M-Borg vs. THE Flavortown U Thread, Orig. by Buckeye Paul, absconded w/by talent.

[iam416]

Eh. I would have kept Wiggins. That said, the team wins the title if even Kyrie is healthy. Which, I suppose, goes further to the point about Wiggins.

They'll be favorites next year. And if they stay healthy they'll win it.

[iam416]

Fortunately, the team I really care about is the first ever UNDISPUTED champions, bringing back ungodly talent and set to recruit even better in the next two cycles.

[froot loops]

I think it was Golden State's year with or without Irving. But I do think Kerr was blowing it until the end of game 3. Then he figured out he had the much more versatile team and started using his players differently

In retrospect, the Love/Wiggins trade will not be thought of highly even if Love signs with them and they win a couple of titles. But I thought it was a no brainer trade at the time.

[hack]

I think we'll see a rematch and I think both teams will be better next year. Cavs'll win it and be clearly the better team in the process. But I shudder to think of how they'd have absolutely owned the league for 3-5 years if they hadn't jettisoned Wiggins. Very relieved about that.

[froot loops]

The Warriors get any better and they are in 96 Bulls territory.

[hack]

I wonder what GSW does about Bogut/C. Still would see him getting plenty of regular-season minutes, and James/Mozgov two-man game will be more effective next year once they really gel. GSW's got to have in the back of its head that it was clearly the better team and still the games were much closer than they should have been. They should want to tinker.

[iam416]

In retrospect, the Love/Wiggins trade will not be thought of highly even if Love signs with them and they win a couple of titles. But I thought it was a no brainer trade at the time.

There was a ton of discussion on this contemporaneously and Cavs fans were probably roughly 60/40 in favor of the trade. It was more that they thought they could wait a year and get Love for free than they disagreed about the value. Love will be there next season -- it makes absolutely zero sense for him to go anywhere else -- and we'll see what happens with the gold rush/new salary cap at the end of next season.

I think we'll see a rematch and I think both teams will be better next year. Cavs'll win it and be clearly the better team in the process. But I shudder to think of how they'd have absolutely owned the league for 3-5 years if they hadn't jettisoned Wiggins. Very relieved about that.

Nah. Wiggins was long-term. It would have been Kyrie-LBJ then transitioning to Kyrie-Wiggins. Love is the better player for them over the next 3-5 seasons (well, assuming he's with them for 3-5 seasons). Love is really good. It took the Cavs a long time to figure out shit, but by the last half of the season they were really, really good. They started 19-20, finished 34-9 (13-1 against the West including a pasting of GSW in Cleveland) and went 12-2 through the East without Love for 11 of those games and with a limited Irving for half of them.

Then he figured out he had the much more versatile team and started using his players differently

He had a team that had multiple scoring options. The Cavs were so bad offensively that they were better off going with a defensive lineup and hoping GSW were off. It was like watching the OSU team that lost to Wichita -- playing grinding defense and hope your only scorer (DeShaun) lights it up. With Irving you add a fantastic scoring option that is capable of going off for 40 any night. The marginal difference between him and Dellavedova is almost incalculable. Whereas Love would have been awesome to have, the marginal difference b/t him and Mozgov/Thompson isn't unmanageable. It's large -- but manageable.

Anyway, the Cavs open as clear favorites in Vegas. 2.25:1. GSW is 5:1.

[iam416]

I should also add, while the Love-Wiggo trade is looking bleh -- and may turn into a disaster if Love bolts after next season, the acquisition of Mozgov, Shumpert and Smith for a bag of beans (i.e., late 1st round picks) was a great move by the Cavs. Mozgov, in particular, really changed that team and gave them the defensive presence in the middle they needed. I really think think with the full compliment of scorers, the Cavs would have railed that small lineup bullshit. With Love, LBJ, Irving and, say, JR Smith -- the key is wide open and there's zero double opportunities and Mozgov would abuse Green or whomever. It would force them to play Bogut. With the hobos they had surrounding the arc, there was zero concern for any of that.

[hack]

Mozgov is DAMN GOOD. Love plus Irving and you're really starting to screw your defense. Plus LeBron now loves Thompson. You commit to a d-first identity and can get away with it because in LeBron and Irving you have two of the best on-ball players in the league and you can keep the defensive identity. With Wiggins the defense is suddenly completely ferocious. You create matchups havoc by playing LeBron at any of the five positions, and extend LeBron's career through Irving and Wiggins. With Love they've got a foot in the pace/space school and a foot outside of it, and less defense.

Overall I agree that Smallball won the series but a bit of a closer look and you see it wasn't a win for smallball. It's still vulnerable and the Cavs will probably punish it next year.

[iam416]

Yeah, Mozgov was really a revelation. I don't mind JR Smith as a role player.

TBH, I haven't seen enough of Wiggins to get a feel for where he is as a player. I know he's athletic and I assume he's a very good defender.

But, I'll hold out on a final assessment of the Love-Wiggins trade until after next season. Then we'll see a lineup/rotation that should be finely tuned. And we'll also see if Love bolts. Hopefully the shorter-term value approached the long-term loss.

Like I said, they were really, really good in the 2nd half of the season. Mozgov made them into a decent defensive team (I'm certain the stats bear that out both in terms of significant improvement and relative ranking). And offensively they really started to hum. GSW would have had a hard time with them.

[froot loops]

Its easy to install the Cavaliers as the favorite because the East sucks. They might even win a championship, but all the projections are counting on a lot of injured players. Irving is a great player, but this year was the first year you can claim he played a full year and he didn't complete the playoffs. Varejao has played two full seasons in his whole career. Kevin Love has been injury plagued.

The Wiggins/Love trade hurts in a way not talked about. Wiggins is cheap. If the Cavs bring back all of the key players, they are in Prokhorov territory.

[hack]

The Wiggins/Love trade I think goes down as one of the worst in a long time. Massive overpayment for a player who fits nicely on offense but very poorly on defense. The flexibility Wiggins would have brought on defense is insane, and agreed about the salary. You're looking at the rest of LeBron's prime with an elite wing defender and complementary scorer on rookie deal. LeBron likes Love's backup much better anyways, and now they've got to pay that guy starter money because he's a legit starter in the league. So, yeah -- gotta hope Irving can stay healthy and get a ring and maybe two out of this era, but it could have been a completely ferocious team. You could run LeBron out there for 15mpg a night with Thompson, Wiggins, Delly and Shumpert and just bully the heck out of offenses without LeBron really having to expend a ton of effort but in that centerfielder role he had for a bit in Miami. Shudder. That would have been fun to see.

[iam416]

No doubt the Cavs get a bump because they're a near lock to win the East.

Varejao is irrelevant. I mean, at this stage I'd take Thompson.

Wiggins is real cheap. Gilbert may have to pay out the ass, but I suspect he will do so even if he ends up over $50M in luxury tax.

As we saw, the Cavs aren't good enough to win w/o Love and Irving. So, yeah, if they're hurt again, that sucks. But, if they're not, they're the best team in the league, IMO. And I'm not sure it's really close. But I'd love have seen GSW-Cavs with no injuries. That would have been some fantastically entertaining basketball.

[hack]

Could have descended into a game of horse. I personally like basketball when things are contested, but it would have been a highlights factory, that's for sure.

Frankly right now no teams are all that good. GSW can buzzsaw through the regular season, but that's no big thing. Houston of all teams made it to the conference finals. There's a bunch of teams that are just kinda not fully there. SA might really change the complexion if they get Aldridge. Anyhow, it's interesting to see the gushing over smallball right now. I don't think that's wise.

The Cavs are capped as it is, right? With Love they're in luxtax land, and without him they're still capped?

[froot loops]

I didn't quite understand what Kerr was doing early in the series. The gameplan he stuck with was allowing the Cavs to dictate the pace of the game. I truly think the worst thing to happen to the Cavaliers was they went up 20 in game three. Once that happened he scrapped the game plan and started experimenting. I thought David Lee was hurt, I realize they were petrified of Lee trying to defend Lebron on a pick and roll, but Lebron was scoring no matter what. Then in game 4 they started actually trying to run a fast break. Once that happened it turned out the series was a formality. But for the first 3 games it seemed like Cleveland was going to win the series.