One_and_Done wrote: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.
I literally responded to you talking about Danny Green by saying “this is a fair point.” I then said “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.” Waiving him was a bad decision, but I agree that it’s probably just a garden-variety bad decision rather than one that is especially indicative of tanking. But, again, I brought up quite a lot more than just that. The fact that the 2011 Cavaliers were not really trying to build a good roster is basically undeniable, regardless of whether waiving Danny Green is further evidence of that or not.
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.
I think you may not quite understand how NBA trades can work. Teams often *want* to trade for a guy (especially if on a short contract) who they don’t think will be particularly good, because it helps them offload better players and tank. Even if you think Shaq and Ilgauskas had no value on the court (definitely a dubious point, given that, for instance, Shaq ended up being 46th in the NBA in RAPM in 2011), the Cavaliers could’ve done a sign and trade with a tanking team and gotten something of more value back. They did not do that. I agree it’s not the most egregious thing the Cavaliers didn’t do though.
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.
You can say they sucked all you want, but impact data disagrees (which you just handwave away as being all about LeBron, even though the metric aims to correct for LeBron), and in any event they obviously sucked less than the guys the Cavaliers were playing them over, which ended up being pretty important without them in 2011.
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).
Scottie Pippen is irrelevant since I explicitly used a baseline of what they did without Scottie. I don’t know why you mention Kukoc being good, since he was on the 1999 Bulls. Same with Harper, who was also on the 1999 Bulls. They did not lose those guys, so how good they were is irrelevant to this discussion. You admit Rodman didn’t get much of anything, but just handwave that away. Rodman played only 35 more games in the NBA and wasn’t a consistent starter. He hadn’t even been a starter by the end, even for the Bulls (who were actually able to control him). He was washed.
As for Longley and Kerr, it’s no surprise that they’d have gotten more money than guys on the 2010 Cavaliers. The NBA market tends to like players who have just won championships! That gets people paid, often erroneously. The actual end result, though, was that both those guys had significantly negative RAPMs after leaving the Bulls. Which definitely indicates they were bad.
Again, though, I think you’re missing the point. I don’t actually think the 1999 Bulls’ huge drop from what the 1998 Bulls did without Pippen was all about Jordan. I just think that going player by player and saying they were bad like people like to do with the 2011 Cavaliers would suggest that it was basically all about Jordan, but in reality there were other significant factors at play just like in 2011. One side of these discussions is just never able or willing to admit the existence of obvious contextual factors that make a huge difference in situations like this.
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.
This is just filled with stuff that isn’t true.
Mo Williams’s minutes were down from the very beginning, before the team had an awful record and without them getting blown out. Your explanation for this is just objectively wrong.
Similarly, you try to claim that Jamison didn’t start because “when you’re losing so badly, you’re going to experiment with a lot of line-ups to see what works.” But, again, Jamison wasn’t starting from the very beginning of the season, well before things went sideways. So, again, your explanation for why this occurred is objectively wrong.
What actually happened is that Mo Williams and Antawn Jamison were injured at the beginning of the season. This is just documented fact. But of course that’s something some people don’t like to acknowledge because it wrecks the notion that there’s any “healthy” time period of the 2011 Cavaliers to look at.
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).
This is just absurd. The Cavaliers had a giant trade exception and a mid-level exception. The idea that they were incapable of using all that money is nonsense. Cleveland isn’t the ideal location for most players, but most players aren’t in an ideal location and they want to get paid. It’s just complete nonsense that they simply couldn’t use that money. They could’ve. They just didn’t want to because they were not interested in actually doing well and wanted to save money and tank. This is just blindingly obvious. Not using a $14.5 million trade exception is egregious.
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.
Have you ever played anything competitively? Players still have an incentive to do well individually even if the organization wants to lose, but the motivation is just completely different between that situation and one where the team is in title contention. Are the players going to actively throw games on the court? No, because they want to look good to get paid later. But it absolutely will affect their focus and commitment. This comes down to a lot of little things. Will the player on a tanking team be more likely to stay out late the night before a game? Yes. Will the player on a tanking team be less likely to put in extra hours at the gym or practicing their shot, at the expense of being away from their family/friends more? Yes. Will the player on a tanking team be less likely to eat well, when it requires dedication to eat and drink stuff they don’t like as much? Yes. Will the player on a tanking team chase individual stats when they’re on the court, even when it doesn’t actually help the team, because they know the team results don’t matter and their incentives relate to getting paid later? Yes. This stuff matters a huge amount! And if you think that it doesn’t and that you can just handwave it away by saying “these guys were pros,” then I just think you’ve not been around competitive sports or other events very much. Doing well takes a lot of sacrifice and people will sacrifice more when there’s a meaningful goal within reach compared to when their organization is signaling that it doesn’t care.
