Slam Dunk Central

I  was rather shocked Tuesday night when the news broke that the Cleveland Cavaliers were on the verge of signing restricted free agent Sasha Pavlovic to a contract. Pavlovic’s agent Marc Cornstein broke the news to ESPN’s Chad Ford that a deal was imminent. The Cavaliers have two players from last year’s roster that became free agents during the off-season, Pavlovic and Anderson Varejao. Of the two I thought that Pavlovic a shooting guard had lower odds of coming back to Cleveland. But according to Cornstein my instincts failed me.

Cleveland’s most tangible asset is without question LeBron James, the hub of the wheel, one of the game’s greatest players of his generation. But the other strength that Cleveland has is their abundance of shooting or 2 guards. Larry Hughes,(yes I realize he is playing point guard now but he’s a 2 guard) Damon Jones, Ira Newble, Daniel Gibson, and Devin Brown. What they do not have is a point guard or a 1 guard. The only man who qualifies is veteran Eric Snow who right now is on the injured list, but even when he comes back his best days on the court have long since passed. Sasha Pavlovic to me was a luxury that this team did not need, when they had obvious holes that needed attention. The best analogy I can think of is a man who owns four cars but does not have a stove, so he can’t eat, or at least cook. So what does our imaginary friend do? He buys a fifth car and does without the stove. Sorry that kind of logic does not make sense to me!

Now if Jim Paxson were still the General Manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers, I could understand this move. Not that it would make any more sense, but Paxson was infamous for making insipid decisions. Jim Paxson was a terrible General Manager, nothing personal Jim, just calling it the way I see it. Any man who drafts Trajan Langdon, DeSagana Diop, and Dajuan Wgner over Caron Butler has no knowledge of player personnel. The free agents and guys he traded for were no better, Clarence Weatherspoon, Chris Gatling, and maybe the most bitter athlete I have ever met in my life Lamond Murray. Murray probably was the most fundamentally sound player Cleveland had at the time on their roster, but his desire ebbed and flowed. Murray was upset, not by the losses, or any semblance of a long term or any short term plan, but that his uniform jersey was not sold in the team shop. That’s getting those priorities straight Lamond! Paxson did not think a point guard was all that important. I remember being at a press conference he held the year they went 15-67, Paxson said there were a lot of teams in the NBA without an elite point guard. I whispered to the reporter sitting to my right “Yeah, and those are the teams that end up in the lottery every year.”

But I have higher expectations from Ferry than I ever had in Paxson. If you are a regular reader of mine you know that I have known Danny since 1995 when he played for Cleveland. Danny is a smart savvy young man who knows the meaning of fundamentally sound basketball. He was raised in the game, his dad is Bob Ferry, former G.M. of the old Washington Bullets. Danny went to Duke where fundamental basketball is the school’s mantra. He played with great point guards in Cleveland, Mark Price, Terrell Brandon, Andre Miller, and even Brevin Knight. He then went to finish his playing career, and start his administrative career with the San Antonio Spurs, the most fundamentally sound team in the league. He learned at the knee of Greg Popovich, another advocate of playing the game the right way, Danny knows that without a legitimate point guard his team can not be a legitimate challenger in the NBA. Yet all summer long he did nothing to address the problem.

If you watched ESPN last Friday night, and caught the contest between Boston and Cleveland you saw two teams on opposite sides of the mountain. The Celtics are just starting their arduous climb up, while the Cavaliers who were on the edge of the summit at the conclusion of last season seem to have lost their footing and are tumbling downward. If the Boston Celtics are a work in progress, than the Cavaliers are a work in regress! The most telling statistic of that game was the assists totals, for the second night in a row Cleveland had just 16 assists as a team!  Boston’s Kevin Garnett and point guard Rajon Rondo  had that total between the two of them! Now Rondo is not going to make anyone forget Tiny Archibald, but the way Cleveland was playing they could have used Tiny, and he is 59 years old!

And so the only conclusion I can come up with the imminent signing of Pavlovic, is Ferry is planning to deal from strength his abundance of shooting guards to fulfill a need. Trading for a point guard! Now if I had my druthers Chris Paul, T.J. Ford, and Mike Conley Jr. would be right at the top of my list(talk about an abundance of riches, Conley who in my mind has the potential to be the most complete player in this past NBA Draft is third on the Memphis Grizzlies depth chart!) But those are unrealistic expectations, so I have set my sights on an attainable player. None other than former Cavaliers point guard Andre Miller. Miller right now is withering on the vine in Philadelphia, a team that is going no where any time soon. After parting company with Allen Iverson and Chris Webber last year they are in a rebuilding mode. they want young inexpensive players. Miller can be had, if Ferry wants to make the deal. Hopefully I am reading the tea leaves right, and this is the plan that they have. Because if they don’t it will be a long cold winter in Cleveland.

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