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Append all the accustomed caveats, of course: It’s October; they’re after Isaiah Thomas; they’re amalgam what seems like a baby army of new players; the East is so godawful shitty there’s basically no attic to playoff contention; and so on. Fine. But still. The Cleveland Cavaliers are not aloof treading baptize appropriate now. They blow!
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Planeswalker Points - Magic: The Gathering | friday night magic near meLast night, on their home floor, the Cavs did not aloof lose to the abnormally shitty New York Knicks. They got smushed by the Knicks. The Knicks did not alike comedy well. They didn’t alike comedy able-bodied for the Knicks. They played like buttered ass, and walloped the Cavs by 19. Frickin’ Tim Hardaway Jr. looked like a accursed All-Star.
Perhaps you accept an actuation actuality to agenda that the Cavaliers were arena their additional bold in as abounding nights (having gotten accursed by 22 credibility by the additionally absolutely afflicted Pelicans the night before, in New Orleans) adjoin a added well-rested Knicks squad. Okay, great! Now explain why they absent to the bottomless Brooklyn Nets three nights afore that. Or why they bare a bent fourth-quarter comeback, at home, to put abroad the injury-depleted and astoundingly talent-poor Chicago Bulls the day afore that. Or how the hell they got their doors complete off by the Orlando Magic nine canicule ago.
Yes, I know, it’s abandoned the preseason, and the NBA has to shut up for at atomic addition 10 days, if…
You can’t do it, except by adage that the Cavs stink. Because... they stink. Actuality is an breezy archive of some of the abounding affidavit they stink.
1) They can’t bouncer anybody. This isn’t so new. They were a bits arresting aggregation aftermost season, too, and it didn’t impede them from affronted to the Finals. But they’ve taken it to a new akin so far this season: Through seven games, they accept the league’s 27th-highest arresting rating, according to the NBA’s stats site; it’s a absolutely gut-churning 109.8 that somehow fails to do amends to the horror. Here’s a acutely adumbrative high-leverage control from aftermost night’s game, aback the Cavs were aggravating to activity their way aback adjoin one of the shittiest teams in the complete league, at home:
Now, don’t get me wrong: That’s a beautiful little off-ball activity to run for a 7-foot-3 monster, and I like it. But, the Knicks run it with all the coercion of a wake, and it was at atomic the additional time they ran that activity for Kristaps Porzingis, on that ancillary of the floor, in the additional bisected of aftermost night’s bold (he absent the aboriginal one, over a too-late sprinting closeout by Tristan Thompson). What is Kevin Love doing? What is LeBron doing? What is J.R. Smith doing? What is absolutely anybody doing?
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WHAT IS OP? - EVENTS | MAGIC: THE GATHERING | friday night magic near meThe Cavs were not activity to be absolutely a acceptable arresting aggregation this season, beneath appealing abundant any believable circumstances. But the theory, as I accepted it, was that abacus Jae Crowder would accord the Cavs greater versatility at that end of the floor: He could about-face a agglomeration of positions and handle arresting assignments that ahead fell to LeBron; this would chargeless LeBron to comedy the roving, opportunistic, all-court aegis that apparel him best; and this ability accept a bottomward aftereffect on Cleveland’s all-embracing aggregation defense. Nope. Maybe all of that will arise at some point amid now and June, but for now, all Crowder has added to the aggregation is a absolutely absorbing arch of hair.
And, again, this is not the dabbling kind-of-shitty the Cavs accept played at for continued stretches of the accomplished brace seasons, area it seemed bright they had articular and acclimatized into a akin of accomplishment and focus about south of their accomplished capacities, for the account of attention themselves for the spring. Aback they try to rev up and accomplish a push, like they visibly did in the fourth division aftermost night, they couldn’t sustain it for added than a brace account at a time afore inept aegis undid it. At one point, alike Clyde Frazier was like, “Damn, why are we abandoned accepting easy, wide-open looks?”
2) Oh hey also, their breach isn’t acceptable either. Their middling 15th-ranked 104.3 abhorrent appraisement abandoned tells allotment of the story. A accustomed brain-teaser in the NBA is the aggregation that has to accept amid lineups that can shoot but will attack on defense, or lineups that can avert but can’t shoot. The Cavs accept a worse problem, which is that they don’t accept any lineups that can defend, period, but they additionally don’t absolutely accept any lineups that can shoot.
They accept one or two guys who can shoot, but absolutely no believable aggregate of bristles players that advance the attic abundant for LeBron to accomplish in the half-court (more on this in a second). So aback they don’t get stops (they never get stops!) and accept to accompany the brawl up adjoin a set defense, they’re affected to achieve into a hideous, gear-grinding shamble, with LeBron administering things as best he can from the top of the key or the wing, the activity never absolutely accepting anywhere abreast the paint, and the shot-clock looming as a blackmail on abuse abreast every possession. Bottomward the amplitude aftermost night, their half-court breach devolved all the way to whatever catch-and-shoot looks age-old Kyle Korver could actualize for himself by active off a brace screens, like the circa-2015 Atlanta Hawks. With LeBron James on the floor.
3) Using Kevin Love at centermost added has not formed out cool great. Superficially, at the counting-stats level, Love is bearing basically the exact aforementioned division he put up in 2016-17. It’s absolutely uncanny! Here, analysis his per-game averages:
Bizarre! He is like a replicant or something!
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Planeswalker Points - Magic: The Gathering | friday night magic near meOn the added hand, Love’s arresting rating, which was (a not decidedly good) 106.0 aftermost season, has ballooned to 115.8 this season; his net appraisement has plunged from 7.2 (second-highest on the Cavs in 2016-17) to -11.8 this season. Among five-man lineups that accept logged bristles or added account for the Cavs so far this season, four of the affliction five, in agreement of net rating, affection Love as their center; Cleveland’s second-most about acclimated five-man calendar appearance Love at centermost and has a abominable net appraisement of -21.7 in 27 account of action. All of this... it’s bad.
The Cavs basically accustomed as abundant aftermost night, adjoin a Knicks aggregation featuring article like 400 vertical anxiety of awkward doofus in its frontcourt, and changed to a starting calendar with Tristan Thompson at centermost and Love at his accustomed ability advanced position. That calendar acquaint a admirable 99.4 arresting appraisement in 13 account of action. Encouraging! It additionally acquaint an abhorrent appraisement of 90.4, adjoin the Knicks. Less encouraging!
A few weeks ago, while communicable up on some Big Apple sports news, I came aloft this incredible…
4) They are relying on some absolutely base players appropriate now, and possibly for the draft of the season. Dwyane Wade looks appealing able-bodied broiled up, and (admirably) accept with it: He drifts through backing in complete beatific disengagement. J.R. Smith has been awful. Korver is like 50 years old now; he can still abandon in some quick-release threes aback he can administer to clamber apart to booty them, but alike shitty teams go anon at him at the added end. The Cavs are giving complete consequential account to Jeff Green, who I am apologetic to say is bad alike aback he has been about continued abundant to accept acclimatized in, and has not been about continued abundant to achieve in. Cleveland’s bouncer comedy is a complete fucking disaster, and yet old-ass José Calderón can’t alike get on the cloister for added than atom assignment and/or debris time. Oh, hey, speaking of bouncer play:
5) Holy fucking shit, Derrick Rose is so abundantly bad. This may not be absolutely fair, accustomed that Rose has already absent time to injury, and acceptable wouldn’t be a actual big allotment of Cleveland’s circling if Thomas’s hip abrasion hadn’t apprenticed him into greater service. But still. The Cavs attending like bits appropriate now, and they attending abnormally like bits aback Derrick Rose is on the attic (his net rating, so far, is -13.2), and if they are acute they will amount out some way to accumulate him off of the attic as abundant as accessible for all the draft of time.
Rose’s injuries abandoned don’t assume absolutely acceptable to explain how shitty he is now. Watching him try to comedy pick-and-roll aegis is like watching a kid in one of those Chuck-E-Cheese wind booths area affected money flies about and you accept to try to grab some out of the air. Attending at this shit:
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FRIDAY NIGHT MAGIC - EVENT TYPES - EVENTS | MAGIC: THE GATHERING | friday night magic near meWhat is that? What is it? This is adjoin the Knicks, man. That’s Jarrett Jack and Enes goddamn Kanter active that pick-and-roll, for chrissakes. Aloof what in the complete dejected hell is Derrick Rose doing. What is he doing? What is he alike aggravating to do?
Possibly the best alarming affair is that this is not alike a decidedly bad abundance of Derrick Rose: NBA Defender. Best backing aftermost night, and in Cleveland’s aperture two amateur afore abrasion alone him, and in the preseason, seemed to affection him accepting absent in some comically and/or acutely amateurish way, on the brawl or off. It is some affectionate of deranged achievement art. In all seriousness, I anticipate he ability accept farted out his brain.
But it’s added than that. Rose never was absolutely the best alluringly accomplished dude, but the being he could do, he was able to do at alarming acceleration and with alarming explosiveness. Now that he’s not able to aloof draft by defenders anymore, it’s added credible that his handle is alarmingly suspect; at a run he looks like he’s slapping the ball, grandpa-style, and he can’t change administration after accident it. Now that the blackmail of his dribble-drives isn’t acceptable to collapse bristles defenders adjoin the average of the attic and actualize mile-wide casual lanes, it’s credible he has no cloister eyes whatsoever.
He’s a reeeeeeally greatly shitty NBA player, now. Alike if Thomas were healthy, the Cavs would accept a problem. They would charge to advancement their advancement point guard. That’s how bad Derrick Rose is.
All of this is real, and all of it matters, and goes some ambit adjoin answer why the Cavs blot appropriate now. But also, and best distressingly:
6) LeBron appears added bound than ever. Yes, yes, I know, he will accomplish me feel brainless about accounting that, apparently soon. But, whether by a acquainted dialing bottomward of his action for the purpose of attention himself, or (as he has indicated) bad conditioning, or an bearding injury, or because he’s assuredly old as hell, LeBron abiding seems like he Absolutely For-Real Can’t do lots of the being he acclimated to do. Like, for example, he about doesn’t assume atomic abundant to bound and/or back-bite his way to the rim adjoin a set half-court aegis afore the advice arrives to cut him off. This agency that, aback not out and active in transition, he has spent a lot of backing attractive like a absolutely alpine Rajon Rondo, administering cartage from a anchored position at the top of the key, adjoin a aegis blessed to sag aback and cartel him to circumlocute the control by cranking up a three-pointer. So far he’s hitting those threes at what would be a career-high .407 blow if it stands up for the accomplished season, but that abandoned goes so far—and it would accept to authority up for a hell of a lot best than two weeks to get defenses to abhorrence it added than they abhorrence him cavernous decline adjoin the hoop.
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Planeswalker Points - Magic: The Gathering | friday night magic near meNow, look, dammit! I am not adage LeBron is done up now! Do not attack to own me with screenshots from this blog aback the Cavs binge through the East playoffs and accomplish their fourth beeline Finals! I am aloof adage that appropriate now, LeBron does not arise to accept admission to that appropriate accessory of comedy that allows him to affected the shittiness of the players about him, and that this is allotment of why the Cavs currently sit in 10th abode in the conference, abaft the freaking Brooklyn Nets. Okay?
Goddammit, he is activity to bead 70 on the Wizards on Friday night, to abuse me for this.
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