Retro Player of the Year 2006-07 UPDATE — Tim Duncan

[One_and_Done]

I think we were a nose bleed and Amare/Diaw suspension away from a different #1 but you have to go Duncan #1 this year because you still have to base it on reality.

Suns were never winning that series. In game 6 the Suns had all their guys back, while the Spurs were still down Horry, and they lost huge; the Spurs were up 20 in the 4th and then coasted from there. The Spurs were just the better team.

[DirtyDez]

I think we were a nose bleed and Amare/Diaw suspension away from a different #1 but you have to go Duncan #1 this year because you still have to base it on reality.

Suns were never winning that series. In game 6 the Suns had all their guys back, while the Spurs were still down Horry, and they lost huge; the Spurs were up 20 in the 4th and then coasted from there. The Spurs were just the better team.

Yet the Suns still outscored them that series. Game 1 and 5 were coinflips because of just weird luck. Not saying Phoenix was the better team but they win that series and title nobody would’ve batted an eye. Of course we could play that game a lot of years throughout history.

[One_and_Done]

I think we were a nose bleed and Amare/Diaw suspension away from a different #1 but you have to go Duncan #1 this year because you still have to base it on reality.

Suns were never winning that series. In game 6 the Suns had all their guys back, while the Spurs were still down Horry, and they lost huge; the Spurs were up 20 in the 4th and then coasted from there. The Spurs were just the better team.

Yet the Suns still outscored them that series. Game 1 and 5 were coinflips because of just weird luck. Not saying Phoenix was the better team but they win that series and title nobody would’ve batted an eye. Of course we could play that game a lot of years throughout history.

The Suns were a worthy title team. In 2006 they'd have clubbed the Heat, and they'd have made short work of the 98 Bulls. They just weren't better than the 07 Spurs.

[AEnigma]

Votes are tallied. I recorded 12 approved voters: Djoker, AEnigma, capfan33, homecourtloss, ILikeShaiGuys, CEOofkobefans, Paulluxx, penbeast0, falcolombardi, Narigo, One_and_Done, and trelos. DJoker, AEnigma, LikeShaiGuys, falcolombardi, CEOofkobefans, and trelos voted for both Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year. Please let me know if I seem to have missed or otherwise improperly recorded a vote.

2006-07 Results

(Retro) Offensive Player of the Year — Steve Nash (3)

Code: Select all

Player       1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Steve Nash    5   1   0    28    0.933
2a. Lebron James  0   3   0   9    0.300
2b. Kobe Bryant    1   1   1    9    0.300
4. Dirk Nowitzki    0   1   4    7    0.233
5. Gilbert Arenas    0   0   1    1    0.033

(Retro) Defensive Player of the Year — Tim Duncan (4) (Unanimous)

Code: Select all

Player         1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Tim Duncan  6   0   0    30    1.000
2. Ben Wallace   0   5   1    16    0.533
3a. Kevin Garnett   0   0   4    4    0.133
3b. Shane Battier   0   1   1    4    0.133

Retro Player of the Year — Tim Duncan (6*)

Code: Select all

Player      1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Tim Duncan  10  2  0  0  0    114   0.950
2. Steve Nash  0  6  6  0  0   72   0.600
3. Lebron James   1  2  4  2  3   53   0.442
4. Kobe Bryant  1  1  2  1  5   35   0.292
5. Dirk Nowitzki   0  1  0  8  2   33   0.275
6. Kevin Garnett   0  0  0  1  1   4   0.033
7. Chauncey Billups   0  0  0  0  1   1   0.008

In the prior project, there were 22 votes, with no overlap. These are the aggregated results of the two projects across 34 total ballots:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

Player   1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Tim Duncan  28  4  1  1  0    316   0.929
2. Steve Nash  1  13  9  3  4   159   0.468
3. Lebron James   2  5  12  4  11   138   0.406
4. Kobe Bryant  3  5  5  12  7   133   0.391
5. Dirk Nowitzki   0  7  6  12  8   123   0.362
6. Kevin Garnett   0  0  1  2  3   14   0.041
7. Chauncey Billups   0  0  0  0  1   1   0.003

2008 thread will open shortly.

[lessthanjake]

I think we were a nose bleed and Amare/Diaw suspension away from a different #1 but you have to go Duncan #1 this year because you still have to base it on reality.

Suns were never winning that series. In game 6 the Suns had all their guys back, while the Spurs were still down Horry, and they lost huge; the Spurs were up 20 in the 4th and then coasted from there. The Spurs were just the better team.

The Suns outscored the Spurs in that series, after the two teams had equivalent regular seasons (Suns had a few more wins, while the Spurs’ SRS was a bit higher). It’s certainly possible the Spurs could’ve won the series without the suspension, but it seems really odd to me to say the “Suns were never winning that series.” It seems like an obvious example of very evenly-matched teams.

[trex_8063]

I think we were a nose bleed and Amare/Diaw suspension away from a different #1 but you have to go Duncan #1 this year because you still have to base it on reality.

Suns were never winning that series. In game 6 the Suns had all their guys back, while the Spurs were still down Horry, and they lost huge; the Spurs were up 20 in the 4th and then coasted from there. The Spurs were just the better team.

The Suns outscored the Spurs in that series, after the two teams had equivalent regular seasons (Suns had a few more wins, while the Spurs’ SRS was a bit higher). It’s certainly possible the Spurs could’ve won the series without the suspension, but it seems really odd to me to say the “Suns were never winning that series.” It seems like an obvious example of very evenly-matched teams.

I agree. Certainly it could have gone either way without suspensions, but "never" is an odd choice of words.

Citing game six as the duh/obviously indicator for the series is peculiar too, imo, given it's game 5 that really makes you wonder: Suns, sans Stoudemire OR Diaw, STILL only lost by 3. If they'd won that, they could get rocked in game 6 and still get a game 7 at home.
And as far as blow-outs are concerned, they demolished San Antonio's full complement by 20 in game 2. So BOTH teams showed the potential to rock the other (especially at home [and again: G7 in PHX]).

So.....maybe San Antonio still wins. But I'm reminded of a quote I heard many years ago: "'Never' is the word God listens for when he needs a laugh."

[Hook_Em]

I think we were a nose bleed and Amare/Diaw suspension away from a different #1 but you have to go Duncan #1 this year because you still have to base it on reality.

Suns were never winning that series. In game 6 the Suns had all their guys back, while the Spurs were still down Horry, and they lost huge; the Spurs were up 20 in the 4th and then coasted from there. The Spurs were just the better team.

I think the writing was on the wall after the Spurs stole game 5. The Spurs were definitely tougher but the suspension likely prevented a game 7 which would’ve been for the championship basically.

[One_and_Done]

I think we were a nose bleed and Amare/Diaw suspension away from a different #1 but you have to go Duncan #1 this year because you still have to base it on reality.

Suns were never winning that series. In game 6 the Suns had all their guys back, while the Spurs were still down Horry, and they lost huge; the Spurs were up 20 in the 4th and then coasted from there. The Spurs were just the better team.

I think the writing was on the wall after the Spurs stole game 5. The Spurs were definitely tougher but the suspension likely prevented a game 7 which would’ve been for the championship basically.

Game 5 struck me as an example of the Spurs playing down to the level of an inferior opponent who had nothing to lose, then getting serious and closing it out.

Never might have been too strong, but I think it's clear the Spurs were the better team.

[lessthanjake]

But they didn't use the full season? I don't know feel like you're being the dishonest one.

The only ones who are clinging to things are the hagiographers who have to try to hand-wave away a 55 win season when a certain player left the team while when another player left the team it was obvious how bad that player’s roster was.

Cavs with these players:

Varejao
8-23

Mo
8-28

With both
6-21

Andy V: -9.0 ON, +.5 ON/OFF, 8-23 in games played, 19 win pace, didn't do anything

Mo Williams: -13.9 ON, -4.4 ON/OFF, 9-28, 20 win pace (Cavs were better with Mo off court)

Mo Williams + Andy V.: 27 games played, -9.5, 6-21, 18 win pace;

Delonte[
west in 2010 had his worst 3 point shooting year with the cavs, ilgauskas retired a year later, and this was Shaqs second last year. It’s hard to see any of them as difference makers by this point, and the cavs record was identical in the time each of them missed

(with west they won at a 70 win pace without him, without ilgauskas they won at a 64 win pace, without shaq they were at a 59 win pace, a caveat for shaq specifically that 6 of the games lebron missed were games shaq missed too, take those out and they win at a 68 win pace without shaq)

Samples are 22, 18, and 29 (23 if we take out bron games) respectively

I think we have a fairly decent sample of the team without lebron with a similar spine, and in the 30 or so games Parker/varejao/hickson/Jamison/Williams played together, we have a 23 game sample, where they went 4-19

Varejao is the only person where they have a higher than 20 win pace (21), and even then it should be noted they won on average by 5.6 points (and all of them were less than 10 point wins) whereas their losses were on average by 13.7 points (so they lost by 8.7ppg) which does fit a sub 20 win pace

I don’t really see how they can be seen as anything more than a 20 win team based off of that, the players they lost outside of lebron weren’t really contributors, and while healthy we have more than a 20 game sample of them playing like a 20 win team (and in itself that sample should be compared to the cavs team when they were healthy, and when lebron played they won at a 65 win pace).

Nobody is trying to hand-wave anything away. Nor is pushing back on silly narratives that Lebron's Cavs were a sub-20 win team without him hagiography.

Mo Will played injured. He started the season missing games right off the bat. So again the whole healthy narrative is inaccurate.

And the presence of West, Shaq and Big Z may not have been important in 2010 with Lebron present (though that's unclear given the small samples) but without Lebron, it's a different team that functions differently. Losing those guys may well have had a big effect on the team. Either way, the roster in 2010 and 2011 is substantially different which muddies the water.

Ben Taylor did the analysis and in 21 games with a similar group of players, they played at an anemic 18-win pace (-8.9 SRS) before injuries ravaged their lineup. But that's 21 games. A quarter of a season. Error bars are big on that small of a sample. For a 20-game WOWY sample, Ben estimates that the 95% confidence interval is about +/- 4 SRS. So basically the Cavs are between 11-win pace (-12.9 SRS) and 27-win pace (-4.9 SRS) team. With a different roster and Mo Will playing injured...

I posted another similarly sized sample of 18 games in which the Cavs played at a 42-win pace without Lebron. Combine the samples and call the Cavs a 30-win team without Lebron. That's actually reasonable and although I believe the Cavs were better than 30-win pace, I can take that opinion seriously. Because when you simply look at the roster, Mo Will/Varejao and Jamison are above average starters in the NBA so the notion that the team with those three playing should be the worst team in the league just seems implausible. Of course data should always make us question our priors but on the other hand if the data looks completely ridiculous, we should question what could be affecting the results rather than taking it at face value.

For example...

1998 Bulls played at 59-win pace (+6.4 SRS) in 38 games with no Pippen. In 1999, they played at a 18-win pace (-8.58 SRS). Assuming Rodman is worth about 3-5 wins, that could lead me to credit Jordan with 36-38 wins. Is that reasonable? Of course not! The right response would be "Gee that doesn't look right. Could there be more to why the Bulls were so bad in 1999?".

Just because you like a certain player doesn't mean all logic should go out of the window!

I am quite certain that if the shoe were on the other foot, these same people would very earnestly be making the argument about 1998—>1999 that you referred to at the end of this post. All while accusing others of “hagiography.”

In any event, the 2011 Cavaliers did not have 4 of the top 8 players in minutes on the 2010 Cavaliers, nor did they have the same coach. That alone should tell us that the comparison it’s not a very meaningful comparison.

Then you have things like the Cavaliers not starting Antawn Jamison (and not giving him starter minutes either) until several games into December—even though he’d been a starter even back in 2010 and now they had a weaker team. Or Mo Williams and Anthony Parker having their minutes go *down* in the first couple months of the season compared to their minutes in 2010, despite the team having lost LeBron and other significant-minutes players and gaining no one significant. Was a good part of the reason for this because Jamison and Williams came into the season injured? Yeah, probably. But then that betrays the fact that the “healthy” portion of the season people like to talk about was not actually healthy.

And did the 2011 Cavaliers try to add anything meaningful to their team in the offseason? They went from the 5th highest-payroll roster in 2010 to the 4th lowest-payroll roster in 2011. To be fair, they did not have unlimited flexibility here. But did they use their mid-level exception? I’m pretty sure they did not. Did they try to insist on getting any actual players back for LeBron instead of just future picks? No. Did they use the huge trade exception they got for LeBron? No. Did they package the future picks they got for LeBron to get a player? No. Did they sign any significant free agent whatsoever? No. Their big free-agent acquisition was Joey Graham—who they paid less than $1 million. Their other free agent was Samardo Samuels, who they paid $500k. Did they sign and trade Shaq to get something back for him? No. Did they keep a young Danny Green? No, they waived him. When they shipped off Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair, did they try to get something good in return? Well, not really. Ramon Sessions was okay I guess, but they also got Ryan Hollins—who had just finished having a -16.5 ON rating with the Timberwolves the year before—and proceeded to play him serious minutes. These are just not the decisions of an organization truly trying to win. They basically just let half their rotation leave without adding any significant piece, despite having plenty of options to work with to do that.

This was very clearly a team making the decision to tank and rebuild. It’s one thing to write in a letter that you still want to win, but it’s another thing to actually attempt to invest at all in making that happen. The 2011 Cavaliers very obviously did not do that. And that was surely not lost on anyone in the organization, including the players—which matters quite a lot.

In any event, as it relates to 2007, the 2011 Cavaliers basically bear no resemblance at all to the 2007 Cavaliers supporting cast, so it’s not really relevant, even if the 2011 Cavaliers had won 0 games or 82 games. And given how depleted the 2011 Cavaliers were, it seems pretty obvious to me at least that the 2007 Cavaliers were a better team than that.

[homecourtloss]

The only ones who are clinging to things are the hagiographers who have to try to hand-wave away a 55 win season when a certain player left the team while when another player left the team it was obvious how bad that player’s roster was.

Cavs with these players:

Varejao
8-23

Mo
8-28

With both
6-21

Andy V: -9.0 ON, +.5 ON/OFF, 8-23 in games played, 19 win pace, didn't do anything

Mo Williams: -13.9 ON, -4.4 ON/OFF, 9-28, 20 win pace (Cavs were better with Mo off court)

Mo Williams + Andy V.: 27 games played, -9.5, 6-21, 18 win pace;

Nobody is trying to hand-wave anything away. Nor is pushing back on silly narratives that Lebron's Cavs were a sub-20 win team without him hagiography.

Mo Will played injured. He started the season missing games right off the bat. So again the whole healthy narrative is inaccurate.

And the presence of West, Shaq and Big Z may not have been important in 2010 with Lebron present (though that's unclear given the small samples) but without Lebron, it's a different team that functions differently. Losing those guys may well have had a big effect on the team. Either way, the roster in 2010 and 2011 is substantially different which muddies the water.

Ben Taylor did the analysis and in 21 games with a similar group of players, they played at an anemic 18-win pace (-8.9 SRS) before injuries ravaged their lineup. But that's 21 games. A quarter of a season. Error bars are big on that small of a sample. For a 20-game WOWY sample, Ben estimates that the 95% confidence interval is about +/- 4 SRS. So basically the Cavs are between 11-win pace (-12.9 SRS) and 27-win pace (-4.9 SRS) team. With a different roster and Mo Will playing injured...

I posted another similarly sized sample of 18 games in which the Cavs played at a 42-win pace without Lebron. Combine the samples and call the Cavs a 30-win team without Lebron. That's actually reasonable and although I believe the Cavs were better than 30-win pace, I can take that opinion seriously. Because when you simply look at the roster, Mo Will/Varejao and Jamison are above average starters in the NBA so the notion that the team with those three playing should be the worst team in the league just seems implausible. Of course data should always make us question our priors but on the other hand if the data looks completely ridiculous, we should question what could be affecting the results rather than taking it at face value.

For example...

1998 Bulls played at 59-win pace (+6.4 SRS) in 38 games with no Pippen. In 1999, they played at a 18-win pace (-8.58 SRS). Assuming Rodman is worth about 3-5 wins, that could lead me to credit Jordan with 36-38 wins. Is that reasonable? Of course not! The right response would be "Gee that doesn't look right. Could there be more to why the Bulls were so bad in 1999?".

Just because you like a certain player doesn't mean all logic should go out of the window!

I am quite certain that if the shoe were on the other foot, these same people would very earnestly be making the argument about 1998—>1999 that you referred to at the end of this post. All while accusing others of “hagiography.”

In any event, the 2011 Cavaliers did not have 4 of the top 8 players in minutes on the 2010 Cavaliers, nor did they have the same coach. That alone should tell us that the comparison it’s not a very meaningful comparison.

Then you have things like the Cavaliers not starting Antawn Jamison (and not giving him starter minutes either) until several games into December—even though he’d been a starter even back in 2010 and now they had a weaker team. Or Mo Williams and Anthony Parker having their minutes go *down* in the first couple months of the season compared to their minutes in 2010, despite the team having lost LeBron and other significant-minutes players and gaining no one significant. Was a good part of the reason for this because Jamison and Williams came into the season injured? Yeah, probably. But then that betrays the fact that the “healthy” portion of the season people like to talk about was not actually healthy.

And did the 2011 Cavaliers try to add anything meaningful to their team in the offseason? They went from the 5th highest-payroll roster in 2010 to the 4th lowest-payroll roster in 2011. To be fair, they did not have unlimited flexibility here. But did they use their mid-level exception? I’m pretty sure they did not. Did they try to insist on getting any actual players back for LeBron instead of just future picks? No. Did they use the huge trade exception they got for LeBron? No. Did they package the future picks they got for LeBron to get a player? No. Did they sign any significant free agent whatsoever? No. Their big free-agent acquisition was Joey Graham—who they paid less than $1 million. Their other free agent was Samardo Samuels, who they paid $500k. Did they sign and trade Shaq to get something back for him? No. Did they keep a young Danny Green? No, they waived him. When they shipped off Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair, did they try to get something good in return? Well, not really. Ramon Sessions was okay I guess, but they also got Ryan Hollins—who had just finished having a -16.5 ON rating with the Timberwolves the year before—and proceeded to play him serious minutes. These are just not the decisions of an organization truly trying to win. They basically just let half their rotation leave without adding any significant piece, despite having plenty of options to work with to do that.

This was very clearly a team making the decision to tank and rebuild. It’s one thing to write in a letter that you still want to win, but it’s another thing to actually attempt to invest at all in making that happen. The 2011 Cavaliers very obviously did not do that. And that was surely not lost on anyone in the organization, including the players—which matters quite a lot.

In any event, as it relates to 2007, the 2011 Cavaliers basically bear no resemblance at all to the 2007 Cavaliers supporting cast, so it’s not really relevant, even if the 2011 Cavaliers had won 0 games or 82 games. And given how depleted the 2011 Cavaliers were, it seems pretty obvious to me at least that the 2007 Cavaliers were a better team than that.

Top 4 you say?

— Delonte was soon to be out of the league and did nothing in 2011 even before the injury.
—BigZ wasn’t even that good in 2010, and then was absolutely washed in 2011, which was his last season.
—Shaq wasn’t very good in 2010 and then 2011 would be his last season.

They did get 1000 more minutes from Jamison and added a rotational NBA player in Ramon sessions who had been at worst a neutral player the year before. They also added Ryan Hollis who was trash.

The hagiographers simply cannot accept the fact that LeBron James took a roster of nothing, absolute nothing, and took it to the heights that he did and cannot accept the fact that their chosen one played on a roster that could win 55 games without him.

Has Ben Taylor and multiple others have pointed out, the best case scenario for this type of roster was maybe 25 to 28 wins without LeBron and that’s being generous. I know you don’t like it, but these are the facts.

[falcolombardi]

Nobody is trying to hand-wave anything away. Nor is pushing back on silly narratives that Lebron's Cavs were a sub-20 win team without him hagiography.

Mo Will played injured. He started the season missing games right off the bat. So again the whole healthy narrative is inaccurate.

And the presence of West, Shaq and Big Z may not have been important in 2010 with Lebron present (though that's unclear given the small samples) but without Lebron, it's a different team that functions differently. Losing those guys may well have had a big effect on the team. Either way, the roster in 2010 and 2011 is substantially different which muddies the water.

Ben Taylor did the analysis and in 21 games with a similar group of players, they played at an anemic 18-win pace (-8.9 SRS) before injuries ravaged their lineup. But that's 21 games. A quarter of a season. Error bars are big on that small of a sample. For a 20-game WOWY sample, Ben estimates that the 95% confidence interval is about +/- 4 SRS. So basically the Cavs are between 11-win pace (-12.9 SRS) and 27-win pace (-4.9 SRS) team. With a different roster and Mo Will playing injured...

I posted another similarly sized sample of 18 games in which the Cavs played at a 42-win pace without Lebron. Combine the samples and call the Cavs a 30-win team without Lebron. That's actually reasonable and although I believe the Cavs were better than 30-win pace, I can take that opinion seriously. Because when you simply look at the roster, Mo Will/Varejao and Jamison are above average starters in the NBA so the notion that the team with those three playing should be the worst team in the league just seems implausible. Of course data should always make us question our priors but on the other hand if the data looks completely ridiculous, we should question what could be affecting the results rather than taking it at face value.

For example...

1998 Bulls played at 59-win pace (+6.4 SRS) in 38 games with no Pippen. In 1999, they played at a 18-win pace (-8.58 SRS). Assuming Rodman is worth about 3-5 wins, that could lead me to credit Jordan with 36-38 wins. Is that reasonable? Of course not! The right response would be "Gee that doesn't look right. Could there be more to why the Bulls were so bad in 1999?".

Just because you like a certain player doesn't mean all logic should go out of the window!

I am quite certain that if the shoe were on the other foot, these same people would very earnestly be making the argument about 1998—>1999 that you referred to at the end of this post. All while accusing others of “hagiography.”

In any event, the 2011 Cavaliers did not have 4 of the top 8 players in minutes on the 2010 Cavaliers, nor did they have the same coach. That alone should tell us that the comparison it’s not a very meaningful comparison.

Then you have things like the Cavaliers not starting Antawn Jamison (and not giving him starter minutes either) until several games into December—even though he’d been a starter even back in 2010 and now they had a weaker team. Or Mo Williams and Anthony Parker having their minutes go *down* in the first couple months of the season compared to their minutes in 2010, despite the team having lost LeBron and other significant-minutes players and gaining no one significant. Was a good part of the reason for this because Jamison and Williams came into the season injured? Yeah, probably. But then that betrays the fact that the “healthy” portion of the season people like to talk about was not actually healthy.

And did the 2011 Cavaliers try to add anything meaningful to their team in the offseason? They went from the 5th highest-payroll roster in 2010 to the 4th lowest-payroll roster in 2011. To be fair, they did not have unlimited flexibility here. But did they use their mid-level exception? I’m pretty sure they did not. Did they try to insist on getting any actual players back for LeBron instead of just future picks? No. Did they use the huge trade exception they got for LeBron? No. Did they package the future picks they got for LeBron to get a player? No. Did they sign any significant free agent whatsoever? No. Their big free-agent acquisition was Joey Graham—who they paid less than $1 million. Their other free agent was Samardo Samuels, who they paid $500k. Did they sign and trade Shaq to get something back for him? No. Did they keep a young Danny Green? No, they waived him. When they shipped off Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair, did they try to get something good in return? Well, not really. Ramon Sessions was okay I guess, but they also got Ryan Hollins—who had just finished having a -16.5 ON rating with the Timberwolves the year before—and proceeded to play him serious minutes. These are just not the decisions of an organization truly trying to win. They basically just let half their rotation leave without adding any significant piece, despite having plenty of options to work with to do that.

This was very clearly a team making the decision to tank and rebuild. It’s one thing to write in a letter that you still want to win, but it’s another thing to actually attempt to invest at all in making that happen. The 2011 Cavaliers very obviously did not do that. And that was surely not lost on anyone in the organization, including the players—which matters quite a lot.

In any event, as it relates to 2007, the 2011 Cavaliers basically bear no resemblance at all to the 2007 Cavaliers supporting cast, so it’s not really relevant, even if the 2011 Cavaliers had won 0 games or 82 games. And given how depleted the 2011 Cavaliers were, it seems pretty obvious to me at least that the 2007 Cavaliers were a better team than that.

Top 4 you say?

— Delonte was soon to be out of the league and did nothing in 2011 even before the injury.
—BigZ wasn’t even that good in 2010, and then was absolutely washed in 2011, which was his last season.
—Shaq wasn’t very good in 2010 and then 2011 would be his last season.

They did get 1000 more minutes from Jamison and added a rotational NBA player in Ramon sessions who had been at worst a neutral player the year before. They also added Ryan Hollis who was trash.

The hagiographers simply cannot accept the fact that LeBron James took a roster of nothing, absolute nothing, and took it to the heights that he did and cannot accept the fact that their chosen one played on a roster that could win 55 games without him.

Has Ben Taylor and multiple others have pointed out, the best case scenario for this type of roster was maybe 25 to 28 wins without LeBron and that’s being generous. I know you don’t like it, but these are the facts.

It seems self evident to me that if jordan had a drop off without hin data point as strong as 2011 cavs we would never hear the end of it

A lot of people even those with a less "mainstream" conventional view start from an assumption (jordan above everyone) and then work backwards from that, even ben taylor work on lebron vs jordan feels that way

(Iirc, when he did his og 2018 top 40 project jordan fans in twitter or reddit hated on him and called him a hack because the data and analysis he did made lebron look better than jordan, even though he ranked jordan prime/peak ahead)

Then when he made his next big ranking project circa 2022 (the greatest peaks video) he conceded to lebron/jordan as equals at least with lebron having better impact evidence....but falling back om "ceiling raising offense" to put jordan as 1A due to better offense Port

(Which was doubly funny because lebron has the highest ceiling offenses among the two, played in more offensive systems/roles and actually adapted to playing with other high usage offense stars in miami and cleveland showing port/versatilty whereas jordan was in a more floor raising offense role where his usage and shot profile and volume per minute remained essentially identical through his bulls career lol)

[lessthanjake]

I am quite certain that if the shoe were on the other foot, these same people would very earnestly be making the argument about 1998—>1999 that you referred to at the end of this post. All while accusing others of “hagiography.”

In any event, the 2011 Cavaliers did not have 4 of the top 8 players in minutes on the 2010 Cavaliers, nor did they have the same coach. That alone should tell us that the comparison it’s not a very meaningful comparison.

Then you have things like the Cavaliers not starting Antawn Jamison (and not giving him starter minutes either) until several games into December—even though he’d been a starter even back in 2010 and now they had a weaker team. Or Mo Williams and Anthony Parker having their minutes go *down* in the first couple months of the season compared to their minutes in 2010, despite the team having lost LeBron and other significant-minutes players and gaining no one significant. Was a good part of the reason for this because Jamison and Williams came into the season injured? Yeah, probably. But then that betrays the fact that the “healthy” portion of the season people like to talk about was not actually healthy.

And did the 2011 Cavaliers try to add anything meaningful to their team in the offseason? They went from the 5th highest-payroll roster in 2010 to the 4th lowest-payroll roster in 2011. To be fair, they did not have unlimited flexibility here. But did they use their mid-level exception? I’m pretty sure they did not. Did they try to insist on getting any actual players back for LeBron instead of just future picks? No. Did they use the huge trade exception they got for LeBron? No. Did they package the future picks they got for LeBron to get a player? No. Did they sign any significant free agent whatsoever? No. Their big free-agent acquisition was Joey Graham—who they paid less than $1 million. Their other free agent was Samardo Samuels, who they paid $500k. Did they sign and trade Shaq to get something back for him? No. Did they keep a young Danny Green? No, they waived him. When they shipped off Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair, did they try to get something good in return? Well, not really. Ramon Sessions was okay I guess, but they also got Ryan Hollins—who had just finished having a -16.5 ON rating with the Timberwolves the year before—and proceeded to play him serious minutes. These are just not the decisions of an organization truly trying to win. They basically just let half their rotation leave without adding any significant piece, despite having plenty of options to work with to do that.

This was very clearly a team making the decision to tank and rebuild. It’s one thing to write in a letter that you still want to win, but it’s another thing to actually attempt to invest at all in making that happen. The 2011 Cavaliers very obviously did not do that. And that was surely not lost on anyone in the organization, including the players—which matters quite a lot.

In any event, as it relates to 2007, the 2011 Cavaliers basically bear no resemblance at all to the 2007 Cavaliers supporting cast, so it’s not really relevant, even if the 2011 Cavaliers had won 0 games or 82 games. And given how depleted the 2011 Cavaliers were, it seems pretty obvious to me at least that the 2007 Cavaliers were a better team than that.

Top 4 you say?

— Delonte was soon to be out of the league and did nothing in 2011 even before the injury.
—BigZ wasn’t even that good in 2010, and then was absolutely washed in 2011, which was his last season.
—Shaq wasn’t very good in 2010 and then 2011 would be his last season.

They did get 1000 more minutes from Jamison and added a rotational NBA player in Ramon sessions who had been at worst a neutral player the year before. They also added Ryan Hollis who was trash.

The hagiographers simply cannot accept the fact that LeBron James took a roster of nothing, absolute nothing, and took it to the heights that he did and cannot accept the fact that their chosen one played on a roster that could win 55 games without him.

Has Ben Taylor and multiple others have pointed out, the best case scenario for this type of roster was maybe 25 to 28 wins without LeBron and that’s being generous. I know you don’t like it, but these are the facts.

It seems self evident to me that if jordan had a drop off without hin data point as strong as 2011 cavs we would never hear the end of it

He does, though. It’s 1999, and actually no one talks about it much at all, because Jordan fans actually are intellectually honest enough to admit that the drop off was about more than just Jordan. Meanwhile, LeBron fans are unable to admit when there’s been more factors at play than just LeBron leaving. It’s then a little odd to see posts suggesting the dynamic is exactly the opposite of what it is.

[falcolombardi]

Top 4 you say?

— Delonte was soon to be out of the league and did nothing in 2011 even before the injury.
—BigZ wasn’t even that good in 2010, and then was absolutely washed in 2011, which was his last season.
—Shaq wasn’t very good in 2010 and then 2011 would be his last season.

They did get 1000 more minutes from Jamison and added a rotational NBA player in Ramon sessions who had been at worst a neutral player the year before. They also added Ryan Hollis who was trash.

The hagiographers simply cannot accept the fact that LeBron James took a roster of nothing, absolute nothing, and took it to the heights that he did and cannot accept the fact that their chosen one played on a roster that could win 55 games without him.

Has Ben Taylor and multiple others have pointed out, the best case scenario for this type of roster was maybe 25 to 28 wins without LeBron and that’s being generous. I know you don’t like it, but these are the facts.

It seems self evident to me that if jordan had a drop off without hin data point as strong as 2011 cavs we would never hear the end of it

He does, though. It’s 1999, and actually no one talks about it much at all, because Jordan fans actually are intellectually honest enough to admit that the drop off was about more than just Jordan. Meanwhile, LeBron fans are unable to admit when there’s been more factors at play than just LeBron leaving. It’s then a little odd to see posts suggesting the dynamic is exactly the opposite of what it is.

The 99 bulls lost pippen, rodman and longley too. Their 2nd, 3rd and 5th highest minutes players as well as their coach

The 11 cavs kept mo williams, jamison, varejao and anthony parker, their 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th highest minutes players

You cannot be serious about this comparision lmao, these situations are not similar at all and you know it lol

What a disingenous comparision

[homecourtloss]

Top 4 you say?

— Delonte was soon to be out of the league and did nothing in 2011 even before the injury.
—BigZ wasn’t even that good in 2010, and then was absolutely washed in 2011, which was his last season.
—Shaq wasn’t very good in 2010 and then 2011 would be his last season.

They did get 1000 more minutes from Jamison and added a rotational NBA player in Ramon sessions who had been at worst a neutral player the year before. They also added Ryan Hollis who was trash.

The hagiographers simply cannot accept the fact that LeBron James took a roster of nothing, absolute nothing, and took it to the heights that he did and cannot accept the fact that their chosen one played on a roster that could win 55 games without him.

Has Ben Taylor and multiple others have pointed out, the best case scenario for this type of roster was maybe 25 to 28 wins without LeBron and that’s being generous. I know you don’t like it, but these are the facts.

It seems self evident to me that if jordan had a drop off without hin data point as strong as 2011 cavs we would never hear the end of it

He does, though. It’s 1999, and actually no one talks about it much at all, because Jordan fans actually are intellectually honest enough to admit that the drop off was about more than just Jordan. Meanwhile, LeBron fans are unable to admit when there’s been more factors at play than just LeBron leaving. It’s then a little odd to see posts suggesting the dynamic is exactly the opposite of what it is.

The 99 bulls lost pippen, rodman and longley too. Their 2nd, 3rd and 5th highest minutes players as well as their coach

The 11 cavs kept mo williams, jamison, varejao and anthony parker, their 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th highest minutes players

You cannot be serious about this comparision lmao, these situations are not similar at all and you know it lol

What a disingenous comparision

No, no—losing Pippen, Rodman, and the greatest coach ever is the same as losing washed BigZ, washed Shaq, and washed Delonte, all of whom were out of league within a season.

This discussion reminds me of the WoWY “database” another poster came up with adjustments for 2011 Shaq and adjustments for injured AndyV in 2011 but not in 2015

~The Multi-Year Large-Sample WOWY Database~

LeBron James
-2003–04 Cavs: -3.07 with, -9.59 without. Total change: +6.52 [Rookie year]
-2010–11 Cavs: 6.17 with, -8.88 without. Total change: +15.05 [Traded, leaving Cavs]
*Adjusted Value: 2010–11 Cavs: Total Change: +10.94 [Teammate Adjustment: Alternate value subtracting 2011 Boston Shaq’s raw WOWY, using games with Varajao/Williams playing for ‘without’ sample]
-2010–11 Heat: 6.76 with, 1.99 without. Total change: +4.77 [Traded, joining Heat]
-2014–15 Heat: 4.15 with, -2.92 without. Total change: +7.07 [Traded, leaving Heat]
-2014–15 Cavs: 4.08 with, -3.86 without. Total change: +7.94 [Traded, joining Cavs]
-2018–19 Cavs: 0.59 with, -9.39 without. Total change: +9.98 [Traded, leaving Cavs]

2010-11 LeBron’s Cavaliers: http://20secondtimeout.blogspot.com/2011/07/analyzing-collapse-of-2010-11-cleveland.html?m=1 / [url]ESPNwww.espn.comCleveland Cavaliers: Why the Cavs have imploded in LeBron James' wake[/url]. Some
-Raw WOWY exaggerates the 2011 cavs drop because of LeBron, as it doesn’t include:
-1) They also traded: Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Shaquille O'Neal and Delonte West
-2) They lost their coach: COTY Mike Brown, and GM Danny Ferry
-3) They had injuries: “Antawn Jamison and Mo Williams began the season with nagging injuries but then the death blow to any hope for the Cavs arrived when Anderson Varejao--the team's only credible inside player--suffered a season-ending injury.

Peak years (samples over 8+ WOWY):
-1980 Bird: +12.15
-1998 Jordan: +11.28 (adjusted for Pippen/Rodman)
-2010 LeBron: +10.94 (adjusted for Shaq & injured Varejao/Williams)
-2018 LeBron: +9.98
-2018 Curry: +9.87
-2008 Garnett: +9.30 (adjusted for Allen)
-2008 Shaq: +9.26
-2021 Curry: +8.92
-1964 Wilt: +8.7 (adjusted for Wilt and his teammate’s health)
-1968 West: 8.6

[lessthanjake]

It seems self evident to me that if jordan had a drop off without hin data point as strong as 2011 cavs we would never hear the end of it

He does, though. It’s 1999, and actually no one talks about it much at all, because Jordan fans actually are intellectually honest enough to admit that the drop off was about more than just Jordan. Meanwhile, LeBron fans are unable to admit when there’s been more factors at play than just LeBron leaving. It’s then a little odd to see posts suggesting the dynamic is exactly the opposite of what it is.

The 99 bulls lost pippen, rodman and longley too. Their 2nd, 3rd and 5th highest minutes players as well as their coach

The 11 cavs kept mo williams, jamison, varejao and anthony parker, their 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th highest minutes players

You cannot be serious about this comparision lmao, these situations are not similar at all and you know it lol

What a disingenous comparision

Lol, I think this sort of response basically proved my point about the dynamic here.

Anyways, in both cases, it’s really about a lot more than just losing players. For instance, as I’ve explained recently in this thread, the 2011 Cavs had a bunch of avenues they could’ve used to add to their roster (including an enormous trade exception) and they chose not to use them, which obviously tells the team that they’re tanking. That matters quite a lot for motivation purposes. The 1999 Bulls players knew the team was tanking too, and that also mattered. The 2011 Cavs also didn’t go into the season healthy (and certainly didn’t end it healthy), which is why Jamison wasn’t starting and Mo Williams’s minutes were actually down. Of course that matters too. It would be intellectually honest to acknowledge this sort of thing, instead of acting like the difference here was just LeBron leaving. It would also be intellectually honest to acknowledge that the 1999 Bulls’s drop off wasn’t just about Jordan leaving, but the difference is you don’t see anyone refuse to acknowledge that. Which is the sort of thing that makes it puzzling to see who accuses who of “hagiography.”

Did the two teams lose the exact same amount in terms of personnel and other factors? Well I’d certainly hope not, since the 1999 Bulls and 2011 Cavs were similarly bad, but the 1998 Bulls won the title with a late-prime Jordan while the 2010 Cavs lost in the second round with peak LeBron. If the two teams lost the same amount in terms of personnel and other factors then that would suggest Jordan and LeBron aren’t even in the same stratosphere as players. But my point is pretty obviously not about exactly how big the other factors at play were. The point is that in both cases there’s a lot of other factors at play besides LeBron/Jordan leaving, and one side will readily admit that regarding both players while the other side will not admit that for their favored player.

[One_and_Done]

The arguments being put, to try and tone down what Lebron accomplished on the Cavs, strike me as disingenuous.

Jake suggests that “well, Dan Gilbert wrote a letter about how he would try to compete, but his actions say otherwise!” This analysis loses credibility quickly, when it cites the decision to let Danny Green walk as evidence of the Cavs trying to tank. Danny Green was a nobody in 2010. The Spurs picked him up for nothing, and then waived him. He had to grind it out in their G-League team and improve his play over 2 years before he finally got a modest contract with the Spurs (which he promptly outperformed). Him being cut is not indicative of some sort of intention to tank. That’s absurd.

Who else did the Cavs “lose” in 2011?
- 53 games of a Shaq who was a bad player. He had sabotaged the Suns the year before, and in 2011 he would go on to sabotage the Celtics. The only reason nobody talked about how useless he was on the Cavs was because Lebron’s incredible impact hides a lot of flaws (for the RS at least). I don’t consider losing Shaq to be much of a loss.
- They lost 64 games of Z-Ill, but Z-Ill was 34 years old and was washed. He was getting 20mpg in the RS, and by the playoffs that was down to less than 10mpg. After a failed attempt to show he could still play the next year in Miami, Z-Ill retired. He was not a loss.
- They lost Delonte West, a player more known for an invented rumour that he slept with Lebron’s mum than for anything he did on the court. After leaving the Cavs in 2011 he was out of the career in short order. The guys was not a good player.

So your argument that the Cavs lost a bunch of guys falls flat, because the guys they lost were all bad. The players on the team who were actually halfway decent pretty much all stayed. Their top 4 in mpg after Lebron were Mo, Jamison, Varejao, and Parker. All 4 were there next year. In fact, they got more minutes and games out of Jamison in 2011 than 2010. He only played 25 games in 2010, but gave them 56 the following year. He’d have given them more, but the Cavs pulled the plug halfway into the season. Hickson and Gibson, also prominent in the 2010 Cavs rotation, remained also, as did Jamario Moon.

Gilbert spent the first 40 games playing these guys, including the top 4 rotation guys aside from Lebron; Mo, Jamison, Parker and Varejao. Gibson and Hickson were usually high in the rotation too… and they sucked. They opened the season 8-32. After that, the Cavs threw the towel in. Mo Will, widely regarded as Lebron’s 2nd best play on the Cavs, was mysteriously benched 5 minutes into game 40. No injury was announced. The next game he did not dress, and then he spent 12 games on the inactive list. He was brought back for 3 games, the first of which was (probably not coincidentally) to play against the team that he was traded to, so they could get a look at him for 30 minutes. The coaches and Mo clearly knew what was up, because they played gangbusters that game and picked up their first win in 26 games. The Cavs let Mo showcase himself the next game against the horrible Wizards, then for 3 minutes against the Lakers, likely getting pulled to try and sabotage the Cavs chances of winning after a good start (it didn’t work, the Cavs won). He then sat on the inactive list some more until the trade was agreed.

For Varejao it was very similar. The Cavs just pulled him about a 3rd of the way through the season, first sporadically, then permanently. They did the same thing with Varejao the following year too; played him for the first 25 games while they were trying to win, then pulled him.

Jake tries to claim that because the Cavs didn’t do XYZ to improve the roster, they were tanking. I think that misunderstands the situation. Players didn’t want to go to Cleveland even when Lebron was there. It was a challenge to sign guys. Once Lebron left, it was always going to be difficult to add anyone. The Cavs also didn’t have a lot of money to sign guys either. Remember, the cap was only 58 million at the time, and Lebron only told them he was leaving on July 8. At that point they were scrambling to find guys to sign there.

I think the more likely explanation is that we take Dan Gilbert at his word; that he genuinely thought he could win games without Lebron. He had decent spending, he made no rebuild moves until 40 games into the season, and kept all the vets who looked like they had a pulse, including the 4 top mpg guys after Lebron. Even if they had kept guys like Shaq or Z-Ill, they’d have been just as bad anyway, because those guys weren’t good anymore. But ultimately, because of the minimal turnover of positive players, it doesn’t really matter what Dan Gilbert thought. The fact is the team was bad, and the players certainly won’t going out trying to lose. They weren’t trying to lose from 08-10 either, when the team was a pitiful 1-13 without Lebron, losing to some truly bad teams in that stretch.

[lessthanjake]

Jake suggests that “well, Dan Gilbert wrote a letter about how he would try to compete, but his actions say otherwise!” This analysis loses credibility quickly, when it cites the decision to let Danny Green walk as evidence of the Cavs trying to tank. Danny Green was a nobody in 2010. The Spurs picked him up for nothing, and then waived him. He had to grind it out in their G-League team and improve his play over 2 years before he finally got a modest contract with the Spurs (which he promptly outperformed). Him being cut is not indicative of some sort of intention to tank. That’s absurd.

This is a fair point, but when you’re losing half your rotation, waiving a guy on a tiny salary who might contribute isn’t the best play. But yes, I agree it’s possible they just erroneously thought Danny Green was bad, so that’s definitely not the biggest reason that it was clear the Cavaliers were tanking. I listed quite a lot more.

Who else did the Cavs “lose” in 2011?
- 53 games of a Shaq who was a bad player. He had sabotaged the Suns the year before, and in 2011 he would go on to sabotage the Celtics. The only reason nobody talked about how useless he was on the Cavs was because Lebron’s incredible impact hides a lot of flaws (for the RS at least). I don’t consider losing Shaq to be much of a loss.
- They lost 64 games of Z-Ill, but Z-Ill was 34 years old and was washed. He was getting 20mpg in the RS, and by the playoffs that was down to less than 10mpg. After a failed attempt to show he could still play the next year in Miami, Z-Ill retired. He was not a loss.
- They lost Delonte West, a player more known for an invented rumour that he slept with Lebron’s mum than for anything he did on the court. After leaving the Cavs in 2011 he was out of the career in short order. The guys was not a good player.

So your argument that the Cavs lost a bunch of guys falls flat, because the guys they lost were all bad.

You can wishcast that they were bad, but they were all part of the Cavaliers rotation instead of others players for a reason! Losing them and replacing them with virtually nothing is self-evidently bad. As is not trying to get anything in return for them (see, for instance, not trying to sign and trade Shaq or Ilgauskas).

In any event, you can say they’re bad, but Ilgauskas had just ranked 90th in the NBA in RAPM in 2010 (using TheBasketballDatabase), Delonte West had ranked 74th in RAPM in 2010, and Shaq would rank 46th in RAPM the next season (though was only 366th in 2010). Those are good! I’m sure you’d assert that they mostly went downhill in 2011, and I’d generally agree. But then that amounts to conceding that the Cavaliers supporting cast couldn’t stay as good as they were in 2010, since they were on the downswing (which, as I’ve noted before, is surely a good deal of the reason LeBron left). Which makes a comparison between 2010 and 2011 self-evidently flawed.

Of course, if you’re going to let people go because they’re on the downswing, then if you want to win you should still try to get something of worth in exchange for them or use your other resources (including a massive trade exception and a mid-level exception) to replace them, which the Cavaliers did not do. It really is self-evident that a team is tanking when they let half their rotation leave and, instead of using the resources they have at their disposal to replace them, they simply sit on their hands and let their payroll go from one of the highest in the league to one of the lowest in the league.

I’ll also note that an irony here is that, as Djoker said, one could make the same kind of argument about 1999. The 1998 Bulls had played about half the season without Pippen and been a 6.4 SRS team (higher than the 2010 Cavaliers). So we can easily zero Pippen out of the equation. Who else left in 1999, besides Jordan? Well, Rodman is one. But he was probably more washed at that point than even Shaq or Ilgauskas, and indeed played fewer games in the rest of his career than they did and was a less consistent starter in those few post-Bulls games than Shaq or Ilgauskas were in their post-Cavaliers games. The same sort of logic would absolutely say that Rodman was bad so him leaving didn’t matter. What else in their rotation left? Longley and Kerr? Kerr was old and was never again given even close to the minutes that he had on the Bulls. And Longley had a solidly negative RAPM in his post-Bulls years, as did Kerr. In other words, they were both bad. So what made the 1999 Bulls have a 15 SRS drop from what the 1998 Bulls did in half a season without Pippen? Rodman was washed, and Longley and Kerr were bad. Therefore, it must all be Jordan. Or at least that’s the type of conclusion one would come to if one was going to be consistent with the arguments about the 2011 Cavaliers. It’s just that it’s a short-sighted conclusion that ignores context—including that motivation was very different, the players who were playing instead of the “bad” players were likely even worse, etc. There’s only one side of these discussions that actually consistently recognizes that sort of context, rather than only recognizing it when it is convenient and otherwise adamantly refusing to do so.

The players on the team who were actually halfway decent pretty much all stayed. Their top 4 in mpg after Lebron were Mo, Jamison, Varejao, and Parker. All 4 were there next year. In fact, they got more minutes and games out of Jamison in 2011 than 2010. He only played 25 games in 2010, but gave them 56 the following year. He’d have given them more, but the Cavs pulled the plug halfway into the season. Hickson and Gibson, also prominent in the 2010 Cavs rotation, remained also, as did Jamario Moon.

Okay, so you tell me why Jamison wasn’t starting that year until into December. And you tell me why Mo Williams’ minutes were actually lower at the beginning of the year than they’d been in 2010. Same with Anthony Parker. All despite the team losing half their rotation and not replacing it with much of anything. I think an obvious explanation would be that they were tanking by not playing their “actually halfway decent” players as much as they should. But actually, that’s *mostly* not the correct explanation IMO. It’s actually largely that Jamison and Mo Williams were playing injured. However, that explanation, while true, makes people pointing to the period of time where the 2011 Cavaliers were “healthy” pretty silly.

Jake tries to claim that because the Cavs didn’t do XYZ to improve the roster, they were tanking. I think that misunderstands the situation. Players didn’t want to go to Cleveland even when Lebron was there. It was a challenge to sign guys. Once Lebron left, it was always going to be difficult to add anyone. The Cavs also didn’t have a lot of money to sign guys either. Remember, the cap was only 58 million at the time, and Lebron only told them he was leaving on July 8. At that point they were scrambling to find guys to sign there.

Dude, they had a $14.5 million trade exception that they didn’t use. They had a $5.8 mid-level exception that I am pretty sure they did not use (or at least if they did use any of it, it was barely used on low-paid free agents). They could’ve tried to sign and trade Shaq and Ilgauskas, but they didn’t. They could’ve moved the picks they got for LeBron to get someone. They didn’t. Instead of doing any of that, they let their payroll go down by like $30 million. That’s what a team does when it is wanting to tank. I don’t think this is ambiguous at all.

And you can say it’s hard to get guys to go to Cleveland, but (1) they could’ve found someone (albeit maybe at a bit of a premium), but they didn’t; and, more importantly, (2) the inability to attract players to Cleveland just makes it more likely that they’d decide to tank, rather than suggesting they weren’t tanking—this is why small-market teams end up tanking more often.

I think the more likely explanation is that we take Dan Gilbert at his word; that he genuinely thought he could win games without Lebron. He had decent spending, he made no rebuild moves until 40 games into the season, and kept all the vets who looked like they had a pulse, including the 4 top mpg guys after Lebron. Even if they had kept guys like Shaq or Z-Ill, they’d have been just as bad anyway, because those guys weren’t good anymore. But ultimately, because of the minimal turnover of positive players, it doesn’t really matter what Dan Gilbert thought.

It does matter what the organization thought, because that affects the tenor and motivation of the team in a massive way. And the idea that “[h]e had decent spending” is just nonsense. Again, they went from the 4th highest-paid roster to the 5th lowest-paid roster in the span of one offseason. They had the ability to remain one of the highest-paid rosters, but they simply chose not to. Instead, they let half their rotation go (yes, including guys who you claim “weren’t good anymore” but who had obviously been better than the guys they were playing over), and just sat on their hands and didn’t use the resources they had at their disposal to replace them. Actions speak louder than words, dude.

[One_and_Done]

These just aren’t good arguments.

1) You continue to persist with the Danny Green point. Nobody thought Danny Green was an NBA player in 2010. His release signifies nothing. The Spurs, who picked him up, waived him too. He spent 2 years in the G-League trying to earn an NBA contract. If teams thought he was good, they could have had him at any time for a minimum contract. 30 teams were not interested. This is not a point you should be raising again, in any context.

2) You continue to make erroneous points RE: Shaq and Z-Ill, claiming both that the Cavs failed by “not replacing them with something”, and “not trading them for value”. The second statement is the more misguided, so let’s start there. This may come as a shock to you, but a Shaq who is turning 38, and a Z-Ill who is turning 35, don’t actually have any value. Part of why they have no value is that they both sucked, and were old, and would expect minutes if you signed them. Shaq had sucked the year before he got to Cleveland (he basically sabotaged the entire 2009 Suns campaign; you should know this as a Suns fan!), he sucked in Cleveland, and he sucked after he left Cleveland. Shaq was washed by that point, but even washed Shaq wasn’t going to stick around with no Lebron.

So was Z-Ill. These guys were getting minutes by necessity, because the Cavs had nothing else. Even by the end of the season though, Z-Ill was down to less than 10 mpg in the playoffs, and he was turning 35. He had no value. Which is why when he tried to play the following season he was horrible, and quickly retired. I also don’t know what ability they even had to trade Z-Ill. He followed Lebron on a minimum to try and win a ring. He had no interest in being traded, and the Heat had no cap room to trade for him either (and why would they?). The big clue that these guys had no value was that they both signed for the minimum, and immediately retired after the following season. Terrible argument. Just by removing negative impact players, you can get better.

One of the many reasons plus minus stats are bad is because when a transcendent player like Lebron is carrying a bunch of luggage around, some of those luggage guys are going to get a boosted RAPM, because of the time they spend with him on the floor, because like someone has to share the court with him. I don’t care what Z-Ill’s RAPM was. He sucked in 2010. Sucked. So did Shaq, and so did D.West. That’s why all 3 fell out of the NBA not long after. They sucked in 2010, and they sucked in 2011. This wasn’t a case of them suddenly falling off a cliff after leaving.

3) Perhaps your most off the mark argument is your “this was similar to the 99 Bulls”. That is simply untrue. The Bulls guys who left with Jordan had major value, and their departure was a deathblow to the team. One of the most obvious ways to tell it was different was how the departing players were treated. Shaq, Z-Ill, and West, were given minimum type contracts and fell out of the league right away. Nobody valued them. Scottie Pippen was offered a 5 year $67 mill contract, which in the 99 cap environment was close to a max contract. Kukoc was still 29, and when he was traded a year or so later by the Bulls they got a pick that became the #7 draft pick (and Bruce Bowen). Longley was given a 5 year 30 mill contract by the Suns, which was a very big contract at the time. Again, you should know this. Even Kerr and Harper, who were older role players who took less money to ring chase, got more than the minimum that the Cavs guys got. Rodman didn’t get anything much in free agency, but that wasn’t because he had no talent anymore, it was because he was crazy and teams didn’t think they could control him (which proved correct).

4) Why did Mo’s minutes drop? Well, when you’re getting blown out every game you don’t need to play as many minutes, funnily enough. Why did Jamison not start? Well, Jamison wasn’t that good to begin with. The Cavs were hoping Hickson could step up and fill the void, and at the time Cavs fans (erroneously) believed Hickson was an upcoming all-star. That was obviously ridiculous in hindsight, and to objective fans it was absurd at the time, but that was the likely thought process. Also when you’re losing so badly, you’re going to experiment with a lot of line-ups to see what works. Jamison started 38 out of 56 games in 2011, when they were trying to win. The following year in 2012, when the Cavs were definitely tanking, they didn’t bother trying to see if Jamison could give them a lift off the bench. They just started him and let him accumulate losses while he chased stats as usual. Jamison was never a particularly good player ever to be honest, he was a guy who chased stats and posted empty numbers.

5) Trade exceptions require people to want to sign with you. With Lebron leaving town, nobody was interested in that. I think you’ve completely misread the free agent dynamics that offseason. It was considered a coup that the Cavs were able to get supposedly upcoming guard Ramon Sessions. I should also note, the Cavs showed they were very willing to spend money during the rebuild. They traded for Baron, for a pick they had no idea would turn out to be #1, knowing they’d be eating his terrible contract. I don’t think there’s much evidence Gilbert was too cheap to pay for players, his track record does not support that at all, it’s just Lebron announcing he was going on 8 July blindsided them and at that point in free agency most free agents already had deals lined up (and those who didn’t weren’t keen on Cleveland).

6) Organisations tank, players rarely do. The Nets this year are one of many examples of this. I don’t doubt the Cavs guys were going out trying to win. They just couldn’t. What the owner thought or didn’t think is largely irrelevant to them. Besides, the owner made a lot of noise about winning, whether he meant it or not. The Nets on the other hand were known by all to be tanking this year, their GM adnitting it in a roundabout way, but the players have come out to try and win. I don’t think Gilbert’s inner thoughts are relevant at all. Varejao, A.Parker, Mo, etc, these guys were pros. They were going out to try and win, even if only to ensure their next contracts.

[OhayoKD]

I’ll also note that an irony here is that, as Djoker said, one could make the same kind of argument about 1999. The 1998 Bulls had played about half the season without Pippen and been a 6.4 SRS team (higher than the 2010 Cavaliers). So we can easily zero Pippen out of the equation..

The 2010 Cavs posted a +8.1 net with Lebron. Somehow I doubt SOS dropped that by 2 over 76 games when over 82 it reduced net by less than one.

[capfan33]

These just aren’t good arguments.

1) You continue to persist with the Danny Green point. Nobody thought Danny Green was an NBA player in 2010. His release signifies nothing. The Spurs, who picked him up, waived him too. He spent 2 years in the G-League trying to earn an NBA contract. If teams thought he was good, they could have had him at any time for a minimum contract. 30 teams were not interested. This is not a point you should be raising again, in any context.

2) You continue to make erroneous points RE: Shaq and Z-Ill, claiming both that the Cavs failed by “not replacing them with something”, and “not trading them for value”. The second statement is the more misguided, so let’s start there. This may come as a shock to you, but a Shaq who is turning 38, and a Z-Ill who is turning 35, don’t actually have any value. Part of why they have no value is that they both sucked, and were old, and would expect minutes if you signed them. Shaq had sucked the year before he got to Cleveland (he basically sabotaged the entire 2009 Suns campaign; you should know this as a Suns fan!), he sucked in Cleveland, and he sucked after he left Cleveland. Shaq was washed by that point, but even washed Shaq wasn’t going to stick around with no Lebron.

So was Z-Ill. These guys were getting minutes by necessity, because the Cavs had nothing else. Even by the end of the season though, Z-Ill was down to less than 10 mpg in the playoffs, and he was turning 35. He had no value. Which is why when he tried to play the following season he was horrible, and quickly retired. I also don’t know what ability they even had to trade Z-Ill. He followed Lebron on a minimum to try and win a ring. He had no interest in being traded, and the Heat had no cap room to trade for him either (and why would they?). The big clue that these guys had no value was that they both signed for the minimum, and immediately retired after the following season. Terrible argument. Just by removing negative impact players, you can get better.

One of the many reasons plus minus stats are bad is because when a transcendent player like Lebron is carrying a bunch of luggage around, some of those luggage guys are going to get a boosted RAPM, because of the time they spend with him on the floor, because like someone has to share the court with him. I don’t care what Z-Ill’s RAPM was. He sucked in 2010. Sucked. So did Shaq, and so did D.West. That’s why all 3 fell out of the NBA not long after. They sucked in 2010, and they sucked in 2011. This wasn’t a case of them suddenly falling off a cliff after leaving.

3) Perhaps your most off the mark argument is your “this was similar to the 99 Bulls”. That is simply untrue. The Bulls guys who left with Jordan had major value, and their departure was a deathblow to the team. One of the most obvious ways to tell it was different was how the departing players were treated. Shaq, Z-Ill, and West, were given minimum type contracts and fell out of the league right away. Nobody valued them. Scottie Pippen was offered a 5 year $67 mill contract, which in the 99 cap environment was close to a max contract. Kukoc was still 29, and when he was traded a year or so later by the Bulls they got a pick that became the #7 draft pick (and Bruce Bowen). Longley was given a 5 year 30 mill contract by the Suns, which was a very big contract at the time. Again, you should know this. Even Kerr and Harper, who were older role players who took less money to ring chase, got more than the minimum that the Cavs guys got. Rodman didn’t get anything much in free agency, but that wasn’t because he had no talent anymore, it was because he was crazy and teams didn’t think they could control him (which proved correct).

4) Why did Mo’s minutes drop? Well, when you’re getting blown out every game you don’t need to play as many minutes, funnily enough. Why did Jamison not start? Well, Jamison wasn’t that good to begin with. The Cavs were hoping Hickson could step up and fill the void, and at the time Cavs fans (erroneously) believed Hickson was an upcoming all-star. That was obviously ridiculous in hindsight, and to objective fans it was absurd at the time, but that was the likely thought process. Also when you’re losing so badly, you’re going to experiment with a lot of line-ups to see what works. Jamison started 38 out of 56 games in 2011, when they were trying to win. The following year in 2012, when the Cavs were definitely tanking, they didn’t bother trying to see if Jamison could give them a lift off the bench. They just started him and let him accumulate losses while he chased stats as usual. Jamison was never a particularly good player ever to be honest, he was a guy who chased stats and posted empty numbers.

5) Trade exceptions require people to want to sign with you. With Lebron leaving town, nobody was interested in that. I think you’ve completely misread the free agent dynamics that offseason. It was considered a coup that the Cavs were able to get supposedly upcoming guard Ramon Sessions. I should also note, the Cavs showed they were very willing to spend money during the rebuild. They traded for Baron, for a pick they had no idea would turn out to be #1, knowing they’d be eating his terrible contract. I don’t think there’s much evidence Gilbert was too cheap to pay for players, his track record does not support that at all, it’s just Lebron announcing he was going on 8 July blindsided them and at that point in free agency most free agents already had deals lined up (and those who didn’t weren’t keen on Cleveland).

6) Organisations tank, players rarely do. The Nets this year are one of many examples of this. I don’t doubt the Cavs guys were going out trying to win. They just couldn’t. What the owner thought or didn’t think is largely irrelevant to them. Besides, the owner made a lot of noise about winning, whether he meant it or not. The Nets on the other hand were known by all to be tanking this year, their GM adnitting it in a roundabout way, but the players have come out to try and win. I don’t think Gilbert’s inner thoughts are relevant at all. Varejao, A.Parker, Mo, etc, these guys were pros. They were going out to try and win, even if only to ensure their next contracts.

Actually a fantastic post, well done.