2008-09 NBA Team Preview – Cleveland Cavaliers

2008 Record: 45-37
Division Finish: 2nd – Central
2008 Playoffs: Lost, 4-3, to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Semifinals

Head Coach: Mike Brown
Season: Going into fourth season
Record At Cleveland: 245-101

Offseason Acquisitions:
Signed Ronald Dupree, F, 1.0 ppg, 2.0 rpg, from Seattle
Signed Tarence Kinsey, G, 3.6 ppg., 1.1 rpg from Memphis
Signed center Lorenzen Wright, F-C, 1.0 ppg, 2.8 rpg. from Sacramento
Traded Damon Jones to Milwaukee & Joe Smith to Oklahoma City Thunder. Got guard Maurice Williams, G, 10.2 ppg, 6.1 apg. from Milwaukee

Offseason Transactions:
Resigned guard Daniel Gibson
Resigned guard Delonte West

Offseason Losses:
Damon Jones, G, 6.5 ppg, 1.1 rpg., Free agent
Devin Brown, G, 7.5 ppg., 3.4 rpg., Signed with New Orleans Hornets
Dwayne Jones, C, 1.0 ppg., 2.0 ppg., Signed with Orlando Magic
Detemtris Nichols, F, 1.1 ppg, 0.4 rpg., Claimed off waivers by Chicago Bulls

Rookies:
JJ Hickson, F, 6-9, NC State, 14.8 ppg., 8.5 rpg.
Darnell Jackson, F, 6-8, Kansas, 11.2 ppg., 6.7 rpg.
Sasha Kaun, C, 6-11, Kansas, 7.1 ppg., 3.9 rpg.
Signed Jawad Williams, F

The Skinny:
If the Cleveland Cavaliers want to make that next step from a good team in the East to a great team in the NBA that has a chance to win a championship, they need look no farther than one of their Central Conference foes. The Chicago Bulls wrote the playbook on how to win with a superstar and Cleveland general manager Danny Ferry needs to not only read it, but take the necessary steps.

For my money, the Cavs have the best player in the league in LeBron James. He might not go out and score 50 points in a night like Kobe Bryant and may not play as much defense as Bryant, but he’s more consistent than Bryant. He can beat you in so many ways that I think he’s more versatile than Bryant. He also rebounds a lot better than Bryant and being around the basket creates scoring opportunities with second chance points.

Another reason that makes James a better player in my opinion is that he’s trying to get everyone involved and make them a better team. James’ idol was Jordan and he knows if he wants to be in the same company some day that he has to start winning championships. Jordan was a great player but his status was elevated even higher once he started winning titles. Karl Malone may be one of the 50 greatest players in the league’s history but he’ll start to fade into the background because he was never on a championship team.

James can score just about any time he wants. It’s not a matter of if he could; it’s a matter of does he want to. I’m sure a lot of team would like for him to just to try to score at will. Detroit will let James get 45 points, but hold the rest of the team to 30 and the Pistons will come out on top almost every time.

But LeBron is smarter than that. He knows he has to get them involved because there are going to be nights when he can’t score at will and has to rely on his teammates. He also knows that he needs them because he already gets all of the attention off the court and if that spreads to the floor they won’t be as likely to play as hard. Look at the Lakers for the last few years up until this year. It was the Kobe Show and he wasn’t doing anything to make friends so no one wanted to play hard or play with him and they lost. He became more of a leader, wasn’t a ball hog, shut his mouth some and they went to the Finals.

So the Cavaliers knew they needed help last year when the acquired the services of Ben Wallace in a big midseason trade. Along with Wallace, Cleveland picked up guard Delonte West from Seattle and guard Wally Szcerbiak from Chicago. In the process they got rid of a lot of dead weight as the traded sent six players packing, topped by Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall and Shannon Brown.

Hughes and Marshall made sense. Both are getting long in the tooth and Marshall isn’t a great team player. Brown isn’t living up to the hype at Michigan State and he’s not doing it in the pros either. The one that surprised me is Gooden. He’s only been in the league six years and was averaging 11.3 ppg. and 8.3 ppg., but you have to give up something in those trades and they felt like Gooden was ready to go.

For his size, 6-foot-9, Wallace has been one of the best rebounders in the league over the last half a decade. However, he is getting a bit old. With a dozen NBA seasons under his belt he is getting close to hanging it up. Szcerbiak is a solid role player who can help a ball team win if he can stay healthy.

I like the edition of West. He’s a younger version of Hughes who averaged 10.3 ppg., 4.5 assists per game and 3.7 rpg. They also picked up Maurice Williams in trade during the offseason. He averaged 10.2 ppg and 6.1 apg for the Milwaukee Bucks so it will be interesting to see what happens in the battle between he and Hughes.

Most of the Cavs offseason moves besides getting Williams weren’t that spectacular. They drafted a pair of pretty solid forwards in JJ Hickson from NC State and Kansas’ Darnell Jackson. With Wallace as a mentor they don’t have to jump right into the fold and be expected to contribute, though they may.

Prediction:
I still think the Cavaliers are a year or two from putting together a championships team though when you’ve got a player the caliber of James anything is possible. If this team sticks together for 2-to-3 more years and they can keep some key guys in place then they may be a contender in 2009-10 or the following year. They have to resign James, but that’s a whole other blog.

They’ve got a great center in Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who averaged 14.1 ppg and led the squad at 9.4 rpg., and he’s locked up until the 2010-11 season. As I stated before I’m also a fan of West and Williams. One of them may have to play the point and the other the off guard because that’s where they’ve got a hole.

The Cavs have a pair of holes in their off guard and power forward. I don’t know if Wallace can hold up through the whole season, though being on the floor with Ilgauskas  and James may take some of the focus away from him and let him be productive like Dennis Rodman was with the Lakers. Hickson and Jackson could be good down the road but it’s hard to tell.

Since I predicted Detroit to win the Central and the NBA title the best I can give Cleveland is a second-place showing in the Central. I’ll give them the upset of Boston in the Eastern Conference semifinals, but they’ll lose to Detroit in six.

The Utah Jazz is, quite possibly, the most oddly juxtaposed team name in sports (the mention of the state of Utah does not inspire visions of jazz bands). The team is also one of the most consistently successful franchises in the NBA. In the late 1980s and 1990s, they were playoff perennials, and they have recently regained their status as a tough Western Conference contender. They play their home games at Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City.

Early Years

The Jazz began their NBA life in New Orleans, La., in 1974. As an expansion team, they didn’t win many games, but with high-scoring, flamboyant guard “Pistol” Pete Maravich, they were always entertaining to watch.

The team moved to Salt Lake City in 1979 and decided to keep the name “Jazz” even though the region was hardly known for its jazz music.

John Stockton and Karl Malone

Two draft picks in the mid-1980s helped cement the Jazz’ success for years to come. The team drafted point guard John Stockton out of Gonzaga University in 1984, followed by brick-solid power forward Karl Malone (Louisiana Tech) in 1985. Together, they ran one of the game’s oldest offensive plays, the pick and roll, to such perfection that it was nearly impossible to stop. Teams knew the pick and roll was coming, because it was the basis of the Utah offense. But try as they might, they could not shut it down. The names “Stockton and Malone” became a package deal; you didn’t hear one name without the other. The two greats would both go on to join the list of the “NBA’s 50 Greatest Players.” Though some might debate the whether certain names belong on that list, no one can dispute Stockton and Malone, who are considered by some to be the best point guard and power forward in the history of professional basketball.

NBA Finals Appearances

Several teams – in both the Eastern and Western conferences – have had the misfortune of playing in the Michael Jordan era. The Jazz, who were one of the best teams in the West for much of the 1990s, can rightfully claim such misfortune. During their two NBA Finals seasons, they could arguably have beaten any other team in the league except Jordan’s Chicago Bulls.

In 1996-97, the Jazz were dominant, posting a 64-18 record and breezing through the Eastern Conference playoffs. They only lost three games in beating the L.A. Clippers, L.A. Lakers, and Houston Rockets. Malone won the regular-season MVP, but he couldn’t get his team past the Bulls and Jordan, the Finals MVP. The Bulls won in six games, two of which went down to the final seconds.

In the 1997-98 season, the Jazz were dominant again despite losing John Stockton to a knee injury for nearly 20 games. Again they only lost three games on their way to the Finals, beating the Rockets, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Lakers. Again they lost to the Bulls in six games. Game Six of that Finals series is remembered for Jordan’s game-winning shot in the final seconds. The Bulls won that game, 87-86. The Jazz have not appeared in the NBA Finals since.

2007-08 Season

The roster is new, but the coach, Jerry Sloan, remains the same. The team’s hard-nosed approach to the game has not changed, either.

Stockton and Malone, both retired, have given way to Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer. Andrei Kirilenko and sharpshooter Kyle Korver help round out the roster.

After a 54-28 regular season, the Jazz defeated the Houston Rockets, 4-2, in the first round of the playoffs. They lost the conference semifinals in six games to the eventual West champion L.A. Lakers.

2008-09 Outlook

With the nucleus of Olympians Williams and Boozer, along with Kirilenko, the Jazz have high expectations entering the 2008-09 season. They were just a couple of victories away from defeating the Lakers in the playoffs, and in Williams and Boozer they boast two of the NBA’s best young players. If that duo continues to evolve, the Utah Jazz will make noise on the playoffs for years to come.