Kyrie Irving to defend three-point crown on All-Star Weekend
February 6, 2014Scott Raab discusses Chris Grant’s firing – WFNY Podcast – 2014-02-07
February 7, 2014While We’re Waiting is a space on the WaitingForNextYear website where we share links every day. We’ve been doing it for about four years or so. Denny Mayo used to be much more amusing with his intros, if you recall. You know the drill: Email us with suggestions at tips@waitingfornextyear.com.
Blaming the Cavs for falling into the trap of the LeBron years: “This is the latest example of a franchise assuming that there is a template for the type of success enjoyed by the likes of the San Antonio Spurs translating to every other market. It takes stars, superstars usually, and just the right fit to launch an outfit from the lottery to the upper echelon of the league. The players come first, then the success. That’s the way it’s always been and always will be. Assuming that some set infrastructure is supposed to come first is where the Cavaliers went wrong.” [Sekou Smith/NBA.com]
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Loved the underpant gnome grading scale here of Chris Grant’s moves as Cavs GM: “Signed guard Kyle Lowry to an offer sheet. This would’ve helped a lot. No, seriously, it would have. Grant signed Lowry to a three year (fourth-year option) sheet worth roughly $24 million. Lowry’s per-36 PPG of 15 would look nice on this Cavaliers team. Although you could argue the drafting of Kyrie Irving would have made Lowry expendable but I think they could’ve worked well together. It didn’t matter, the Rockets matched and Lowry remained in Houston. Good try, good effort Chris.” [Rich Kraetsch/Hickory-High]
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Learn more about Grant’s (interim) replacement David Griffin: “The man is a Phoenix native who graduated from Arizona State. He started with the Suns in 1993 as an intern in the media relations department and moved his way up the ranks to become the Vice President of Basketball Operations in 2007. He was Steve Kerr’s number two and was a big part of that great 2009-2010 team.” [Seth Pollack/Bright Side of the Sun]
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Wither Mike Brown? “But as the Cavs sit at 16-33, the topic of head coach Mike Brown is unavoidable. This is Brown’s first year on a 5-year contract that will pay him $20 million. But he was hired by a general manager who no longer works for the organization. Gilbert was apparently all-in on Brown when they hired him and even admitted that firing him the first time was a mistake.” [Conrad Kaczmarek/Fear The Sword]
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I’ll always be cheering for this Peoria native and former Cavalier: “The secret weapon that helped inspire Shaun Livingston’s midseason turnaround is a little blue book sitting in his locker inside Barclays Center. It’s not a playbook, or a diary detailing the ins-and-outs of opposing point guards. Instead, it’s a copy of “Siddhartha,” the novel by Hermann Hesse detailing a man’s quest for enlightenment.” [Tim Bontemps/New York Post]
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Excellent breakdown of the historic NBA seasons were seeing from LeBron James and Kevin Durant: “There have been some other impressive numbers flying around—Durant put up a 37.1 PER in January, for example—but those last two figures, true shooting and usage percent, are the most remarkable; no other player this season has this combination of offensive centrality and scoring efficiency. In fact, they might be outpacing every season of every player in history.” [Reuben Fischer-Baum/Deadspin]
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Cavs fans should stop hoping for LeBron though: “There is no real point to trying to figure out where LeBron will end up this offseason, because he’s not talking about it. (Though obviously, a couple people in his camp are, no doubt with his permission.) If he wants to go somewhere, nearly every team in the league can find some way to make it work, so gauging each franchise’s odds is little more than a parlor game, apparently even for people whose job it is to get useful information and then report it back to us.” [Colin McGown/Sports on Earth]
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Look forward to reading through this gigantic long-read soon. It’s “The Big Book of Black Quarterbacks.” A site editor said it required more time and energy than anything they’ve ever done. [Greg Howard/Deadspin]
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Did you see our Facebook post about the NFL logos remixed as corporate logos? You should definitely go check it out. (And like our page. Do that too.) [WFNY’s Facebook Page]
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Really enjoyed this read on TV deals, the Baltimore/DC market and the Orioles’ contention plans: “More than almost any other team, the Orioles are in a state of limbo. To figure out why, and to diagnose where they should go from here, we need to consider a dizzying array of factors, including an honest evaluation of team talent and AL East competition, the incredibly opaque realm of team finances and TV deals, and the riches-to-rags-to-riches recent history that’s affected both the team’s record and bottom line.” [Jonah Keri/Grantland]
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On Sunday afternoon, I’ll be a uniform model for the Akron RubberDucks during their Family Fun Day at the Akron Civic Theatre. I’ll be wearing their yet-to-be unveiled road unis. [MiLB.com]
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Finally, four years ago today, we shared one of this website’s most iconic stories: “The sad story of a bear” by Denny Mayo. [WFNY]
9 Comments
Some of those logo remixes arent half half bad.
Check these logos out. I know they’re Star Wars themed, but the orange they used for the Browns rocks…
AFC: http://www.behance.net/gallery/STAR-WARS-American-Football-League/9233923
NFC: http://www.behance.net/gallery/STAR-WARS-National-Football-League/9234099
LOVE the bear reprise. Happy anniversary!
and, I like the modernization of the stripe while keeping the basic helmet. I’d approve of such a change.
and, JAX should get Disney to license them the Wookie logo. That helmet looks great (and close enough proximity to Disney World plays into it too).
I saw these last week and thought they looked pretty cool.
Where Chris Grant went wrong is really pretty simple, and all on draft day:
2011 – drafted TT (missing K. Fareid, K. Leonard, and quite a few other better big guys)
2012 – drafted Dion Waiters (missing Damian Lillard, Andre Drummond)
2013 – drafted Anthony Bennett (no major standouts in this class yet, but Tim Hardaway, Steven Adams, Mason Plumlee, Caldwell-Pope, and quite a few others are having better seasons)
That’s his problem: He passed up truly good players to get mostly mediocre players. The next GM, whoever it is, needs to seriously look at the Cav’s talent evaluation, because about the only decision they’ve gotten right as of late is that Anderson Varejao was way better than his stats seemed to show.
2011: Is the manimal really better than TT, he has a very limited offensive game and his best asset is his hustle ability? Would Kwai leonard have developed into a nice player in Cleveland, or is he a product of playing with Parker, Duncan, Ginobli and under coach Pop
2012: Waiters is a 6th man of the year candidate as a 2nd year player, there is no way you were going to draft a PG from weber state when your 20 year old PG just won rookie of the year. Drummond’s game is extremely limited and he is a worse freethrow shoot than ben wallace
2013: Did you really want the cavs to draft Mason Plumlee 1st overall? Plumlee?
This isn’t rocket science, just reading stat sheets.
2011: TT’s true shooting is 51.6%, Fareid’s is 57.3%. TT scores 17.3 points per 48, Fareid scores 20.7. Fareid’s offensive game may be “very limited”, but it’s getting better results than TT (Fareid is also a better rebounder and blocker). Kahwi Leonard shoots better than TT, passes better than TT, and rebounds almost as well.
2012: Drummond is also a far more efficient shooter than Waiters (TS% of 58.7% versus 49.4%), and is more effective on the boards than Anderson Varejao. Again, his “extremely limited” game is devastatingly effective.
2013: So far, what I’ve seen from Bennett would indicate that the Cavs would have done better to pick just about anyone else in that draft, such as Victor Olapido. That obviously could change next year, but it was a bad choice.
The key thing is that it doesn’t matter how pretty a move is, what matters is how often the ball moves through the hoop. I’ll take winning ugly versus losing pretty any day of the week.
Why oh Why did we not keep Livingston! I loved him when he was here, he played the way the game was meant to be played. Further, I truly believe the Almost-Dukie was in the midst of serving as a mentor to Kyrie and Dion. The man was a former #4 overall draft pick, they respect the comeback from The Knee, he put in great effort night in night out, and generally made his teammates better. Why choose to break that line of communication? Why not make him your cornerstone backup guard? Surely he was just as good if not better than Jarrett Jack in nearly all phases of the role + a half year of misery bonding? That move I’ll never understand.