RealGM

It is the midway point of the season. How do you feel about the team and the season so far? A few topics to key in on:


Why are we winning?:
Probably not a bad thing but it is nice to see the guys compete. We need a top 10 pick though!

Kyrie:
I thought he would be damn good but not this damn good so quick. Underestimated his leadership ability and am very impressed with the kid

Tristan living up to #4:
Not sure if he ever will but I love his energy and athletic ability. Give him time - he will be a 14 and 12 player very soon if given the minutes.

Anderson!:
We all thought he would be traded but he has nicely played himself into an "untoucable" asset. Bottom line is nobody values him like us and he wont be traded.....

Byron Scott:
I like him a lot. He is steady. Lets hope the Lakers don't get fed up with Mike Brown and come calling to our coach.

Trade Front:
I see Sessions gone for sure with the possiblity of Casspi and Jamison gone as well. Who or what do we target?

Alonzo Gee:
He should be starting.......and I cannot believe I just said that.

How will we finish?:
If nobody is traded we get the 13th pick the draft. If we make trades - look for the 7-8th spot....with a little lotto luck

I think we are doing great/ahead of schedule. We have our franchise PG who looks like he can be a go to scorer and a closer. We are seeing the development of young players such as Gee and Thompson, and Byron seems to be getting his points across. I think Scott deserves a lot of credit, and I am very eager to see how our young players look after a complete offseason. I feel our general need in the draft is to target a scorer to help take the load off of Irving. Whether that player is a SG or SF makes no difference to me. Outside of that, we need to look for a young center to develop, or an established center that is coming into his prime.

I would like to keep Sessions if he is content with his current role. I like his energy and his ability to get into the lane. Essentially, Sessions is a great backup PG to have.

Irving is further along than I thought he'd be.

Other than that, everything is as expected...
Andy is playing like Andy.
Tristan is off too a slow start but showing signs.
Jamison is filling the stats sheet trying to get out of here.
Sessions and Gee are playing like 6-8 guys off the bench, which is what they should be.

Irving is doing better than I had expected, or even hoped. Andy upped his rebounding this year and his scoring as well, I think we were seeing Andy be all that he can be. I like Tristan, he has great energy and hops, but he will never live up to being a top 4 pick until the FT % gets much better.
Antawn is hopefully going to be moved, not that I dont like him as well, great team guy and scorer but if he is moved I hope it doesnt put too much of the scoring load on Kyrie. Love coach Scott, after the M Brown years we couldnt have done any better (thankfully Izzo said no), I bet the Lakers wish they had a do over on that hire.
Gee should be starting.... on this team. He is starting to remind me of Bobby Phills when he was here, a young athletic guy who plays D and can score but is a bit streaky. I hope he can become what Phills ultimately became. I think we will fade some after the ASB, even if we dont make any moves, Tawn is logging big minutes lately and the rooks will inevitably hit the wall. I think I heard something like 30 games in 55 days or something along those lines after the break. That is going to be tough on a team that is undermanned as it is. Hopefully we can sneak into the top 6 in the draft.

I am pretty excited about this team's future. Kyrie is way better than anyone could have imagined and seems to be a legit #1 guy. We need to find a #2 guy still, but we have lots of assets to use.

I hope people are realizing that we can throw the OKC model out the window at this point. We're not going to get two more picks in the top 5. This doesn't mean, however, that we're going to fall short like we did with LBJ. When we had LBJ, we were pretty much completely devoid of assets (and stupidly lost Boozer for nothing). We also didn't use our picks or cap space well.

If we are smart and bring in the right players through the draft, trades, and free agency while managing our cap effectively, I think this team is poised to soon become an up and coming playoff team with potential to become an upper tier team in the next 3-4 years. It also helps that we have a great coach.

I think we should all be pretty pleased with the way things are looking considering how dismal they were just last year. (THANKS FOR KYRIE, MO!!!!!!!!!!!)

Honestly I'd rather keep Sessions than giving him away for a very late first round pick. The draft is super hyped and even if I like some player no one will give us what Sessions gives us that late in the draft.
If we are going to collect draft picks then we need to copy what we did last year which would be impossible to do this year. I honestly don't think we are going to make any major moves and that might be the right thing to do.

Kyrie were awesome in the rising stars game, he's something special and we have two pretty damn good players to build on.

There are 2 ways to think about this...

1. Do we want to be a playoff team?

2. Do we want to win titles?

If our goal is #1, we look good so far. Scott is a good coach, Irving is a great rookie, and we have some good vets like Andy, Jamison, and Sessions. We will probably make the playoffs next year if we progress.

If our goal is #2, we have to fail in the 2nd part of the season and get (at least) a Top-5 pick. Cleveland will never be able to bring in elite FA's, so the only way we compete with teams like Miami is if we build through the draft. We absolutely need 2 more Top-5 picks. Winning in the 2nd half would rob us of one of those Top-5 picks. We desperately need more size moving forward. I would LOVE to get either Andre Drummond or Anthony Davis.

Kyrie is where I expected him. The thing is, we don't want him to be this good this quick. I think one thing Kenny Smith alluded to last night during the Rising Stars challenge is that these players are now coming in the league with NBA skill versus years ago where incoming players had to acquire that usually the first couple of years. The OKC model is most likely not going to be replicated here. We'll probably at best get another good player out of the draft next season but after that, I don't see us being in the lottery for awhile. Jamison has to go. Somebody needs to take him. Idc what we get for him but him putting up 25 and whatever is useless for this team seeing he is on the wrong side of 30. We'll see what happens near the trade deadline.


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I really do not understand the too good too quick argument. Irving fits the bill for what every team is essentially after, a potential star. Once your team has a legit player to build around, the rebuild goes that much quicker. Note: Paxson clearly missed the memo on this one. As long as Cleveland keeps the majority of their draft picks, no matter where they are at, they will have the opportunity to continue improving. Combine that with the development of the young players that are already on the roster, as well as smart spending in free agency, and we have a good shot at being a legit team sooner rather than later.

I am on board for getting Lamb/Beal/Ross. If we can get a later pick, are there any stretch 4's or 5's out there? I cannot see us starting AV and Tristan. Neither stretch the floor and sort do the same thing. Kinda like when Ben Wallace was here. Those two rarely played together.

Niko23 wrote:Anderson!:
We all thought he would be traded but he has nicely played himself into an "untoucable" asset. Bottom line is nobody values him like us and he wont be traded.....

I don't like this line of thinking. AV might not be as valuable to others in the league, but he isn't that valuable to us, either. What does he do for us? Win us a few more games? Get injured?

I like AV, but we need to trade him. If we are going to try to get one more high draft pick, we need to be playing scrubs, and AV isn't a scrub. He's hurting our chances at a higher draft pick. Or, he's injured and has barely any value. Get him healthy, then trade him for what we can. Lottery pick? Probably not, but I'd take any first round pick and any type of prospect for him.

Niko23 wrote:Why are we winning?:
Probably not a bad thing but it is nice to see the guys compete. We need a top 10 pick though!

Anderson!:
We all thought he would be traded but he has nicely played himself into an "untoucable" asset. Bottom line is nobody values him like us and he wont be traded.....

Both of these are most certainly bad things.

At least for the people who actually give a damn about winning a title. Hope the rest of you have enjoyed seeing the Hawks lose in the 1st round year in and year out, better get used to it.

aeroguy wrote:

Niko23 wrote:Anderson!:
We all thought he would be traded but he has nicely played himself into an "untoucable" asset. Bottom line is nobody values him like us and he wont be traded.....

I don't like this line of thinking. AV might not be as valuable to others in the league, but he isn't that valuable to us, either. What does he do for us? Win us a few more games? Get injured?

I like AV, but we need to trade him. If we are going to try to get one more high draft pick, we need to be playing scrubs, and AV isn't a scrub. He's hurting our chances at a higher draft pick. Or, he's injured and has barely any value. Get him healthy, then trade him for what we can. Lottery pick? Probably not, but I'd take any first round pick and any type of prospect for him.

Try convincing Gilbert and Grant of that. I am on board for trading him for a 15th through 18th pick - maybe Boston? Dumping him would really say a lot to players like Kyrie and Tristan who are new to the organization....

Bulls fan here. Im starting to be a Kyrie fan also and all I can say is you are blessed to have him. Certainly a main rebuilding piece to look forward too. Scott is also the perfect coach to match with Kyrie.

From how it looks now it looks like tanking is not your direction. Better to run after the likes of Eric Gordon and Brook Lopez in the free agency which are proven players already. It might result to overpaying though but that should be worth it.

Beasley might be worth looking as well. With a coach like Byron Scott, it may be worth the risk.

Eric Gordon is injured way too much and will get way too much money.

Lopez is one of the few centers who fits with Thompson, but I'm reluctant to do that because TT has yet to prove he can actually be a long-term starter.

Beasley sucks.