At last … a naysayer. Gregg Doyel of CBSSports.com is not overly impressed with the Cavs front-court (or, in the present-day vernacular, the "bigs"). He loves LeBron James, but says the idea of the Cavs winning a championship is not realistic. In fact, he's downright insulting. He writes that the Cavs winning is "an insult to the champions who came before, none of which had a frontcourt as pathetic as Cleveland's. .. Try to find a team that was good enough to win an NBA title yet was bad enough to start players like Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Anderson Varejao at center and power forward. You can't. Don't bother."
Respectfully, and obviously, I disagree. Z is routinely ripped by people — until they see him play regularly. Then his value is apparent. And Varejao has had an excellent season. Whether they're good enough to beat the Lakers (assuming it's the Lakers) if they make the Finals remains to be seen. Heck, they have to beat the Celtics or Magic first too. But the way the Cavs are playing, and the way James is playing, they have every chance to win the title.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
agree the Cavs are not as bad as this yahoo states—but recall how pathetic they looked against the Lakers and Magic—front line IS a concern—too soft and not good shot-blockers—folks, remember THIS IS CLEVELAND—don't get your hopes up
gregg doyel must have just started watching nba in the last decade. bill cartwright on his last legs or luc longley and bill wennington on their best days make z look like an all-star. jordan made his career playing with pippen and a bunch of scrubs. so i guess those champion bulls were an insult to the champions that came before as well.
also, he is completely blowing it with his take on varejao. this isn't last season's version. this version is going to command big bucks next contract and he's earned it. he finally has a solid offensive game to go with all that energy.
i'm not too familiar with much of doyel's work because cbssportsline blows so i'll just assume he's in the skip bayless, tony kornholer school of sucking.
terje: LOVE your response!!—especially the Bayless and Kornholer comments.
I really never thought about it before, but I have to agree with this guy as to the quality of the frontcourt. I think he's probably wrong as to Cleveland not winning the title this year, but he's dead-on about the starting role-player center/power forward combination. To come even remotely close to as poor a starting frontcourt combination on a title team, you'd have to go all the way back to 1975, when Clifford Ray was at center and Jamaal Wilkes was forced to be a starter out of position at power forward.
alan, with the exception of horace grant there is no championship bulls front court player that is better than what the cavs currently have. varajao and rodman are pretty close to a wash.
Oh, please terje, don't be ridiculous. If folks ever get over his crazy eccentric nature, Rodman is going to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was a great player, even with Chicago. A monster rebounder and a first-team All-Defensive player with Chicago. The fact that now everybody down to the 15th white guy on the roster are inked from their heads to their toes, his chances have greatly increased.
Varejao is a very good role player who meshes with James, but he's only going to the Hair Hall of Fame. Come to think of it, so might Rodman. But comparing the two as players is ludicrous.
rodman's hof credentials were built with the bad boy pistons not the bulls. by that point in his career he was no better than varajao is now.
ok, i'm exaggerating. but rodman's rebounding barely offsets his lack of scoring in his bulls years. and judging by the reaction varajao gets from opponents they are both equally annoying on the defensive end.
You've gotta be kidding me, terje. The guy won the NBA rebounding title all three seasons he played with Chicago. Just with offensive rebounds alone, he averaged an incredible SIX a game. He was a scary defensive player and he intimidated everybody because he was certifiably nuts.
Who in the hell does Varejao intimidate, other than the guy who's afraid he's going to flop and draw a foul?
Again, comparing Rodman and Varejao is just beyond ridiculous. Even with Chicago, Rodman was 10 times the player Varejao is or will ever be.
But terje, he didn't HAVE to score with Chicago. If they needed him to score, he could have. All he had to do was rebound, play defense and set picks. Pretty much all Varejao has to do.
I honestly don't know how you can write any of this stuff with a straight face. Are you at least giggling? I hope so.
rodman wasn't capable of scoring later in his career. the guy has been on a bender for 15 years. all he could do is rebound. regardless, he wasn't good enough to make up the difference for longley. that front court was just as bad as the current cavs.
terje, seriously, I don't know what's in that Montana water. Whatever it is, bottle it and ship it to me.
let's see your passionate defense of luc longley.
I enjoy Australian accents. That is my passionate defense of Luc Longley.
comparisons aside, a basketball frontcourt consists of the center and both forwards. i think ol' gregg might not know that lebron james is listed as the sf.
I know that, you know that, but the guy who wrote it evidently doesn't know that about the term "frontcourt." Or maybe he knows it, but he's too sloppy a writer to give a rat's patootie about distinguishing the term from what he was really writing about.
Actually the frontcourt also consists of the backups who get minutes and that's especially true of the Cavs. Brown has always been good at rotating limited bigs during the playoffs and I imagine he'll find a decent rotation pattern in the next two series to offset Z's and Varejao's limitations.
true. at least the dude who wrote the article was clear that he was referring to the starters.