GO CAVALIERS YOU CANDO IT!

WAYNEDAWG

My comment was directed specifically at arguments that LeBron’s improvement this year (over last year) was specifically and entirely the reason for the Cavs improvement this year. I don’t believe you made that argument, so it wasn’t directed at you.

Thank you for your insights, however.

He’s basically collapsed …you can play the blame game if you wish …but, he’s playing worse than th other three bigs that I’ve mentioned.

The amazing thing, given his level of play, is that Lebron still has more improvements he can make. Every Cleveland sports fan should be devoutly grateful to LBJ. We are all witnesses!

But any non brain dead person could have done those things. The big danger signs for the franchise’s future are the giant contracts to Hughes and, yes, Z, who are demonstrating in this years playoffs that they are not the players we need to get to the next level. I have been a Z supporter for a long time, but in the 9 games we have played so far in these playoffs I think he has given pretty conclusive evidence that the critics are right and the supporters are in denial. The claim that the Cavs don’t feed Z enough is I think wrong. They don’t feed him because when they do he takes up three quarters of the shot clock and then generally doesn’t score. (That is, if he doesn’t turn it over). Every game I see the Cavs try to feed Z to start out, and every game his lack of athleticism shows. Then the Cavs quite rightly move away from the strategy because they need to get the ball to someone who can score consistently.

I agree with everything you said. I go to 82games.com and other sites all the time; I think they’re really interesting and I agree that statistics can sometimes help explain why certain “realities” are not actually so.

My point is simply that in Z’s case, anything 82games or any other site throws out to support him should not be given as much weight as watching him play with your own eyes. I don’t know of any stat that can track “players who most frequently disrupt the flow of a game,” but with the three things I mentioned (missed tip-ins, travels, foul trouble), Z disrupts the flow of the game more frequently than is acceptable for an eight-year, highly-paid veteran who is supposedly an integral part of the offense.

When you factor in all the stats, his experience, and his salary (which to my knowledge 82games.com doesn’t do), the criticism is warranted.

I’ve seen and heard “experts” say that aside from LeBron, Z is the “key” to many games; I even heard this during the Washington series. Well, he’s so “key” that he has routinely been benched during the playoffs; the only reason why he has not lost the starting job is because the coaches probably don’t want to cause team conflict.

I hope he is traded in the offseason. Nice person, for all I know or have read, but not a good complement to LeBron in the Cavs’ push for a championship team.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dailydime-060514

So, of course you’re going to “see” that these moves were of no consequence and all the improvement was LeBron and of course “common sense” is going to tell you that the signings were irrelevant to Cav improvement. You’re heavily invested in those opinions.

This is why I sought out a variety of statistical indices to shed light on the situation. Sometimes what we “know” is based very heavily on what we want to be true.