NBA News: Cavaliers excercise options on Irving, Thompson, Waiters and Zeller
October 23, 2013Uni Talk: So, about these Browns uniforms…
October 24, 2013
Cleveland sports fans are waiting. Thus, while we’re all waiting, the WFNY editors thought you might enjoy reading. Because you never know how long we might be waiting. So here are assorted reading goodies for you to enjoy. Send more good links for tomorrow’s edition to tips@waitingfornextyear.com
“They trumpeted it as a “settlement,’’ but of course the $765 million in restitution that the NFL has agreed to pay to former players to make those concussion-related lawsuits go away didn’t really settle everything. Certainly not the biggest question of all: will America’s love affair with football continue unchanged and unabated, now that we’re finally coming to grips with how much the game can ultimately cost some of its players?
In other words, what price football? It’s not an easy question to grapple with, but given the stakes, it has to be done, and it has be done by everyone from couch potatoes to commissioners.” [Banks/MMQB]
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The 25 ‘most interesting’ NBA players. “17. Andrew Bynum, Cavs. After being off the court since spring of 2012 and causing the Sixers to take a step backward, Bynum will try to salvage a career built on a pair of bad wheels. Bynum will either help a team that needs size or require more rehab and put his career in serious doubt. Either way, they’ll still curse him in Philly.
25. Tristan Thompson, Cavs. The Cavs used the No. 1 overall pick on Anthony Bennett, and normally he’d be the most curious player on this team. But Thompson is doing what no player in memory has done before: Change shooting hands, in this case from lefty to righty (some Cavs fans say they’d rather he didn’t shoot at all). Will that fix his flat mid-range jumper and 58-percent free throw shooting, or keep him an offensive misfit?” [Powell/Sports on Earth]
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“Brown has one big advantage this season that Byron Scott only had for a brief time last year; a hopefully healthy Anderson Varejao.
During the preseason, it has been a treat to watch the Cavs actually guard a high screen and roll correctly, and Varejao is a huge part of that. He has always been a great defender and could be integral on defense since he may know most of Brown’s schemes.” [Mancini/Stepien Rules]
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“And of course, with that value to the Indians now well established, Smith is a free agent and about to get paid handsomely by someone. He was the glue that held the bullpen together for the Indians this season and has been a mainstay for several years, so he has more than earned the right to seek out the best possible contract he can get.
It remains to be seen how much effort the Indians will make in trying to resign Smith since he could be looking at a three-year deal for around $5-6 million a year. That’s the going rate for a good setup man and might be too pricey for the Indians considering they have bigger fish to fry in trying to retain the likes of Scott Kazmir and Ubaldo Jimenez this offseason and also trying to extend Justin Masterson to avoid free agency with him next offseason.” [Lastoria/FSO]
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“After a few of the Cavaliers’ preseason games, I saw some hand-wringing about how many three-pointers Bennett has been taking. Sometimes he takes them too early in the shot-clock and some people would argue that a man his size (roughly the size of a Mack truck) shouldn’t be shooting threes at all. Power forwards are supposed to be doing dirty work down in the paint — grabbing rebounds and dunking on people. My immediate reaction to this conversation was that it was nonsense. Three-pointers are very valuable shots and are usually preferable to other jump shots in terms of efficiency. But there’s certainly a limit on how many threes you want your monstrous 6-foot-8 rookie power forward to take. I cannot tell you for sure what that limit is, but we can look at the numbers and try to come up with some sort of estimate. At the very least, we can advance this conversation and think more critically about how Bennett should play during his rookie season.” [Kaczmarek/Fear the Sword]
22 Comments
Oof…in that picture, Bennett’s body reminds me of that season where we kept playing Tractor Traylor at the 4
IMHO, Bennett is (should be?) a 3, not a 4.
Really great selections today, Rick.
– Re Brown’s advantage having a healthy Andy: sure, but Byron had him healthy in early seasons also. I wish Andy’s health was the source of Byron’s coaching issues. His problem was he couldn’t get his team as a group to play consistently hard or do anything well, even those things – like fast breaks – he promised to emphasize.
– Re Anthony Bennett’s three-point shots shot selection, will be something it will take more than one season for a kid with a varied offensive arsenal and only one year of college coaching to figure out. We better expect lots of “oh no!” shots way too early in the shot clock or with better options available, especially when he’s trying to make an impact in limited minutes. Maybe floor time with a guy like Jarrett Jack will shoot him faster up the learning curve. Or maybe he’ll have a prolonged knucklehead period like a Josh Smith. We have no idea.
– Re fans reconsidering the NFL in light of head trauma awareness, I wouldn’t assume its popularity makes it impervious. The widespread popularity of a sport depends a lot on how its characteristics fit into the then-current culture. There was a time when boxing – all weight classes – was the most popular sport in this country by far, when more people followed college than pro football and when basketball was less popular than hockey is today. If our infatuation with the NFL’s team gladiator thing starts giving way to, let’s say, the beauty and fluidity of soccer it’s easy to imagine the awareness of brain trauma helping to grease the skids away from the NFL for players, their parents and fans.
the FtS article actually disappointed me a little. the author starts by showing that his shots out there are MORE efficient but comes to the conclusion that he should take less 3pters because Love/Nowitzki take less? that doesn’t make sense to me because:
(a) we don’t know w/o a more comprehensive study if they are being as efficient as possible (which the author does allude to) and we don’t know how efficient Bennett can be in the paint his rookie year.
(b) Bennett’s role in our offense his rookie year will be extremely different than Love’s or Dirk’s role on their respective teams. Especially if Bynum is healthy enough to manage the paint.
on football: the progression that I see happening is that eventually the NFL/college move to 7×7 or 8×8 football to open up the game and reduce the concussion issues and, while people complain, they also note that it’s better than just being flag football. then, after a generation or two, we end up going full flag football at the professional level.
I think it’ll take another generation to even reduce from 11×11 at any level, a generation past that to get it at the NFL level, but I think the seeds are being sewn for the progression to happen. I don’t know if it’s good or bad (It’ll still be entertaining but will lack the currently “gladiator” aspect that does help with it’s popularity & ratings – what will fill that void as we know something will from history?).
My personal opinion… I think he needs more work on his ball-handling before he becomes a 3 and his body & footwork make him a 4 on the defensive end. I see Grandmama when I watch him play and think his career could go very similarly.
Does not have the foot speed to be a 3. Those long arms will allow him to match up with 4’s.
Bynum being a success for the Cavs is payback to Philly for stealing Thome (though the Tribe was probably better off without him from a baseball perspective, if not a fan perspective).
see, when I attend an NFL game it’s hard for me to imagine the fans embracing 7 x 7 just because it’s still “football.” The current attendees seem closer to boxing fans (yeah, I know the number of stadium fans is a miniscule percentage of overall viewers). The way the NFL is currently adding new penalties in its piecemeal, reactive way – where a defensive guy is uncertain where to aim, refs are twitchy about legal shots that just look dangerous and guys are fined but not penalized – tells us that the sport is sort of searching for a new soul, or at least stop the concerns. And their quandry is that if they do nothing the NFL looks like a human slaughterhouse, if they change too much the previously gigantic fanbase may reject the new soul.
Great comparison I also like a very young, very raw Zach Randolph.
The NFLPA will never agree to less players besides this is an entirely drastic reaction to what has been a barbaric, violent game since it’s inception. Like Richard Sherman wrote yesterday on SI.com if you don’t like it don’t watch. Improved equipment and education along with rule tweaks are the way to go. It’s just going to take time for players to modify the way they play.
when people stop watching, they will try to win them back. that’s the point. the NFLPA would not agree to less players total, but if you have 8 more teams. drastic times & measures and all.
short-term – I see weight limits being enforced at the HS & college levels. the concussion issue has delayed it’s momentum, but there are huge reasons to push for this one as well (bigger body, even when healthy is still using the same size organs).
I’m not as big on that comparison… to me Zach Randolph has always been an undersized post player like Bennett and rebounds well, but he’s never had Bennett’s athleticism. He’s a guy who made himself as a scrapper. He doesn’t really have the shooting range that Bennett figures to have either.
I do agree and something else will fill that void as the NFL likely drops to levels more like the current NBA popularity.
Are people not seeing what I’m seeing in regards to Tristan? He’s been completely DOMINATING these preseason games. 10 rebounds after 1 quarter last night, and finished with 17 points. He looked anything but an “offensive misfit”. The article above is wrong…he didn’t even *have* a jumper last season or the year before, but now he does. I’m going to keep posting comments like this until I see people give him more respect.
Re: head trauma
I hope WFNY goes into this a little more in depth. I consider the readership of this site to be more thoughtful than the average fan. I’d be curious to see what they think…rule changes, future popularity, would you let your kids play, etc.
For me, I’ve totally embraced my hypocricy. I love watching football and I’ll even watch it with my kids, but I’m pretty sure I’ll never sign that permission slip. I’d go as far as to say I’m glad my parents never signed me up when I was little and had moved on to other sports by junior high and high school.
please keep posting as it’s a nice sign, but until preseason is replaced with regular season I don’t think people will sign-off on improvements.
For me, I haven’t decided what will happen when they get to 8th grade. I think I’ll let them play if they want, but there is a hesitation. For now, I let them pick their own sports, but, when my older son picked football, he has to play flag.
The big part on this is improved equipment…and enforcing equipment standards. A lot of studies have been done on how to aid with concussion prevention. Make Concussion-proof helmets mandatory…require players to use mouth pieces that add with the process…require players to keep their chin straps strapped. Little things like this will go a long ways towards all of this. And once the big leagues start doing things, the smaller leagues will follow suit.
I agree with your sentiment…but keep one important thing in mind. He plays for Cleveland. We’re a sports city that is easy to pick on. Our current best superstar in the NBA is injury plagued. Our last legit superstar left us. He is doing something completely unprecedented. He’s a poorly shooting PF who was considered by many to be a huge reach for Cleveland (and very very raw), who has decided to do a massive makeover. WE know what we’re seeing…but WE are Cleveland fans. The national media doesn’t have the time to waste on what is likely to be another heartbreak in a city that “God hates.”
Re: Bennett (and his shot selection.) He is a rookie. In college, he was asked to carry the offensive load. He is going to have a questionable shot selection. To me, at this point in his career (absolutely zero legit games played at the NBA level) I’m not really concerned that he’s taken as many 3’s as he has. His role on the team is to be a bench scorer this year. So that’s what he’s trying to do. While more shots at the rim would be preferable (overall), it also would require a guy who isn’t in the best of shape (due to offseason surgery), has sleep apnea and asthma to work a little harder. If he’s a bit lazier on the offensive end and chucking up 3 point shots, but putting in effort on the defensive end, I am actually ecstatic.
Re: Head trauma – I said it below. Enact and enforce strict uniform policies. Concussion proof helmets, better mouthguards (that must be in the mouth during the play) and strapping up the helmets properly would all go a long ways towards helping with this.
Re: Andeson Varejao – it’s already been said, Scott had him healthy for brief moments too. It’s only a true advantage for Brown if Andy stays healthy. Otherwise, it’s par for the course. Which will reveal just who the better coach really is.
usually, it has worked the other way. HS & College enact rules that the NFLPA or NFL eventually incorporate.
That’s because it appears the NFL is afraid to adopt this hard line stance…even with the whole concussion issue they’ve had. This would be both a good PR move and a health move. When kids see their favorite athletes wearing concussion proof equipment…they’ll want to as well.