While We’re Waiting… Shurmur Confident, Cavs Over-Matched and the Grinder Gets His Way

While We’re Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com.

“Shurmur said he and his staff have been busy, even with no players to coach. They’re studying opponents and getting to know each other. He voluntarily talked up the assistants he kept on from the Mangini Regime. The rest of the staff has a heavy Holmgren influence, a heavy West-Coast offense influence and the influence of guys who have coached against Shurmur in the past.

“We didn’t have to get to know each other,” Shurmur said. “We didn’t have to decide what practice was going to look like or what our team was going to look like.”

He let on that the players they’ll be coaching are better than the rest of the league thinks they are, and that he’s not afraid to play a bunch of rookies if they earn their jobs. For the first time in a long time, it feels like the Browns have a plan they’re planning to stick with.” [Jackson/Fox Sports Ohio]

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Potential Cavaliers pick- “Vesely is a great athlete. He is tall, runs the floor extremely well and is an explosive jumper. This combination is rare and gives Vesely the potential to be a special player. Many of his points come from hustling and running the floor when he finishes fast breaks, oftentimes with dynamic dunks. He has shown flashes of being a good long distance shooter. His quick, long first step allows him to beat people off the dribble and get to the basket from the perimeter in a couple of strides. He is active and aggressive which results in offensive rebounds and steals. On defense, dirty work is his specialty; he hustles for loose balls and shows hard on pick and rolls.

He has typically played SF however defensively he struggles staying in front of quick perimeter players. About his defense he told NBA Draft Express, “Of course, they are smaller than me, they are faster so I need to work on my aggressiveness, try to get faster and play better defense.” To be a PF, he needs to add strength to defend and keep rebounding position. Vesely came to the game late and is still fundamentally raw and his basketball instincts are described as average. He will occasionally start dribbling without much of a plan. He is an inconsistent jump shooter and a poor free throw shooter. Two years ago he shot free throws at 63% however in 2010 – 2011 that dropped to 51% over 161 free throw attempts.” [Hetrick/Cavs the Blog]

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More on Brendan’s first year as a credentialed blogger- “I ended up going up to Anthony Parker that day because I’d had been doing some random pieces on guys playing professionally in Europe for SLAM leading up to that game, and decided to ask AP about his experiences playing overseas. My questions were pretty choppy, I probably sounded nervous, and ended up rattling off a five or six questions. He offered as insightful of answers as the questions would allow, but I was lucky in that he took the time to decipher what I was getting at in the process. In my own head that wasn’t entirely clear to me at the time.

I tape recorded the convo, didn’t post the audio because I thought I sounded stupid, and ended up transcribing my first interview with an NBA player and posting it accordingly. Starting SG for the team with the best record in the league in fact, nothing too it I thought.

Only while AP gave solid answers, the interview topic was pretty random because I just randomly thought of it on the spot. It didn’t really fit in with anything I had been writing about on Stepien Rules over the course of last season, and was essentially not that interesting outside of the fact that “I just did an interview with an NBA player.” I thought it was cool, but outside of friends and family who also thought it was cool that I was for some reason down at the Cavs game interviewing Anthony Parker, I’m not sure anybody else did.” [Brendan/Stepien Rules]

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Who had May 9th in the Wedge/Milton Bradley divorce pool?- “Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times reports that Bradley and Ryan Langerhans were DFA’ed to make room on the roster for Carlos Peguero and Mike Wilson. In the case of Bradley, it wasn’t a hard move to see coming as both Baker and USS Mariner’s Dave Cameron called for this move after a weekend that saw the slumping Bradley get booted from another game on Friday night and limit the team’s chances to win by shortening the bench.

Simply put, Bradley’s offensive production has withered to the point where his bat can no longer serve as his get-out-of-jail-free card.” [Big League Stew]

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“When they were out, the Cavaliers’ options were strictly replacement level or worse. With veterans Joey Graham and Jawad Williams proving inadequate, Byron Scott went with former D-Leaguer Alonzo Gee, undrafted rookie Manny Harris and 21-year-old Christian Eyenga. The athletic Eyenga may develop into a solid contributor, but he looked overmatched making the move to the NBA after limited action at the highest level of Spanish basketball. Since both wing positions rated among the league’s 10 worst in terms of net PER, they must be a high priority for Cleveland with its pair of lottery picks. Unfortunately, unless you project Arizona’s Derrick Williams as an NBA small forward, this draft lacks top-tier wing prospects.” [Pelton/ESPN insider]