http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/nba/20060705-1312-bkn-bulls-jimpaxson.html
In the NBA’s 2002-2003 season, the Cleveland Cavaliers went 17-65, which included a 15-game
losing streak at one point. http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/CLE/2003_games.html During this whole season, it was presumed that the team may have been intentionally losing. In addition, the Cavs had one of the worst coaches in basketball history, John Lucas. I presume that the Cavs hired Lucas to give themselves the best odds at getting LeBron. If the plan was to fail, then this may have been the only goal of the Paxson era that actually was achieved.However, the time has come to possibly re-evaluate Jim Paxson as a front-office executive. Why, you ask? Because, the weird thing is, that 4 seasons removed from the awful season, MANY of the players on the 17-65 team are still playing in the NBA, and perhaps even more surprising, is that they are contributing and even EXCELLING in multiple cases. In fact, if you reassembled the team right now, with the way some of them are playing, you would certainly have a starting PG, SG, C, PF, and a couple of injured players who could possibly start at SF.
I think it’s only fitting that we take a look at the players who still are active in the NBA (other than Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who is still on the Cavs), and how they would fit if each of them were still together on the Cavs or on one 2006-2007 NBA team:
[Editor’s Note: old stats from http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/CLE/2003.html]
Re-Mixed 2003 Cavaliers
Starting Lineup
1) PG – Smush Parker
2002-2003 – 6.2 ppg, 2.5 apg, 40.2% FG%, 32.2% 3-pointers (16.7 min/game)
2006-2007 (LA Lakers)– 11.4 ppg, 2.4 apg, 45.4 FG%, 36.7 % 3-pointers (29.8 min/game)
Smush Parker was pretty pathetic, in that first season. He was an undrafted free agent out of Fordham, and it really seemed like he was just happy to somehow make the team. He ended up going to Europe to play for a Greek team, before coming back to the NBA in 2004-2005 for a little bit, and then suddenly became the Lakers starting PG in 2005-2006. While Smush Parker is much better now, since he is a starter, he gets no respect from his franchise (which drafted Jordan Farmar from UCLA last June to replace him), nor does he get respect from opposing teams, even when he does well, as witnessed by Orlando Coach saying, "We can't be giving the Smush Parkers
of the league quarters like that,” after Smush scored 18 in one quarter one night. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/recaps/2006/12/27/20836
The strange thing is, Smush continues to improve!
2) SG – Ricky Davis2002-2003 – 20.6 ppg, 5.5 apg, 4.9 rpg, 40.9% FG%, 36.2% 3-pointers (39.6 min/game)
2006-2007 (Minnesota) – 15.6 ppg, 4.5 apg, 3.7 rpg, 45.6% FG%, 31.3% 3-pointers (37 min/game)
Ricky Davis ruled the Cavs team during the pathetic 2002-2003 season, hoisting up as many shots as possible to get to 20 per game, rarely playing defense, and providing highlight reel dunks. Just to remind everyone, Ricky Davis did try to record a triple double in March 2003, but Ricky needed one extra rebound – so he decided to take a shot at his own basket! Unfortunately for Ricky, he was fouled before he attempted the shot, but even if he had been able to, it’s actually against the rules to shoot at your own basket. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=230316005 http://espn.go.com/nba/columns/aldridge_david/1525101.html
Currently, Ricky plays on Minnesota, and while he certainly learned his lesson to not shoot at his own basket, he still is just as inconsistent and poor defensively as he was 4 years ago. But he still can score a lot of points!
3) C – DeSagna Diop
2002-2003 – 1.5 ppg, 0.5 apg, 2.7 rpg, 1.0 block/game, 35.1% FG% (11.8 min/game)
2006-2007 (Dallas) – 2.1 ppg, 0.2 apg, 4.7 rpg, 1.4 block/game, 44.1% FG% (17.1 min/game)
It’s weird how my feelings towards Diop have changed so much since he was drafted in 2001. The buzz surrounding the draft of 2001 was the presence of multiple high school stars (e.g. Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry, and Diop)… I was hoping before the draft that the Cavs architect of disaster, Jim Paxson, would NOT draft a high schooler, because the Cavs needed help immediately at the time (as was usual at the time). So, the Cavs chose Diop, and I just held a grudge against Diop the whole time, because he runs goofy, he was lazy and completely out of shape during his time with the Cavs, and he definitely grew some man-boobs.
Now, Diop is only one of the greatest defensive centers in the game today! And I don’t know why, but I’ve really grown to like him since he left the Cavs. It’s almost as if this helps to validate Jim Paxson, and makes me feel good that the goofy Diop is excelling.
And if you weren’t sure how to pronounce his name, or need another reason to like Diop, check out this video involving a rendition of “Jump” by Kriss Kross featuring DeSagana Diop. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx6wNDUq6oI
When asked about the video, Diop said, "I remember the first time they played the video during a timeout and I was trying to pay attention to what coach [Johnson] was trying to say but I was sneaking looks at the video."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeSagana_Diop
4) SF – Jumaine Jones
2002-2003 – 9.8 ppg, 1.4 apg, 5.1 rpg, 43.4% FG%, 35.3% 3 point% (27.6 min/game)
2006-2007 (Phoenix) (he’s been injured – he’s only appeared in 5 games so far)
Most people probably have never heard of this guy, but I’ve always been a fan. He’s a bigger guy (6-8, and muscular) who can hit some 3s when he gets hot. The Suns picked him up in the off-season to replace Tim Thomas as “big-guy-off-the-bench-to-knock down 3s”. Not many guys can play the role, and it will be interesting to see how he does once he gets healthy.
5) PF – Carlos Boozer
2002-2003 – 10.0 ppg, 1.3 apg, 7.5 rpg, 53.6% FG% (25.3 min/game)
2006-2007 (Utah) – 22.2 ppg, 3.1 apg, 11.8 rpg, 55.7% FG% (37 min/game)
I really don’t need to introduce Boozer, but I will say he was a 2nd round pick who wasn’t expected to do much, and was certainly a pleasant surprise.
Certainly, Boozer would be the “star” of the team if this team were assembled today.
Bench
Darius Miles (ughh… I know, he’s terrible, injured for the whole 2006-2007 season)
Chris Mihm (also injured for this whole 2006-2007 season)
It’s really rather amazing after going through the list, that there were 5 bona fide players on the 2002-2003 17-win Cavs team, and this isn’t even including Zydruanas Ilgauskas or Tyrone Hill. I have no idea how successful these 7 players would be on an NBA team. If someone has a 2007 NBA video game, maybe they can set up a simulation to see how this “Re-mixed 2003 Cavs” team would perform.
The Re-Evaluation
The question becomes, does the development of these players in the 4 subsequent years change my view of Jim Paxson? No, it really doesn’t change that much. Maybe I thought he was a F, whereas now, I’ll give him a D+. Clearly, you don’t want Paxson in charge of your team because he can’t succeed at making trades, he certainly can’t choose coaches, he doesn’t work with the coaches he chooses to get players to fit the system, he can’t choose players that complement each other, and finally, he chose too many long-term projects. Re-visiting the 2002-2003 Cavaliers has illuminated that Paxson does have one redeeming quality - he may be productive as a scout! However, he would only be productive as a scout if either 1) the team can wait for the player to develop, or 2) the team allows the player to develop in Europe or the NBDL.
Funny thing is, Jim Paxson recently secured a job working as a “consultant” for his brother John, who is GM of the Bulls! http://www.nba.com/bulls/news/paxson_060705.html
For the Bulls sake (and Hitman’s), let’s just hope Jim Paxson is limited to scouting, because if you let him anywhere near the draft picks, he will flush them down the toilet and trade them away as fast as you can correctly say “Trajan Langdon.”
No comments:
Post a Comment