Eddy may be an awful all around player but he can still score and put pressure on the defense and dray fouls. I think if you put collins and balkman on parker they would have done a much better job, not to mention having someone like crawford who is great off the dribble to really attack the guy, if that was his soul objective.....

We really under value david lee, and because we have to put up with frye, jefferies, francis you get a skewed perspecitive of the knicks

Posted by MS:

We really under value david lee, and because we have to put up with frye, jefferies, francis you get a skewed perspecitive of the knicks

Sorta. He played great, but... he's not a star yet. You're still talking potential. He might be that good if he gets the minutes, he might not. He doesn't get the minutes right now... so it's 'fudging' at best to automatically say he's that good. But I agree, in part. Hopefully Isiah opens his eyes, plays the guys who give us the best chance to win, so we can actually evaluate the team.

It's easy to underestimate the Cavs because they don't have players aside from LeBron who stand out as really great. Their strengths are a little less in your face and emerge at the team level. They are a fantastic defense and rebounding club, which is what got them to the Finals.

I'm really not so sure that replacing Marbury with Bron would yield a better team than the Cavs have. We'd have flashier individual players and a much better offense, but the defense and rebounding wouldn't be up to par. We're actually a pretty good rebounding team, but not as good as the Cavs. And of course our D isn't close.

this is insane the cavs minus lebron is top 5 worst team in the league i put my life on it

Posted by bitty41:

Posted by BlueSeats:

Cavs are a good team, just not championship caliber. They need a couple of pieces. It's not easy to win a 'chip, even the Heat struggle and they have Shaq, plus Lebron's equal in Wade.

Am I overrating Wade? Maybe, he's less dimensional than 'Bron, but I think he's mentally tougher. Wade would not have been settling for jumpers. Cleveland needed Bron to be MJ, not Magic. Bron needed to take things into his own hands, like he did in the double overtime win against detroit, not play set-up man.

Mike Brown seems like a good coach. He's inspirational and has them playing D, but I agree with DJ, I don't see him getting Lebron to the next level.

Blue I've been saying that since they both came into the league. Lebron may have the physical edge and just his sheer size and capability at that size. Wade has that killer instinct. Every game in last year's playoffs Wade was like an assasin just that will to win. I think that mental toughness factor is lacking at least thus far in Lebron's game we'll see flashes of it but its not there every night and it wasn't there in every playoff game.

In terms of the coaching Mike Brown I think works for them maybe not long-term but clearly now he's getting maximum results for his guys. Nothing for nothing if Lebron is such a great player he himself should be the one taking his game to the next level. The coach is basically there to bring the rest team along. A great player shouldn't need a coach to dig in his ass for him to kick into first gear that should be a second nature.

bitty I agree with all, but I think a more confident a battle test coach (the very few on Larry Brown's level) would have challenged Lebron more to take it in and draw contact. Whether that means putting the ball more in Snow's hands, or having lebron ball-handle more, or play him at PF or center, I don't know, but game after game, possession after possession, a 22 year old Lebron seemed left out there to figure things out for himself. Good defense confuses people, as does fatigue, and I'm not sure Mike Brown knew how to simplify things for Lebron. Maybe all he needed to do was to tell him to take it to the rim every time.

An example was late in yesterdays game when the Spurs had the ball with like 40 secs to go, up like 8, and Brown let them use the entire possession without fouling. I thought he was conceding the game. He has them generally competing at a high level, but I'm not convinced he's all that great at in-game adjustments.

Posted by Solace:

Posted by Elite:

this is insane the cavs minus lebron is top 5 worst team in the league i put my life on it

RIP

Seriously, why all the outrage? The Cavs aren't that good without LeBron. I think we all agree. The only cause of dismay is that the Knicks are terrible and we just want to say we're better than the Cavs without LeBron. Really, who cares? They have LeBron. We don't.

I see what you're saying but I agree with Elite's point and would say that the Cavs have done a poor job building around Lebron. They strike me as a poorly run franchise that isn't .300 every year only because they made one good draft pick (just like Minnesota with KG).

Mike Brown is just a terrible coach. I could have coached LeBron to the conference finals. I too could have taken a step back and watched LeBron beat the Pistons. I definitely could have made no adjustments on the way to getting swept against the Spurs.

I don't think Mike Brown is as bad as everyone else seems to think. There are a bunch of strategic, within game things you could quibble about like how he manages time outs or how he deals with players in foul trouble. But ultimately the Cavs are a great defensive team and I think Brown deserves a lot of the credit for that. It's not like they have Mutombo in the middle and Payton on the perimeter. The guys they have don't have reputations for being great individual players but Brown has them playing great team D, which is what allowed them to get as far as they did in the first place.

Would LB make a difference? Doubt it. I don't think they can get a whole lot better on D than they already are. On offense, LB might actually hurt them since he hates the 3 point shot and that's one of the only weapons they have.

What they need isn't a new coach... what they need is a point guard and a couple of deadeye shooters. If they had gotten Redd when he was a FA instead of Hughes they'd be a lot further along.

......well, i am gonna displace duke boozer because of the duplication with z-man and gooden. they never should've got rid of ricky davis

Posted by tomverve:

Would LB make a difference? Doubt it. I don't think they can get a whole lot better on D than they already are. On offense, LB might actually hurt them since he hates the 3 point shot and that's one of the only weapons they have.

LB didn't hate 3's when he had Reggie shooting them. But his disinclination for them might also help with teams who struggle with them, like Cleveland did much of the series. No way he'd have Bron hanging out on the perimeter, and that alone would have been a distinct improvement, IMO.

Posted by tomverve:

Posted by BlueSeats:

LB didn't hate 3's when he had Reggie shooting them. But his disinclination for them might also help with teams who struggle with them, like Cleveland did much of the series. No way he'd have Bron hanging out on the perimeter, and that alone would have been a distinct improvement, IMO.

3s are valuable enough that even shooting them at a poor clip can give you decent returns. And of course you have to weigh it against what is really avaialble from within the arc. But I don't think the Cavs have much in the way of a midrange game either.

Anyways, not saying LB definitely wouldn't make a difference. He might, but I just don't think it's likely that it would be a really big difference. Bottom line is that to take the next step the Cavs just need more offensive firepower.

This just shows you that you need D to win championships, but YOU'VE GOT TO SCORE TOO! it's so silly that so many seem to forget this. You want to have a balanced team and the Cavs just weren't even close to balanced enough. They tried to add shooting with guys who have been known for their 3pt shooting, but they haven't worked out. Damon and Donyell were horrible and Sasha came up small at the wrong times. It wasn't all SA defense. They missed wide open shots.