Sunday, June 3, 2007

Letter from Bali

YAY.

I am delighted to receive this great news at an internet cafe at 9:30pm. The city of Bali, by the way, is totally Cavs town, with infinitely more Cavs than Spurs fans at the present moment, by a margin of one to zero.

Not having seen one second of this series, I nevertheless feel pretty confident in envisioning how it went, with the exception of game 5 which eludes me. I have never seen Lebron decisively take over a key game, including making the winning shot, let alone dominate with extreme prejudice as he apparently did. It goes without saying that that performance and that win were the difference.

I am not hugely surprised by this outcome, and I think it will be a very good thing for the franchise, in spite of the fact that they will lose the finals in 5 and Lebron might even look kind of bad. It was necessary for the club to progress to contender status before Lebron's contract year loomed. Now, even if the Cavs don't make the finals again next year, they will nevertheless be considered a perennial threat because of Lebron alone, which may be enough to convince him that Cleveland is worth resigning with. Honestly, I think he's far from his peak seasons, and whatever magic we're seeing this year will pale in comparison to what we might see in four or five years if the front office can lock down their star and build a decent supporting cast at a reasonable pace. That will mean, fortunately, dropping Hughes as soon as possible, and unfortunately, watching Z fade. Potentially, Gibson and Pavlovic could develop into potent weapons. Maybe one of these years we can even sign a point guard.

Speaking in the long term like this, and my apologies for not being just purely enthusiastic about the present situation, which is admittedly really cool, makes me feel like it will be for the best for the Cavs to lose this series. I would hate for them to feel like they were a championship caliber team just because they win a championship. It just isn't true. They were perhaps the sixth or seventh best team in the NBA, they had an INCREDIBLY lucky playoff schedule, and they have a superstar who fortunately can turn it on for a few games at a time when necessary. For Lebron to be the once-in-a-generation player that has been forecasted since he was 11 years old, he'll have to face better competition in future playoffs, at least to convince me. Kudos to him for showing in this series that he may have it in him.

I will root for the Cavs unabashedly in these finals because I love them. But I will not cry a tear if and when they lose.

9 comments:

JAKE said...

Ben -- man, I am so happy for you as a Cavs fan. If we were both in NY, we'd have to turn the clock back to '05 and come up with a sequel to the Detroit Car Bomb -- "Fire on the Lake" -- it could basically be the same ingredients . . .

So, CAVS as 6th or 7th best team....I think I definitely agree. Let me improvise a post-playoffs power ranking:

1. SPURS
2. SUNS
3. MAVS
4. JAZZ
5. PISTONS
6. WARRIORS
7. CAVS
8. BULLS

my biggest question is whether the warriors are better than the pistons, or in fact, whether the nuggets could be as high as 5 or as low as 9. totally confusing because they faced the spurs in the first round, and thus, weren't on display for long. this list only makes it so much extremely weirder that oden and durant are BOTH going west . . . . holy crap. though i guess it's GREAT news for the knicks that oden and durant aren't playing for boston and atlanta.....GO KNICKS! (i have $40 on the knicks making the playoffs next year with a cranky shyster from berkeley)

nappy-headed hoe said...

Could you please describe your reasoning for ranking the Pistons in front of the Cavs? I see no evidence that Detroit is a better team. Each game they lost in the series was legitimate and without controversy.

If you decided to rank Detroit ahead of Cleveland just prior to the start of the 07/08 season with the draft and free agency complete, I would give you the benefit of the doubt. But to somehow still believe the 06/07 Pistons are superior to the 06/07 Cavs after Cleveland just beat them in a seven game series is insane.

ted said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ted said...

1. I enjoyed the Demon Drop comment, I'm pretty sure it was torn down in favor of the Top-Thrill Dragster, but the Demon Drop is a much more eloquent reference.

2. This is a weird thing to say, but I can easily see the Pistons winning more regular season games than the Cavs next year, but losing to them again in the playoffs. I really don't think the Pistons will contend for a title again with this roster, past their prime. I should mention that I don't consider the Cavs contenders either, the West is just too strong. The point being I am not confident enough to take that bet.

3. I totally second Dan's emotions, I have no idea how you can say that the Pistons were a better team after that showing; the Cavs did not get any fluke wins, and were in the position to win both games they lost. The Pistons might have more overall talent than the Cavs, but if said talented players don't give a fuck, that is not a good team.

4. Ben, I feel your comments could only be made as you are out of the country, I can't even imagine how psyched I would be if I were in NE Ohio right now, compared to my excitement in NYC. I felt exactly the same way as you until they actually won the series; now I have to say I'm still adjusting to the idea of a Finals appearance, but I'm pretty sure I will be genuinely disappointed if we lose. I've talked myself into giving us a chance. Unfortuantely. 2-0 in the regular season! How many times do I have to repeat that before it means anything?

JAKE said...

Nappy and Baby,

Where is your ire that I still rank Dallas above Golden State?? Matchups against individual teams are not the same as evaluating performance for a whole season and a playoffs. I think the Warriors would beat the Mavs in a best of 21 series right now. However, I think the Mavs are a better basketball team against a random opponent. So, I don't believe that anything about the Cavs victory was a fluke. Last year proved that the Cavs present very specific defensive problems for the pistons that a true motion offense (Phoenix) or a legitimate inside-out offense (San Antonio) might not have. However, my addmitedly sore-looser-ish ranking of D-town over C-town is vulnerable to one thing: are the pistons having another late-season meltdown where they played FAR BELOW their true level (not true "talent" level, but actual performing level), or, have they totally cracked and gotten too old? I just don't think the whole "got too tired" things works, with the exception of tayshaun. last year you could see chauncey was too tired to drive the lane. this year only tay had that many regular season minutes and his flat-footed layups missing more often than they rolled in was too weird to be based on anything else i can think of. but, this year they weren't tired. they were having another set of chemistry issues. i don't know exactly what you can do about that, other than fire flip saunders or actually considering trading SHEED. but, given that the pistons didn't lose four consecutive games once this season, and the probably more than 50% chance that their complete chemistry implosion was just untimely and can be assumed to have some kind of functional resolution, I still see a pistons team that came back from a 20-point third quarter deficit against chicago when they were already up 2-0. if they had been able to turn on that degree of collective competitiveness and offensive flexibility (any of the 5 of us can score the next 20 points, boobie-style) that the displayed all season and against one legitimate playoff opponent . . . . basically, i still think the cavs would beat the pistons in a best of 21 series starting tomorrow. BUT, i don't think this is based on the cavs being a better basketball team. i think this is beacuse detroit has blown up. look at our offense. billups shoots 9 times in game 6. you can say a LOT about the way they trapped him in games 1 and 2, about eric snow, about putting lebron on chauncey. all great things.... chauncey still could have decided to dominate. and he didn't. he did this ALL YEAR against anybody. anyway -- congratulations to cleveland for being a total wrecking squad and exposing every problem with the pistons. i just have to look at the big picture and say, against a random opponent, (assuming you let tayshaun rest for two weeks and let flip saunders and sheed take a few days to talk it out), i'd pick the pistons to beat team X more times out of 20 than the cavs. also, the cavs are on this huge emotional surge similar to the pistons in 2004. that makes them incredibly dangerous right now, and THAT, more than their 2-0 regular season sweep, is what provides a gilmmer of dangerousness......

ted said...

Of course the example of one series proves nothing;(as evidenced by the Warriors over Mavs) anything can happen. So I suppose my argument is inherently flawed if I base it on the Cavs-Pistons series, but here's the difference:

I felt that the Warriors were lightning in a bottle, guys really stepping up at the same time, combined with gutsy coaching focused purely on beating the Mavs, damn the torpedoes. Don't get me wrong, it was great fun, but I don't think anyone would say that strategy (say, launching 30-35 treys a game) is something that will be effective in the long term. Nor do I expect Nellie to utilize it nightly next regular season.

I guess I'm judging those series on different criteria. Is it possible that the Pistons were just "off" this post-season, and can bounce back next year? Sure. I guess I'm just of the opinion that this series was not just about LeBron stepping it up or whatever, I don't think he was *much* better this year than last year, so what's the difference? The Pistons have gotten worse. Is it fair to call one team a flash in the pan based on a 7-game series, and then make longer term generalizations about another team based on another 7-game series? Maybe not. But to me this is just not the same Pistons team.

And that is based on the playoffs as a whole, as well as the regular season. As I suggested, I didn't really think the Cavs and LeBron were much better this year than last (it was basically an identical team that had an identical regular season record), but while I thought the Pistons could be a tough opponent they did not nearly strike fear into my heart like they did last year.

JAKE said...

quick thoughts, because i am excited about this conversation and ready to write more later

1. i actually don't think the warriors/mavs was lightning in a bottle. if the warriors had managed to beat utah, that would have been lighting in a bottle. because of matchups, i think the warriors would beat the mavs in a best of 100 series. the mavs had no interior guy to punish the warriors with his offense.

2. the 2007 pistons are WAY better than they 2006 pistons, and i think they are also better than the 2005 pistons and the 2004 pistons. i am very confident that this was the most offensively flexible pistons team of the "good pistons" era. so this late-season collapse and trouble against cleveland two years in a row is way more confusing than the "deteriorating pistons" storyline. if they got too old to play good basketball, that happened in the last 10 days, not in the last year

JAKE said...

2-0!
2-0!

You forgot to mention that the first cavs/spurs game was the 2nd game of the season, the day after the spurs had beat dallas in a rematch of their season-ending series, and the second game was january 2nd when the spurs had to travel on new year's day. so much for significant statistics. on the other hand, the TRUEHOOP blog has a very detailed log of how san antonio defended LBJ, and apparently not so well . . . .

ted said...

Yes, I was fully aware of the (lack of) quality of those wins, but I chose to ignore it. I see nothing wrong with that. I thought the fact that I know I'm grasping at straws came through without much additional explanation.