start, which puts the Cavs in pretty elite company.  Much has been written about this great start but I thought we could take another look, FAQ style, and see if we can squeeze a few more interesting nuggets… How is Cleveland doing this? In simplest terms, the offense has exploded.  The Cavs were a defense-first team last season (6th in defensive rating) that had to eke out offense (18th in offensive rating) by … [Read more...] about A Closer Look At The Cavs Hot Start

The NBA Draft Lottery and Luck

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Like life itself the NBA Draft Lottery is random, painful and wonderful. It will remain as such unless they adopt that stupid wheel. This piece looks at what teams have been lucky and/or unlucky in the lottery during its 30 years of existence. What I’m looking at is which teams have had the ball bounce their way the most during the lottery era and which teams just can’t catch a break. What the list below shows is how much each team moved up or down in the draft order during the 30 years of … [Read more...] about The NBA Draft Lottery and Luck

NBA Draft 2014: Ranking the Centers

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What had been a class with one super prospect and not much else was further weakened by Embiid’s foot injury and the sad news about Isaiah Austin having to give up the game. Most of this piece is me urging the Cavs to forge ahead and draft Embiid. I still believe he’s going to be special, whether it is in Cleveland, Milwaukee or some other lucky city where the brain trust has enough foresight to take a chance on him. Here are the numbers: Center … [Read more...] about NBA Draft 2014: Ranking the Centers

The Cavaliers Should Draft Joel Embiid

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Cleveland has won the lottery again. When the Cavs won it last year I felt it was clear they had to draft Nerlens Noel. They passed on my advice and went with Anthony Bennett. While I’m sure the Cavs would like to have that one back, drafting Bennett did set in motion a series of events that finds Cleveland atop the lottery again with another opportunity to draft a franchise center. That Embiid tops the 2014 list of draft prospects shouldn’t be a surprise. He’s a rim-protecting center with a … [Read more...] about The Cavaliers Should Draft Joel Embiid

NBA Draft 2013: Why Cleveland Should Draft Nerlens Noel

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Since I started the 2013 draft analysis with the 12/31 rankings, the only thing that has been easy about the process is placing Nerlens Noel at the top. The knee injury was a huge setback, but in the time he played Noel put up some excellent numbers that put him in pretty good company. Here are players who have topped .590 2PP, 10.0 R40 and 5.0 B40 as freshmen, as Noel did this past year: Player 2PP P40 R40 S40 B40 A/TO Hakeem … [Read more...] about NBA Draft 2013: Why Cleveland Should Draft Nerlens Noel

NBA 2013 Preview: Eastern Conference

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In the post-Jordan Bulls NBA the East has been inferior to the West. That will continue this season and into the foreseeable future. The West is full of smart, creative GMs who can quickly make a bad team good. The East roster of GMs is full of guys in their 2nd or 3rd stints in the job. They are often ex-players who have experienced more failures than successes in their executive careers. They continue to draft and trade their teams into the lottery and hope for a big score there. They’re the … [Read more...] about NBA 2013 Preview: Eastern Conference

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