Browns 2010 NFL Draft Update: Defense, Defense and More Defense?
January 9, 2010Breaking News: ESPN.com Reports Tom Heckert is the Browns General Manager
January 9, 2010The calendar has recently turned to 2010 and the city of Cleveland is less than six months away from a possible doomsday occasion with the beginning of NBA free agency in July. This is arguably the last season of productivity for Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Shaquille O’Neal, meaning that even more changes will be coming next summer as well if those two players come off the books. This is the season however, where the Cavs need to step up and prove to their franchise savior that they are his best option towards winning an NBA title immediately.
Looking towards the rest of this season, the biggest thing that could affect this team for the playoffs and their ability to keep LeBron James for the future will be what they do on the trade market. There is slightly over a month left until the NBA trading deadline, and the Cavs have several assets that they will offer up for a difference maker alongside LBJ. The biggest rumor of late is sending Zydrunas Ilgauskas to Washington for veteran power forward Antawn Jamison. At 33 years old and with a hefty contract for the next two seasons, such a trade would limit the off-season possibilities for Cleveland in 2010 but would bring a third legitimate 20-point scoring threat to the roster.
A starting lineup of Shaq, Antawn, LBJ and Mo would be one of the best offensively in the NBA without a doubt. Bringing Andy, Jamario and Delonte off the bench would also enable the Cavs to continue to beat teams in various ways with their stellar on-ball defense. Just imagine the versatility of a front court with Andy and Antawn at the same time, or the multiple offensive sets the team could run around the North Carolina product. Jamison has been one of the best offensive forwards in the NBA over the past decade and this season is averaging 21.6 points and 8.3 rebounds for the lowly Wizards.
Other rumors that have been discussed on this site recently including various proposals that have David West, Al Jefferson, Troy Murphy or others coming to Cleveland. All of these power forwards would stretch out opposing defenses as well as adding some extra strength to the Cavaliers. Whenever Shaquille O’Neal is off the court, the team seems to lack an offensive weapon in the paint that can break down the opponent and score consistently. Whatever occurs during the next month or so for GM Danny Ferry and the team must be something that drastically improves the squad both this year and next because of the impending return of Leon Powe.
Remember him? Looking strong for the first time since early 2009, Powe could be a huge difference-maker for the Cavs over the final few months of the year. The former Cal Golden Bear and Boston Celtic is coming off yet another knee injury and should be healthy for the team shortly after the All-Star Break. In his career, Powe is averaging 6.6 points and 4.2 rebounds in 14.6 minutes mostly off the bench, and would add extra firepower to the front court. Similar to the offensive possibilities with Antawn Jamison, Powe could match up with Andy in a super versatile rotation that would cause nightmares for opposing teams.
The Cavaliers have to be very careful how they approach the trading deadline this season because of the presence of Leon Powe. An acquisition of a player like Antawn Jamison closes up the possibilities for help by Powe along with closing down some minutes for players like Jamario Moon. If the Cavs decide to go for a shooting guard type with their possible trade, Powe will receive the extra minutes in the front court and the new player would instead take minutes away from Daniel Gibson and Jawad Williams. Now take a look at this breakdown of the number of minutes played this season by the Cavaliers forwards:
Key: Player Name = Total Minutes Played, Percentage of Team Minutes (MP / 1834), Adjusted Minutes Per Game (MP / 1834 *48)
LeBron James = 1454, 79.3%, 38.1
Anderson Varejao =1085, 59.2%, 28.4
Zydrunas Ilgauskas = 803, 43.8%, 21.0
Shaquille O’Neal = 727, 39.6%, 19.0
J.J. Hickson = 717, 39.1%, 18.8
Jamario Moon = 553, 30.2%, 14.5
Darnell Jackson = 78, 4.3%, 2.0
Jawad Williams = 51, 2.8%, 1.3
Those eight players above have combined for all but 34 of the possible minutes this season for a Cavalier forward. The adjusted minutes column on the far right takes into injuries and divides total minutes played into a relative number per game. This shows on average how much each player is expected to receive in terms of playing time. Over the past three seasons, Antawn Jamison is receiving about 35.6 adjusted minutes of playing time over in Washington and in his three-year career for Boston, Leon Powe was at about 11.1.
Even if the Cavaliers were to get rid of and never reacquire Z for Jamison, there would still need to be many more minutes cut from some of the players in the rotation above. Jamison and Powe will average combined about 48 minutes or more per evening in a Cavs uniform which makes me hesitate to say it is likely it will happen. Assuming Shaq’s minutes would be right around 20 per game, Andy would be sitting around 25, Jamison at 30, LeBron at 35, there would only be 34 minutes left for the combination of Powe, Hickson, Moon and the scrubs. I suppose it could work with each player getting about 10 minutes per night, but the team needs to do its homework on how the minutes will work under any possible scenario.
The possible rotation issues could impede upon the trade for Jamison and will definitely be an issue whenever a possibility for a power forward comes up. Danny Ferry, please do not overlook Powe when looking for your trading partners within the next month as this soon-to-be 26-year-old might just be the only front court addition this team really needs.
(The photo of Leon Powe above is via Lisa DeJong/The Plain Dealer.
12 Comments
The problem with that is that, when considering trade deals and whatnot, you can never, never, never, never assume that a player coming off of major knee surgery will be able to contribute at his previous level. If Ferry makes a trade and we have too many talented forwards we’re in a better situation than if Ferry makes no frontcourt deal and we’re left with too few.
Jacob, I don’t think there is as much as logjam as there appears to be on paper.
Come playoff time, Powe/Hickson are interchangeable. If Powe can play to his past level, Hickson won’t see the floor. He won’t start. It’ll be bye-bye until next year (assuming he wouldn’t be thrown in to sweeten the pot in the Washington deal – Jamison for Z/Hix still works contract-wise). So that’s a push.
If we get Jamison, Z is also never seeing the floor in the playoffs. Ever. He replaces Z in the rotation. Z will be out of gas by the playoffs. We aren’t even halfway there and he looked depleted last night. Jamison stretches the floor even more effectively than Z.
Only against LA, if we made it to the finals, would these substitutions be rethought.
“A starting lineup of Shaq, Antawn, LBJ and Mo would be one of the best offensively in the NBA without a doubt.”
-MB has done some interesting things with his rotations but starting four takes the cake. I’m all for it if it because now LeBron has one less person to feel the need to look off.
“Whenever Shaquille O’Neal is off the court, the team seems to lack an offensive weapon in the paint that can break down the opponent and score consistently.”
-Instead of going low to Shaq in the first 5 minutes and then forgetting about him, maybe the Cavs could use him later in the game? I do know that MB is going to limit his minutes in order to save him for the playoffs which makes sense.
” Similar to the offensive possibilities with Antawn Jamison, Powe could match up with Andy in a super versatile rotation that would cause nightmares for opposing teams.”
-Absolutely crazy. Leon Powe has nowhere near the skills of Antawn. Powe is a defensive force inside and an occasional finisher around the basket with little game outside of 6 ft. If anything Powe is more like Andy in his hustle plays that don’t necessarily show up in stats. Powe is the antithesis of a “stretch four” that the Cavs will need moving forward. If anything Powe should take JJ’s minutes if only for the reason that JJ is a revolving door on defense. However, if we do get Jamison his scoring production will definitely eclipse JJ’s and their defensive lapses should cancel out thereby making the trade a win-win. Powe’s stats at 82games.com, http://www.82games.com/0809/08BOS10.HTM and Jamison’s stats at 82games.com, http://www.82games.com/0910/09WAS10.HTM
NO JAMISON!!!!!!! HE is old. Whoever we get, we need him to contribute at an all star level for the next 3 years. Jamison will not only hurt us this year, but next year as well.
Hickson is also likely to be traded, but if a logjam emerges, I echo EZ in saying that a player coming off a major knee injury like Powe is definitely not a sure thing, and Jack in saying that Powe and Hickson are essentially interchangeable minutes wise. I would hope that Mike Brown would recognize that minutes for Jamison would be worth sacrificing minutes from a likely tentative Powe and an extremely inconsistent Hickson.
If the Cavs acquire Jamison, I can’t imagine Hickson would still be on the roster; he’d almost certainly be moved to Washington along with Z. If Z is bought out and returns, I also would guess that he would see less minutes and become more of a specifically defined role player, especially against the Lakers or other big teams. So Jamison would still get the bulk of minutes (about 30 or so), but with Z’s minutes cut at least in half upon his (assumed) return, that would leave about 10-15 minutes a night each for Powe and Moon.
I still see the biggest weakness of the Cavs offense as having no true point guard running the offense. Too often with LBJ running the offense (as we saw last night), the offense just comes to a standstill and loses all flow. Many of the issues they have would be rectified with a real PG.
@ Natty the dog – “Whoever we get, we need him to contribute at an all star level for the next three years” – who, then? Who is a three-year all star that could be had right now for any combination of Z, JJ, and Wally?
I mean I’d love to get Bosh but that ain’t happening. I’d love to get CP3, that ain’t happening. Jamison would fit in well and would most assuredly put this team over the top.
In my opinion your three year thoughts are a complete pipedream. Unless they’re Chinese, and then they’ll artificially be all-stars forever.
DJ: I see your point and — just curious — to your mind, why isn’t Delonte West performing as a “real PG”? What about his game leaves him short? At times, especially last season, we’ve seen him run the floor effectively; last night, however, to take only the most recent example, he kept running down the court without the ball.
First of all I hate that whimpy looking elf. Only good thing about Modell, he wanted to ban it. Second, is there anywhere that has sporting news that is actual and not just someone’s opinion? Thanks.
Janet: the elf is no whimp. Apparently, you haven’t seen him suited up.
“This is arguably the last season of productivity for Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Shaquille O’Neal”
If this is the case, how do the Cavs fill this void next season? We saw last season how bad Andy and anyone else “big” on the roster got abused by the likes of the Lakers, Magic, etc.
Jamison is certainly a stud but it’s hard to build a championship team without a starting center.
@8: Because I don’t think MB sees him as a pure PG, one whose main job is to ‘quarterback’ or initiate the offense ala Steve Nash or Jason Kidd. Most of his career, he’s been viewed as a combo guard who can float interchangably between the 1 and 2. I personally wouldn’t mind seeing him start at the 1, run the offense and roll Mo Williams to the 2, and bring Parker off the bench. This would be similar to last year, except the guards were typically switched. At least that way you have West in there to initially check the better back court player of the opposition. The only problem is that against big back courts, it creates huge problems, especially defensively. I don’t know if that will mean looking at trading a guy like Mo, who still has three years left on his deal, but it may be something they will have to address down the line.
@11: This is the issue that NO ONE is talking about, at least not many people, with this go-for-broke season. With both Shaq and Z coming off the books this summer, all CLE has left in the frontcourt is AV, Hickson, D-Block, Jawad Williams and Powe…pretty thin if you ask me. So this FA pickup needs to be a guy who will be here for awhile and is going to be productive for at least 3-4 years. That is my only concern with Jamison…how long will he produce at this level? (The guy I would have loved in that position coming out of this draft, Omri Casspi, is having a terrific rookie year in Sac-town.) So with this trade, as it’s been said before, this essentially will be Ferry’s FA signing, especially if the player has an expiring or one year left on his current deal, giving CLE his Bird rights. It’s what makes guys like David West and Chris Bosh so desirable: Great overall game, coming off deals relatively soon, and retaining the ability to sign them over the cap.