While We’re Waiting… A Perfect LeBron, Charlie Weis and the Browns, and Decision 2010
December 1, 2009Nothing Should be Off the Table for Cavs, Including Trading Shaq
December 1, 2009This really isn’t what I expected from this season. After more or less steamrolling over most of the NBA last season before falling short in the Eastern Conference Finals, I was hoping for more of the same. I expected to see the same bunch of carefree players laughing it up and breezing through easy win after easy win with precious little drama. It was probably a set of foolish and unrealistic expectations, I realized this fact even as I was formulating them. But none the less, I was hoping to have a fun filled season where we could just sit back, relax, enjoy the games, and wait for the playoffs to get here. That hasn’t even remotely been the case.
On the laundry list of weird undercurrents to this team this year, you can now add Mike Brown’s curious decision to not play Zydrunas Ilgauskas on the night he was set to break the Cavaliers all time record for games played. It was supposed to be a festive evening for the entire Cavaliers organization. He was breaking the record held by the team’s current GM, he had his friends and family in town for the event, the Cavaliers were planning on stopping the game to celebrate the moment, the team was to present him with a plaque, and the fans in attendance were ready to shower Z with displays of their appreciate for what Big Z has meant to this city.
In almost every way, this was an epic failure on the part of Mike Brown. And LeBron James feels the same way. Because Big Z is the epitome of class and decency and seemingly doesn’t have a bone in his body capable of making waves, Ilgauskas has chosen to remain silent on the matter for now, rather than blasting his coach in public. LeBron has his friend and teammate’s back, though, and after practice yesterday, decided to make his feelings known on the matter:
“After having a little bit of time to think about it, me personally, I definitely thought he should have played. I’m not trying to stir up anything with Coach. I don’t know who made the call.
One game is a smaller thing. What was on the line (on Saturday) was way bigger than us playing the Mavericks. That was Z breaking the record to become the franchise leader in games played.
[…]
I think it’s a sensitive subject. I’m not one to raise havoc in the locker room, but for me, I speak the truth. As a friend of his, I was very upset and I know he was also.
I stand behind Z on whatever he feels.”
You never want to make mountains out of mole hills, and on face value LeBron’s words aren’t really anything controversial. However, between the lines this is out of character for LeBron to an extent. Off the top of my head, I cannot recall LeBron ever speaking out publicly against his coach. In a season in which LeBron has generally had the body language of dissatisfaction and indifference, I found this to be at least mildly alarming.
Which isn’t to say I disagree with LeBron at all on this subject, nor that I think he shouldn’t have spoken out to defend his friend. As I stated, Z was unlikely to speak out and state his irritation with Mike Brown in a public forum. That’s just not who Z is. So LeBron said what needed to be said. My unhappiness with this whole situation is pointed mostly at Mike Brown. It’s hard to find a good way to defend this move on his part.
It’s hard to imagine any other coach not named Larry Brown or Don Nelson making this decision. In fact, it’s hard to believe that Mike Brown, the consummate player’s coach, made this decision. There is always a right way and a wrong way to do things, and Coach Brown chose the latter.
What was the right way to handle it? Lets let LeBron tell us:
“It always matters how long you play, but I think the simple fact is, it could have been done. Like I said, the game against the Mavericks, if it was personnel-wise or whatever it was, that was a small thing. You have to look at the big picture.
None of us would have been mad if Z would have started. Z could have started, he could have been subbed as soon as the game started, and that would have given the fans an opportunity to give him a standing ovation. That would have gave an opportunity for everything to be stopped, and he could have been subbed out right then and there.
That would have been my personal opinion, and I think there’s other ways it could have happened, too. But that’s just the way I would have looked at it and envisioned it, being a big fan of Z and knowing what he’s been through.”
It’s hard to argue with much there. I suppose if there’s one defense of Mike Brown, though, it’s that he had every intention of playing Z his usual minutes in that Dallas game. Had he known the game was going to play out the way it did, perhaps then he would have started Z as LeBron suggested. But hindsight is always a clearer picture than foresight.
The fact is, Mike Brown is in the business of winning games, not in the business of being decent. I frequently criticize Mike Brown for his static lineup rotations. I feel that he often times just uses the same substitution patterns regardless of the situation rather than trying to adapt and create mismatches for his opponents. So for me to be hyper-critical of Coach Brown for actually adapting to what Dallas was doing and using a lineup that obviously was effective in getting the win seems slightly hypocritical on my part.
Had this been any other game, there’s a chance we would be praising Coach Brown for his decision to give Z the DNP-CD. With the exception of a few games sprinkled here and there, Ilgauskas has been largely ineffective this season and has actually hurt the team’s chances in more than a couple games this year. That’s the reality of the situation. At this point in his career, Big Z is a shell of the once great player who has overcome more obstacles than most players in the NBA will ever have to deal with to become an icon of this franchise. It pains me more than I can tell you to have to say that about Z, but it’s true. More times than not this year, Ilgauskas has not improved the Cavs’ chances of winning by playing him. That’s just the reality of the situation.
But sometimes you have to swallow the small picture to look at the big picture. And on this occasion, Mike Brown dropped the ball and now he has a bigger problem. Now, he has an already struggling team full of players who are clearly upset with his decision. Bob Finnan of the News-Herald indicated that Ilgauskas is quietly furious with Coach Brown, and pointed out that Z dashed out of the locker room following Saturday’s game and has declined to speak with the media at all since then. Z’s agent Herb Rudoy also has spoken out on this.
Already one of the longest tenured coaches in the NBA, Mike Brown has to worry about losing his team a bit. Already this year the team has seemed to be more reluctant to respond to his requests for more effort on defense and rebounding. Now, he made a decision that was such a blatant slap to the face of the players on this team that he needs to make amends.
The problem is, he hasn’t done so, and he seems to be brushing this incident off as no big deal. Frankly, I am praying he’s right. Hopefully given a few days off for wounds to heal will allow cooler heads to prevail. Hopefully Mike Brown will do the right thing and sit down face to face with Big Z and apologize profusely to him. This team responds to Z. Never a vocal leader, his presence on the team is always felt as one of the icons of the franchise. We often recall Mark Price and Brad Daugherty as the two faces of this team’s legacy, but now it is Zydrunas Ilgauskas and LeBron James who represent the two towers of respect and adulation for the Cleveland Cavaliers franchise. So an apology here can go a long way. Once Z shows satisfaction with his coach again, the rest of the team will follow his lead.
Maybe then the team can finally band together and start playing some lights out basketball again. Whatever the case, before this thing spirals out of control, I’m hoping Mike Brown takes the proper steps to make sure he gets back on the same page with his team. The alternative is not a pretty picture.
25 Comments
A poster on a Cavs board that is connected to the Cavs believes that this was a Power Play by Mike Brown to assert his authority over the team. If that was the case then I really hope Brown has his resume ready because alienating himself from the players and organization is not the way to make a point and it definitely isn’t the way to a championship.
Great post, Rock.
It’s an awkward situation but had this been in any other situation, not playing Z against THAT Mavs team was the correct move.
I get the feeling with all of this that maybe this will be a watershed moment where the team will unite and demonstrate some of the outward chemistry that has been lacking all year. It may come at the expense of Brown’s credibility but a harmonious Cavs team would be nice to see.
If Mike Brown really wants to make amends, then start him against the Suns tomorrow … then sit him down the rest of the game because it’s going to be a run and gun like none other and we’re going to need Andy at center as much as possible
Great article Rock. Normally when we watch the Cavs, we’re into the flow of the game, speculating on in game changes, and helping the refs call fouls, but the sub-story of “when is Z coming in?” took over. The longer the game went on, the more we started feeling he wasn’t going to play. I think it’s a HUGE mistake that Mike Brown should make right ASAP. There was surley 60 seconds of that game that Z could have came in, got the recognition & appreciation he absolutley deserves, and then coach Brown could have went back to asserting himself. I hope to God he plays Z Wednesday night before this gets out of hand.
Playing the devil’s advocate though, maybe Coach Brown wasn’t too concerned about it since the Cavs are at home until the 6th….
Good post. It’s really inexplicable that he didn’t get in the game. Lebron is right, the best thing to do would have been to have him start and play for a few minutes, then sub him out,
Mike Brown does have a certain amount of accumulated capital, and I’d hesitate to judge him , but the only way to get out of it now, is if they planned some sort of huge over-the-top ceremony for the next game.
Well written. It was a shame and Brown should’ve started him, but it’s been hard to watch Z’s game this season and the comment about him hurting their chances to win is dead on. That pretty 18 footer just isn’t there and he’s more a hindrance than anything else this year. With that being said, people forget what he has meant to this organization and how unique it is for a player to stay with one team his entire career (he and Kobe are in rarified air). I don’t think this will have the catastrophic impact Rock is worried about though.
@ J-Dub – “how unique it is for a player to stay with one team his entire career”
Hopefully we’ll be saying that about Lebron in 5-10 years.
Mr. Potato Head needs to be fired. Lebron covers up most of his stupidity, but not this time.
Excellent piece Rock. As I was watching the game, I honestly didn’t know that it was supposed to be the record breaker. And I thought that keeping Z on the bench for match-up purposes showed some great in-game strategizing from Brown that we normally don’t see. It’s ironic that he makes such a great in-game move at the expense of making a move that was more important to the team as a whole.
Since he got the DNP-CD, I too have been a little disappointed in Brown’s “no big deal attitude.” He even seemed to shrug off LeBron’s comments. Hopefully he can make amends. I agree that Z brings less to the table than probably at any other time during the healthy part of his career, but this was handled terribly.
@ Jay – And Z even said as much last week before CHA game (via Windy): Z. Ilgauskas will tie franchise record for games played 2nite & break 2moro. His quote: “Hopefully LeBron will break it one day.”
I don’t know. It was odd that Z didn’t play Saturday night, but this is being blown up a bit much. It’s not like that game was the last of his career and he can’t set a record on another night (like Wednesday).
And I’m not sure I would classify a team that is 12-3 over its last 15 games (which works out to … wait for it … a 65-win pace) a “struggling” team.
@13
Um, I’m not sure you should take our pace over 15 games (excluding our first two losses) and then extrapolate that back over the full 82 games. Those two games either count or they don’t…
I can neither find nor buy any viable defense for what Mike Brown did on Saturday night. Even if he had to adapt to Dallas’ lineup, the Cavs were up by 13 at halftime and cruised to an 11-point win. This was not a close game.
There were SEVERAL opportunities for Z to get in the game and Brown has no excuse. I am elated that Lebron said something; he doesn’t just play for the Cavs but he understands the history of the franchise and what Ilguauskas has meant over the past 14 years.
As a lifelong Cavs fan, I’m absolutely livid at what transpired Saturday night.
I don’t know if people have seen it or commented on it but Terry Pluto wrote this morning that Z requested to not play in the second half. This probably doesn’t change anyone’s opinion on the matter but it makes more sense, assuming that it’s true, that Z didn’t want to play in the second half.
Hope they properly honor Z tomorrow night
Z asked not to play in the 2nd half because he was PISSED for being overlooked in the first half. Who can blame him? Brown needs to come out and clear this up so the team can move on. I for one like the fact of not starting him and brining him in after the first stoppage of play so the crowd can give him a standing O.
Just a thought.. maybe the plaque they were going to give him wasnt done in time. Those things take some time to make.
[…] today I vented my disgust and frustration with the Cavaliers. Particularly, I took exception with Mike Brown humiliating Zydrunas Ilgauskas by giving him his […]
It’s clear why he got the DNP. Did you see the effort he put into defending Kobe in the NBA 2k10 commercial? That was embarrassing.
If you thought there was something wrong with the way Brown coached that game, then you probably weren’t watching it. Everything he did worked. Mo, Delonte and AV went off, and Drew Gooden had to try and guard Shaq. The Cavaliers beat a team that many people regard as being better than them. Tomorrow they get the Suns, the hottest team in the NBA. I don’t care who plays that game either, as long as we win.
At the very least, its a good sign the team is coming together to stand up for Z, even if it is against the coach
[…] the Suns Wednesday night the Cavaliers had 29 assists on 45 FGs. If anyone was concerned about DNP-Gate’s effect on the team (yes, I’m pointing the finger at myself), those fears appeared to be eased in […]
The “Z” man has been an integral part of this CAVS team for years now. He’s always played his heart out! Not honoring Ilgauskas during the MAVS game was not an oversight…………it was pure stupidity and calls into question Mike Brown’s intelligence level.
signed………..a pissed off CAVS backer