You’re right about this offense (or absence of offense). It needs a point guard. Without a system, you need someone that can facilitate movement and passing.

As for your other proposal, I just don’t know if another athletic wing player is really the right fit for this team. The problem is that when you have a guy like Lebron, athletic slasher scorer types probably aren’t going to fit in very well. Its very difficult to just duplicate what you already have and win because can’t define their roles.

If you look at the really good teams in the NBA over the last few years, they’ve all had several really good players but that each do something very different. Take the following groups for example: Parker, Duncan Ginobli….Billups, Hamilton, R. Wallace…Nash, Marion, Amare…Shaq, Wade…Garnett, Pierce, Allen.

Every single player in these groups does something different. I just think for chemistry and role playing purposes, you need that. We went the athletic slasher/scorer type one with Larry Hughes, and even though in truth, he was neither althetic or a slasher/scorer, you could tell that such a player would never really fit with Lebron.

As for this trade being the best deal out there….I believe it absolutely was. Not so much the Chicago part which I think was apples for apples, but when Seattle came into it, it became a great deal. My guess is we could’ve had any GM in the NBA at the deadline this year and he would not have been able to do any better. If anything, I give Ferry credit for being creative enough to pull this one off. He drastically improved the depth of his rotation without changing the Cavs cap flexibility. That could not have been easy.

And Andy needs to make a few layups!!

I hope the Cavs have TIME to get the new players into the flow of the game. I sometimes wonder if these late season trades EVER work out. I mean come on, Detroit has got to have a big time advantage since their same core group of guys have been playing together for years!

You make some good points but allow me to respond to some of them. First, this wasn’t a trade just to make a trade. I highly doubt Dan Gilbert would put up the kind of extra cash that this deal commands just to make a trade. My guess is that Ferry and Gilbert decided that they needed to get rid of Hughes (so that a fan didn’t come out of the stands at the Q and choke him) but that they couldn’t do it without getting some guard help to replace him. They also knew that his contract was so bad that they could only move it for something equally bad. Thus, the Bulls became an obvious first team to involve in the trade with Wallace’s remains under a ridiculously bad contract. They probably figured they could dump Hughes and actually get more polished depth at the 4 in Wallace and Smith (as opposed to the decidedly unpolished Drew Gooden). Then, Seattle comes in looking to give away a free backcourt, allowing us to replace some of Hughes’ scoring and upgrading the point and a logical deal is born. Plus, keep in mind that Ferry probably doesn’t sneeze without Lebron’s permission. What I mean by that is that when Ferry told Lebron he was going to trade Hughes, we can gather from the resulting trade that Lebron didn’t exactly picket outside of Ferry’s office to protest the deal.

In regard to the point guard talk, West is certainly not a great point guard but the truth of the matter is that those guys don’t hit the market very often. A lot of the really good guards like Paul, Williams, Parker, etc. are with the teams that drafted them. After Boston, Toronto, and Minnesota all gave away Billups, Golden State gave away Arenas, and Dallas parted with Nash, I think teams have gotten a little gun shy about letting franchise PGs walk. The ones that hit the market now are usually on the market for a reason. See Kidd, Jason or Bibby, Mike. Even on a team looking to rebuild and shed salary, the franchise point guard is the last guy they’re going to give away. So, either the Cavs are going to have to get lucky, draft the right guy, or just make do without. The franchise point guard you are looking for probably isn’t just going to show up on the market next year.

I’m torn on the coach thing. Brown is really a doofus on offense and I wonder sometimes if you can win a title with a guy like that. But, at the same time, do you remember how bad the Cavs were on defense before he go there? Almost as bad as they’ve been since the trade!!! Also, if the Cavs fired the guy who was at the helm when the one man band made it to the NBA finals, they would have a lot of explaining to do. If the new coach didn’t do better, and only 1 team a year does better, they would be crucified. It’s a tough spot for them to be in. Truthfully though, none of this talk matters because I think Brown has at least 2 more years before he has to worry about his job.

No one shot well last night, but Wallace needs to not get schooled by the likes of Noah. Someone needs to make him angry or something.

The people who were dissin’ Z this year should look at the stats and the last few games and realize that we’re lucky to have him, he is an underrated component on the Cavs. Alan got mad at me for saying that Z ‘bleeds Cleveland’ earlier in the season, but I maintain that Z is a loyal Cavalier and always has been, and he overcame his early injuries and has had a great career for us. I can’t wait for him to come back, Andy to be 100%, and Pavs and Gibson to get back too.

I don’t think many remarks on here qualify as ‘fatalism’, folks are just analyzing the moves and it’s a little painful to watch the incontinuity with the new guys and the injuries to boot. We all have faith in the King, else we wouldn’t bother reading.

I will say BW makes a lot of typos, gotta watch that man!