Indians Weekend Wrapup: Unimpressive Start To The Second Half
July 16, 2012Browns pass on blackout rules changes
July 16, 2012After the buildup from an exciting NBA Draft and a plethora of trade rumors surrounding the Cavaliers, there’s been a lot of buzz surrounding the wine and gold heading into the Las Vegas Summer League. With Kyrie Irving missing the festivities thanks to his mishap, it took a little wind out of the sails. However, with their two first round draft picks from this year and Tristan Thompson on the squad, there was plenty to keep the average fan entertained. Here’s a recap of some of what went down in the Bobcats 65-64 victory in the Summer League opener for the Cavs.
Let’s start with Dion Waiters, who didn’t have the best of showings for a debut. We saw flashes of the traits that made him the #4 selection, but we also saw some less than desirable results. In the first half, Waiters was nice and aggressive from the outset, but his shot selection was questionable. While Waiters is an above average three-point shooter, it’s far from his greatest offensive strength. He settled for a lot of outside shots in this one, with 4 of his 11 shot attempts coming from behind the arc. Waiters also looked completely lost on the defensive end against no one special from Charlotte. He had several occasions where his defender completely blew by him1 and marched to the bucket. Dion also was called for a couple of offensive fouls, though I felt one of them was a tough call to go against the rookie. With these negatives from this performance noted, it’s probably a good time to point out that it doesn’t make much sense to overreact to a summer league game. The rookies have been thrown in with little knowledge of offensive or defensive team philosophy. They haven’t played with any of these guys. Byron Scott hasn’t been able to get his hands on the new guys that much. I could go on and on, but know this, one subpar performance shouldn’t cause Cavalier fans to be down on Waiters.
There was, after all, some positives. Waiters showed the knack of drawing fouls and getting to the line, where he was 3-of-4. He split a double team as he zig-zagged his way to the hoop on a fourth quarter bucket. Waiters also had the ball in his hands at the end of the game and hit a go-ahead bucket with 15 seconds remaining on a long two pointer from the left wing with a defender locked on. After a Kemba Walker bucket in the middle of the lane2, Waiters had the ball inbounded to him and called a timeout. Unfortunately, the Cavaliers had none remaining and the resulting turnover wrapped up the game’s outcome. After the game, Jamahl Mosley, the Cavs Summer League head coach, took blame for not informing the team of the situation. Waiters finished 3-of-11 shooting for 10 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 turnovers in 31 minutes. Meanwhile, second pick Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was a late scratch for Charlotte with left knee soreness.
The biggest bright spot for Cleveland was definitely center Tyler Zeller. The North Carolina big man flashed his ability to run the floor and finish as well as a perimeter jumpshot. Zeller led the team with 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting to go with 5 rebounds and 2 blocks3 Zeller looked comfortable in all facets of the game, and one of his strengths is clearly his passing. The Cavs seemed to make a consistent effort with post-to-post passing between Zeller and Thompson in that first unit.4 It’s really refreshing to see Zeller’s type of hustle from the five spot. On one play of note, Zeller missed the back end of a pair of free throws, after which he sprinted down the floor to block a shot. In doing so, he picked up his teammate Waiters who got blown by in the open court. If Zeller can stretch the floor a little bit, he’ll be the perfect compliment at center to Andy and Tristan’s interior based game from the power forward position.
One final item of note was the new look Samardo Samuels. The third-year Cavalier has dropped nearly 20 pounds this offseason, and put in 10 points and 4 rebounds in 16 minutes. There’s certainly an opportunity for Samuels to fit into the rotation this season, same as last year, but he’ll need to show more consistent play. Out of the revolving door of big men from last season after the Varejao injury5, I always thought Samuels was the one who showed the most potential. We’ll see if that can translate into the season.
The Cavalier squad takes on the D-League Select team tomorrow night at 8:00 PM.
45 Comments
In before “we should have drafted _______ _______” posts. Seriously, it’s pointless to argue over Waiters’s overall NBA career performance based on one game.
Kyrie would have loved playing in these games he’d have eaten the opponents lunch all day! As far as the newest Cavaliers yea Waiters looked like a rookie but Zeller didn’t. Waiters looked out of place much like the rest of the young guys. The offensive fouls weren’t a worry the refs thought they were calling a regular season game with whistle after whistle. I think people will be pleasantly surprised by what the big man from UNC will provide. Probably not an All-Star but definitely more then a role player. I don’t think it’s to much to expect plenty of double doubles in his first season.
Tristan Thompson was very active but I wish he had an idea of what he wanted to do. It’s only game one and you can’t read much of anything into it but I sure hope he shows some signs of working on a jumper.
Samardo Samuels should have strong games every game when you look at the competition. Samuels disappointed me greatly last year. He needs to show the promise that he did two years ago IMO.
didn’t see the game. did Waiters pickup some of the PG-duties with Irving out?
Not really. The offense looked disjointed in general, but it was mostly Sloan walking the ball up. Waiters did show some ability to create when he got in the lane though, there were probably two more assists out there for him if it wasn’t a total brick show from beyond the arc.
The offense was usually initiated a good 3 steps back from the arc, it wasn’t pretty on that end of the floor
Ha. Remember last year after the first regular season game when people were upset that we drafted Kyrie instead of Norris Cole? Geniuses.
It’s easy for a guy like Zeller to look good in the summer league, b/c he doesn’t have to bang with anyone who’s going to be that challenging.
thank you sir.
Kirk, shouldn’t the score be 68 – 64 win for the Bobcats?
also, looks like if Portland doesn’t match Batum, Minny is actually ~$4mil over the cap on their deals. that means, they need to dump a $4mil player for free (and likely giveup a pick to do it). i imagine that they figured this out and have a deal in place if it happens, but this is Minny we are talking about.
so, should the Cavs be interested in JJ Barea locked in at 3 more seasons @ $4.5mil to be their backup PG? I wouldn’t do that by itself (even for “free”), but if it came with a somewhat protected 1st round pick from Minny, then I sure would jump at it. Barea can be a scoring PG off the bench and hit some 3s and the pick would be yet another asset to utilize.
also, the fact that it puts Minny over the cap shows how unlikely it is that Portland won’t just match.
Before the cavs called the timeout they didn’t have Chris Webber walked down the aisle next to me I thought that was ironic. Bobcat put on a press against the cavs without a dependable point guard and limited practice time the offense look disjointed.
No they should of taken both because both were the best players on the board the time they were picked genius.
It stinks knowing we could of had Klay Thompson and T-Rob instead of TT and Waiters. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gilbert had influence with these picks because it looks like someone with no basketball intelligence made these selections. TT looks terrible still which isn’t surprising because he was horrible when they picked him and Waiters is decent but to pass up on T-Rob at #4 was stupid. Thank you Gilbert for wasting yet another golden opportunity because we just had 4 picks the last 2 years that should have had better results than this. And don’t start this crap about picking Kyrie correctly because he was the clear cut #1 pick and thank gosh they could get this right even though every single expert was basically picking Kyrie.
judging by the way that offense looked without Kyrie in there, I am guessing Grant is burning up the phone looking for PGs as we speak
We certainly can’t judge Waiters in one game, but I did notice a lot of indecision and lack of explosiveness from him. I’m not worried about it yet, but my biggest question right now is why we didn’t see the quickness and handle to shake his man in ISO situations.
Let’s see if he looks faster and more confident tonight.
Biyombo and Mullens are probably two of the better players he’ll see in the summer league. Mullens looked like he put on some muscle since the end of last season. Are they Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum? No… but they’re not John Everyman from East Poly Tech State either.
That’s fair.
To add to BrownsFanSF’s point, the B-cats also pressed a ton forcing the Cavs to use two guards to bring the ball up court. He played with Donald Sloan a lot so both guys got their chances to set up the offense after breaking the press. Neither guy turned the ball over versus the press from what I can remember, which was nice. I actually thought Waiters looked pretty good handling the ball and thought he’d do a reasonably good job in the James Harden not-a-point-guard-but-sets-up-the-second-unit-offense role, which is what I’m projecting his role will be by some point this season. I think he’s too perfectly suited for that than to be the secondary playmaker all of the time when Kyrie and the rest of the 1st unit are on the floor, but I reckon that’s more of a personal feeling.
wasn’t trying to crap all over your statement btw… just thought that there are a few decent players who are testing Zeller. Certainly not a lot of guys though.
No worries. You were totally correct about Mullens and Biyombo. They are legitimate NBA guys.
This is a bad post. (I didn’t feel the -1 was enough.)
It’s negative, uninformed, and illogical.
Which NBA scouting department are you working for, again? I always forget. I appreciate your sterling insights, though.
“no basketball intelligence”
Interesting that you decided to write something about yourself in your pointless statement, floydrubino.
someone is having a bad day.
I typed a reply then thought better of it because we all have to have one team that no matter what they do it doesn’t seem right. For floyd it’s clearly the Cavaliers and for me it’s the football team. Although I’m starting to soften due to what I see as a significant improvement in talent on the roster. Now if I could only shake the feeling that the increase in talent will not be able to overcome what I perceive as inadequacies and shortcomings of a coaching staff I might be able to call the football team by name.
Agreed, the main turnover issue was offensive fouls and charges. Maybe that was a little of Dion being out of control trying to break the press, maybe a little bit of summer league officiating? Either way, it definitely changed his aggressiveness.
The also ran some zone, which was really weird
This is true… thought these summer league games were supposed to be prepping the players to play in the NBA rather than college? How often do you see a full-court press, a half-court trap, or zone defense in the NBA where LeBron isn’t involved? Oh well. Also agree about Dion looking out of control at times. He showed that he can get the rim, draw contact, and finish a shot. He also showed that he can barrel through a guy whose feet were set long before Dion showed up. He badly needs to develop a pull-up jumper a la Westbrook. Saw him try it once and it was way off… doesn’t look like he has that move in his arsenal yet and would help him from fouling too much.
He got locked up a little too much on the perimeter too. I think my expectations were a bit ridiculous (I’m sure I wasn’t the only who had some absurd idea he was just gonna dunk on everyone), but it was too easy to push him out past the 3 point line and make him defer. I think we’ll see more aggressiveness tonight after Byron get’s his ear.
I probably had a different conclusion because I was really tempering my expectations. I wasn’t against the pick, but I had not seen much of Waiters in college and was preparing myself for the possibility of a bust. Before the game started I thought that he would mostly look like a shooting guard, but afterwards thought he did better than your average 2-guard out on the perimeter, and although he had the dumb charges, he didn’t really turn the ball over on the perimeter either. He used his hesitation dribble really well and seemed like he could have turned the corner on a guy just about any time he wanted (but for some reason he chose not to). I have to hand it to DraftExpress, he basically looked like exactly the player who they had mapped out, for both his strengths and weaknesses.
Which summer league game did you watch to start you on this rant? Thompson was absolutely dominant on the offensive glass… they couldn’t keep him from getting the ball, and he showed some very good post moves, not to mention some solid defense. Waiters looked like a player who hasn’t played in the NBA before… needs time before you can evaluate. Zeller looked like the great pick most of us thought he was. Samuels and Sloan both had strong showings. The only reason the Cavs lost the game is because the guys who have no shot at making the team were horrific at best. I’d be interested to know what exactly you saw that was so bad.
hate to point out the obvious (but if im gonna sit through 2 1/2 hours of summer league basketball then i have to at least post about it), but Waiters will look much different with KI running the point. Sucks that were gonna have to wait 8 weeks to see it.
however it also sucks that Lamb and HBarnes looked like studs early
And Thompson and Zeller have the potential to be rebunding beasts on bothe ends of the floor
DVR set for the next game
I agree, but think it is fair to point out how out of shape Waiters looked. He looks about 10-15 pounds heavier then his playing weight at Syracuse and even then he was rather large for a two-guard.
One thing about Waiters he kept getting people wide open shots… a lot to sloan and kennedy the PGs… all I could think of were in the regular season those are going to be to Kyrie, Gee or Boobie maybe? those are gonna fall then it opens it up for him and everyone. First game I know but also I love Zeller I think he can be more than a career backup he would have to have a game similar to the old Z ironically
I love the browns the most out of any sports teams ever but I love the cavs and indians a lot as well. I played a ton of basketball but football is my favorite sport. I have an overwhelming knowledge on both sports(lol) so I have to share it through platforms hoping some of it might pepper onto the most clueless owners in sports. People think it’s like reinventing the wheel to be successful and it’s not. Is it challenging of course but these owners play us for idiots and don’t represent the true knowledge or passion from ohio sports in general. It makes me sick that these idiots don’t understand how you have to ge great at one particular thing and then move on. In football we should only pick studs on the o-line and get this built up before we move on to other areas and draft qb prospects in the right area as far as the offense is concerned. In basketball it’s easy. You pick the best player in that spot because you need 2 all stars minimum to win a championship. The idiotic ego of gilbert thinks he can hand select players and build a team when he has no clue about evaluating talent obviously is alarming. He just wasted away 2 #4 picks in a row on decent players but not all star ability. I don’t like being portrayed as an organization in every sports team except for baseball that can’t pick talent. In baseball we have had a lot of talent we just can’t keep them here because the way the salaries are set up.
ditto
you must be right in line with gilbert on how to build a team. got it
Only it looks like he can play some D
One thing I noticed about Thompson that I really like other than the fact that he was a monster on the offensive boards: he has a nice move in the post around the foul line where he rolls to his right, rises up to the top of his jump, and floats in a half-hook shot with his right hand. This is an almost unstoppable shot as there are few players in the league who can get up that high quickly enough to contest the shot.
Also, if we’re going to pick apart summer league performances, we should note that Thomas Robinson looks pedestrian with the Kings tonight. Jeremy Lamb on the other hand, looks really impressive.
” The idiotic ego of gilbert thinks he can hand select players”
i have seen no evidence that gilbert influences the FO’s decisions on drafted players at all.
No, I’m right in line with those who think that you have no basketball intelligence, little boy.
no reason to cross that line here
What makes Gilbert have any basketball intelligence. Because he owns the team. Then I guess Randy Lerner has a lot of football intelligence. Yeah I’m a real idiot to question TT and Waiters. I don’t mind waiters as a player but i think we could of got him with the trade for varejao at #7 with golden state along with T-Rob. I could care less about your opinion because I can tell how you know nothing about anything in the first 2 posts I have ever heard from you. Your probably named Lunch because you love it that much big boy.
No it’s real tough to see that. If you can’t tell how he influences decisions you must be real perceptive naturally. Tom Izzo was getting the job because of him. Danny Ferry stinks and kept his job for as long as he did because he “valued” Gilbert’s opinion. Now Grant is a yes man. Gilbert you could tell by the tone of his “letter” about lebron how much he is vested in the decisions. He blew the 3 picks along with Kyrie. We are a 50 win team that loses in 2nd round at best if we don’t play chicago or miami in the 1st round the next 6 years.
yes, Izzo had Gilbert’s fingerprints all over it. but, I think the rest of your statements here are baseless conjecture. it gets out pretty quickly when the owner is pulling the strings and not letting his people do their job. all we have heard about Gilbert is that he says “yes” when Ferry or Grant has gone to him to ask to add salary.
Ok!