The Wheel of Shooting Guards

The first two months of the 2014-15 NBA season has provided no shortage of fascinating storylines. None of them, however, intrigues me more than the way that Cleveland Cavaliers head coach David Blatt has approached the shooting guard position within his rotation. Through the course of each game, with each spin as it were, Blatt seemingly looks to somebody else to deliver a performance in the off-guard spot. Is it an exercise in lunacy, never settling on a set approach or is it an attempt to catch lightning in a bottle each night with the current mix of greenhorns and veteran hired guns?

There are essentially six guys who have played minutes at the two guard: Veterans Shawn Marion, James Jones, and Mike Miller as well as young ones Matthew Dellavedova, Joe Harris, and Dion Waiters. There are enough minutes to play three, maybe four, of these guys each night. While Marion and Waiters have been near constants, injuries have taken both Miller and Delly out of commission for considerable periods of time, opening the door for Harris and Jones.

Let’s take a brief look at the first third of the regular season and the wheel’s timeline.

• Game 1 (October 30th) – Dion Waiters starts at shooting guard and plays 38 minutes, Dellavedova (18), Marion (10), and Miller (3) play sparingly off the bench in the opening loss to the Knicks.
• Game 3 (November 4th) – Dellavedova goes down with a left knee sprain after playing 11 minutes. He would go on to miss 15 games as the Cavs lost their backup point guard, increasing the time James would spend playing point both with Kyrie on and off the court.
• Game 4 (November 5th) – Shawn Marion enters the starting lineup after Waiters goes 10-for-30 for 25 points, 3 assists, and 7 turnovers in the first three games in heavy minutes.
• Game 6 (November 10th) – Looking for a defensive spark, Blatt inserts rookie Joe Harris into the rotation. Over the next six games, he scores 31 points, hits a three in each game, and plays hard-nosed defense, often against the opponent’s best wing. Harris plays at least 19 minutes in each contest during this span.
• Game 10 (November 19th) – After nine games where he took just 13 shots, Mike Miller records his first DNP-CD of the season. He would record three more over the next five games as he falls out of the rotation.
• Game 17 (December 4th) – Mike Miller takes a vicious Carmelo Anthony elbow to the head, suffering a concussion. Miller misses the next 7 games.
• Game 18 (December 7th) – After playing just 15 minutes to that point in the season, James Jones hits a pair of threes and scores 8 points in 15 minutes.
• Game 19 (December 8th) – Jones has a season high 12 points on 4-of-5 from three. Delly returns, and he has played double digit minutes in each game since his return.
• Game 25 (December 19th) – Miller returns with a dazzling three point display (7-of-8) of 21 points in his first start as he helps the Cavs creep by the Nets.

Here’s a look at the six players have stacked up statistically.

While they’ve all seriously underwhelmed, you can see what each brings to the table. For Marion, it’s rebounding and defense. With Waiters, it’s passing and the ability to get to the line. For Delly, it’s passing and success as a low-usage player.

When looking at the five-man lineup stats, a lot of is tough to discern based on Irving-Love-James being out there with the starting shooting guard and getting off to hot first quarter starts, making Marion look better. However, three interesting figures were the minus-16 in 79 minutes for Waiters paired with the Big Three and center Anderson Varejao, the plus-25 in 56 minutes when Dion and power forward Tristan Thompson are with the Big Three, and the plus-22 in 27 minutes for Delly paired with the Big Three and Tristan.

So, what does it all mean? Well, as it stands right now¹…

• What do the Cavaliers need most out of their shooting guard? Well, it’s shooting. That’s why Shawn Marion, while providing some size and defense for the starting five, was a terrible fit. When the ball swings to the corner and there’s an open shot, you don’t want Marion to be the one taking it. Marion this year (and over his career) is a 36% shooter in the corner, while Jones (46.2% career) and Miller (42.6% career) are much better options to consistently spread the floor. Even Dion Waiters is a 41% shooter from the corner this year on 29 attempts.

• When Dion Waiters is “Good Dion”, the Cavaliers are nearly unstoppable. The Cavs are just 6-6 when they get six points or fewer from Waiters. In his last eight games, Waiters is averaging 14.1 points, shooting 48.4%, while handing out 19 assists with just 8 turnovers. It’s hard living if you’re David Blatt and your plan is to ride with Dion when he’s engaged, facilitating, and giving effort on the defensive end and bench him when he’s not, but the Cavs may not have any other choice. The benefits he provides when things are going well are so vital that you almost have to take the good with the bad.²

• Shawn Marion is back where he belongs as a reserve, backing up LeBron James at small forward and playing some power forward in small second unit lineups. I blame others for Marion being thrust into the starting lineup and having to play too many minutes as much as I blame Marion for not being able to do the duties of a starting shooting guard. At 36, Marion isn’t the same player he once was.

• For now, Mike Miller best fits the bill of what the team needs from the position in the starting lineup. Something clearly was out of whack with Miller early in the season³, but let’s hope he has turned the corner. Miller’s not going to defend well overall, but if he can make the occasional heady play and at least have the veteran presence to be in the right position most of the time, he should be able to offset that with his shooting on the other end.

• A lot of people still seem to be in disbelief at the consistent minutes that Delly gets. He doesn’t fit the bill of your prototypical guard, but when you see performances like the one he put up for most of the game defensively against Kevin Durant in OKC, you understand why Blatt values his input on a nightly basis. While Delly is really a point guard, you see him actually playing more two-guard most of the time when he’s out there with either James or Irving.

• Eventually, Joe Harris should provide a nice mix of contributions at both ends, but he’s just the odd man out right now with the Cavs at full strength. James Jones remains a veteran presence ready to step in if the pure shooter Miller cannot fulfill his role.

If nothing else, this area of the team gives a view into the portal of David Blatt’s coaching essence. Any idiot can plug in LeBron, Kyrie, and Love into the lineup for roughly 40 minutes per night. Most people could also tell you that the Cavs appear to have only three big men worthy of rotation minutes. However, how Blatt handles the two-guard slot shows you his desire to ride the hot hand. It was just two games ago that Waiters failed to play the second half as Blatt rode the just-returning Mike Miller for over 30 minutes. Blatt has done this to some degree with all of these guys throughout the season when their shooting or their spark has warranted it in his mind. This seems like the one area of the roster that Blatt can sufficiently exercise accountability.

Just as important (or perhaps more important) is who gets the call when both James and Love rest at the start of second and fourth quarters. Blatt has minimized the moments where he also sits Irving with the other two, because doing so is just asinine. Whoever joins Kyrie out there is often called upon to be the second option on offense. It’s why Dion best fits the bill there where his propensity to isolate and chuck jumpers at times isn’t quite as head scratching with two of three stars resting. With the second-unit lineup that Blatt has used since Miller returning of Kyrie, Dion, Delly, Marion, and Thompson, Waiters has to give them production. It’s the key to the Cavs holding their own while their two starting forwards rest.

Is there any end in sight or is Blatt destined to keep spinning, occasionally turning up a “Lose A Turn” or going bankrupt when he looks for contributions? Ray Allen could certainly change that, but as the days go by and Ray Allen spends another day out of playing shape and outside a NBA locker room, my confidence that he could make a drastic difference wanes. Certainly, he’d get the first crack at being the new starting shooting guard, but 39-year-old legs sitting idle for six months isn’t necessarily a good thing.

For now, with the R-S-T-L-N-E of six guards Blatt has been given, he must attempt to solve the puzzle each night.

1. Like the fickle nature of the wheel, it can change [↩]
2. I’m also a firm believer in the fact that Waiters is more valuable to the Cavs than what he will yield on the open market in the search for a shooter or rim protector. [↩]
3. Many have reported that he was out of shape, but it looked like more than that considering the overall lack of shots. [↩]