Season's Greetings: Cleveland Cavaliers 2008-2009 Season Preview

Welcome! Come one, come all, to the main event! It's season preview time, and Upside and Motor is ready to rock your world. The previews will be both concrete and lyrical in this magical world, both by numbers and by prose. To take a look at all the previews, click here.


Straight Up

Straight Up features all the stuff you actually want to see in your team previews: who are the new kids on the block, who skipped town, and where the team stands for the upcoming season. Along with my projection and standing for the upcoming season, it'll also feature three individual awards: Team MVP (let's not get into the debate over exactly what that means), the Most Important Reserve, and the Most Unheralded Asset.

Projected Record: 51-31 (2nd in the Central Division, T-4th in the Eastern Conference)
Off-season Acquisitions: Mo Williams, J.J. Hickson, Lorenzon Wright, Darnell Jackson
Notable Losses: Joe Smith, Damon Jones, Devin Brown, Dwayne Jones

2008-2009 Team MVP: LeBron James - I hear he's pretty good.

Most Important Reserve: The Boobie Gibson/Delonte West Two-headed Whirling Dervish of Shooting, Swagger, and Unadulterated Awesome - Nothing more need be said. But I will anyway: these guys are good basketball players, similar, and just the kinds of weapons LeBron needs. It's likely that the Cavs will start Wally at the two, so Boobie and Delonte will be gunning it from the pine and giving opposing head coaches headaches as their backups match-up against these two.

Most Unheralded Asset: Zydrunas Ilgauskas - The man is a machine. To get reliable production from the center position like Z has given the Cavs over the last decade is simply unheard of in today's NBA outside the typical powerhouse bigs. You expect that kind of consistency from a franchise center, not an oft-overlooked Vrussian Kosmonaut who is flat out better than you think.


Poetry in Motion


Photo from Getty Images.

Poetry in Motion will feature my feeble attempts at mimicking the sonnets of one William Shakespeare, complete with a weak, liberal interpretation of iambic pentameter and an identical rhyme scheme. As they say, the NBA imitates art...I mean poetry...err, life imitates the NBA...or I imitate poetry while writing about the NBA. Something like that. Either way, each preview will contain two sonnets: one focusing on a wider, team outlook and another focusing on the roles and futures of individual players. Revel! Criticize! Enjoy!


Offensive sets? LeBron, LeBron, LeBron,

No matter how you stack it, they’re simple.

On the fast break? LeBron, LeBron, LeBron,

Mo Williams’ presence is just a dimple.

Okay, a bit more: the guy is a stud,

But does that change Mike Brown’s offensive schemes?

Defense is nice, but the O is a dud,

Despite the presence of talent supreme.

Good D and LeBron always have a shot,

Even as the East gets strong’r by the day,

But it’s not what they are, it’s what they’re not

That could keep them from playing in late May.

This team is still solid, don’t get me wrong,

But I fear for them in an East so strong.


King LeBron James: you may have heard of him,

He’s only the best player in the game,

But from seven down the pickings are slim,

So many who can’t live up to their names.

Boobie’s got “it” and a nice paycheck, too,

He’s poised for a year of hitting big threes,

What will J.J. do in his Cavs debut?

Delonte West fills my heart with much glee.

Z is a rock; ever reliable,

But can Ben and Wally provide value?

Combined with LeBron, undeniable,

This squad, Mo-enhanced, are contenders true.

The Cavs potential rests on broad shoulders:

Lebron’s one year better, one year older.




Player Preview Spotlight: Sasha Pavlovic




The Player Spotlight feature highlights just one of the many cogs that make up the team. They may not be the best player on the team and they may not be the most recognizable (or who knows, they may be both), but I can guarantee that they're interesting. Their game, their on-court persona, their role within the greater scope of the team. Something about the player in the spotlight deserves your attention, and as usual, I'm more than willing to point it out to you.

Sasha Pavlovic is a ghost. For a year he seemed a Cleveland mainstay, teaming up with LeBron to bring the Cavs to the Finals. He was praised as a defender and an outside shooter, and seemed to complement James reasonably well. But just a few months and one holdout later, and Sasha is no longer a relevant part of the roster. Sure, he still gets minutes, and he put up comparable stats in '07-'08. But something was off. Sasha played differently, he played less efficiently (the notable statistical differences lie in his percentages), and he vanished without a trace. His minutes are forgotten as soon as he leaves the floor.

Were the Cavs that bad in 2007-2008 that they needed an irrelevant player to start for them at shooting guard? It's possible. Was Sasha's commitment to defense and tenacity some kind of media construction to make sense of how the Cavaliers were beating a team of the Pistons' caliber? Frankly, I don't know. Superficially, only two major events happened between Sasha's "breakout" year and the shade of his former self we saw last season: Sasha held out on his contract, and he grew out his hair (be careful, Boris Diaw). Somehow that development, as well as a few trades, shifted him from the starting two to fourth string behind West, Gibson, and Wally.

If Sasha's tale tells us anything, it speaks to the unspeakable unpredicatability of this business. As fans, we love to hear of competitive battles for the starting spot, the drama of the conflict between the two players, and the ultimate triumph and coronation of one player over the other. But a proud, tenacious player who was once the starter on an NBA Finals team finds himself buried within the depth chart of that same team just over a year later.

It also speaks volumes to the importance of timing and rhythm. The dance of basketball requires precision and practice in order to be executed to perfection (or even executed at an acceptable level), and Pavlovic's hold-out put him in a very uncomfortable situation. Not only does it unnecessarily create a divide between him and the rest of the roster, but it also creates a more real separation in terms of on-court chemistry and the ability to execute to the team's specifications. Conditioning is a big factor in such situations. But Pavlovic wasn't playing enough minutes to really be winded out there. Instead, he just seemed to have lost everything that made his game important. There was no tenacity and there was no emotion. Sometimes Sasha would seem stoic, but I'll be damned if you couldn't see the anger or the frustration written all over his face. He was Nocioni on ritalin in terms of his on-court personality. I mean that in both the most positive and the most negative ways possible.

But this...this is why no one dreams of being a defensive specialist. Even the most glamorous among them are either batshit crazy or tired journeymen who happened to find their niche. In the current evolution of the game, if you can't score, you are a liability. If you can't create your own shot in some way, you are a liability. And only certain teams are good enough to overcome that at one position, much less at multiple positions. In an earlier post I mentioned that if, as a young player, you can score, then you will have a place in this league. You may not always get minutes and it may not always be easy, but there will be a place for you on a roster. Contrast that with Pavlovic, who is under the Cavs employ for this season and next. Assuming he mimics last season's production and effort; would anyone be surprised if he disappeared into the sunset, free to roam the land of eternal free agency while he waits for Kevin McHale to return his calls? I don't think it's that big of a stretch, especially considering the constant influx of new, young, talent with seemingly endless potential to succeed on both ends of the court. I'm not saying the upcoming draft classes are all that strong, but a young player with "upside" usually triumphs over a known commodity that can only operate as a deterrent (Pavlovic isn't really a "stopper") and a spot up three point shooter.

I look forward to seeing whether ALEKSANDAR "Sasha" Pavlovic can re-establish his place on this team and in the league. I look forward to seeing if he can overcome his anti-Jerome James disappearance following playoff relevance. And I look forward to seeing whether or not Pav can prove me wrong outright about defensive specialists and their place in this league.


Season Previews, F'real

For those poor, conservative souls trapped in normativity, I'll make sure to send you to a few places where you can read through more conventional, in-depth season previews. Most of these links will be from team bloggers whose trade is knowing what there is to know about their respective teams, so tell your ears to perk up; it's time to listen.

Ball Don't Lie
Waiting for Next Year
Cavalier Attitude
Fear the Sword