What's going on in Cleveland? Everyone (including us) figured this team was a lock to win 55 games. It's early, but 12 games is not a meaningless sample, and so far, they are on a pace to win...thirty-four games. Yikes.
So, what's going on? The popular memes seem to be: 1) they have no ball movement and 2) they have no rim protection. I think there's some truth to this (especially the ball movement), but I also think it's less complicated: their stars are underperforming, and their shooting guards are terrible at shooting (so far).
Let's look at the season so far:
| NAME | POS | GP | MIN | WP48 | PoP48 | WINS | PTS | REB | AST | TO | BLK | STL | PF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Kirk | C (5.0) | 2 | 3 | .684 | 18.2 | 0.04 | 32.0 | 0.0 | 16.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| James Jones | GF (2.0) | 2 | 9 | .247 | 4.6 | 0.05 | 16.0 | 5.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Kyrie Irving | PG (1.0) | 12 | 461 | .194 | 3.0 | 1.87 | 27.3 | 4.3 | 6.0 | 2.5 | 0.4 | 1.9 | 2.5 |
| LeBron James | SF (3.0) | 12 | 463 | .166 | 2.1 | 1.60 | 30.7 | 7.4 | 8.5 | 5.0 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 2.3 |
| Shawn Marion | SG (3.0) | 12 | 285 | .161 | 1.9 | 0.96 | 10.6 | 7.6 | 2.4 | 1.5 | 1.7 | 1.2 | 2.0 |
| Tristan Thompson | PF (4.0) | 12 | 281 | .158 | 1.8 | 0.93 | 17.6 | 12.6 | 1.0 | 2.0 | 1.7 | 1.0 | 4.3 |
| Anderson Varejao | C (5.0) | 12 | 323 | .131 | 1.0 | 0.88 | 19.0 | 12.5 | 3.1 | 3.1 | 1.5 | 1.0 | 3.6 |
| Kevin Love | PF (4.0) | 12 | 433 | .122 | 0.7 | 1.10 | 21.9 | 13.2 | 3.2 | 1.9 | 0.3 | 1.0 | 4.0 |
| Louis Amundson | PF (4.0) | 3 | 14 | .076 | -0.7 | 0.02 | 6.9 | 17.1 | 3.4 | 3.4 | 0.0 | 3.4 | 6.9 |
| Matthew Dellavedova | PG (1.0) | 3 | 59 | -.020 | -3.7 | -0.02 | 6.5 | 2.4 | 5.7 | 0.0 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 6.5 |
| Mike Miller | SF (2.5) | 11 | 129 | -.029 | -4.0 | -0.08 | 4.8 | 7.1 | 1.1 | 0.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 5.6 |
| Joe Harris | SG (2.0) | 10 | 144 | -.089 | -5.8 | -0.27 | 11.0 | 4.3 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 0.0 | 0.7 | 7.3 |
| Dion Waiters | SG (2.0) | 11 | 265 | -.092 | -5.9 | -0.51 | 18.1 | 2.5 | 3.4 | 2.9 | 0.5 | 2.9 | 4.3 |
| Will Cherry | PG (1.0) | 5 | 24 | -.116 | -6.7 | -0.06 | 12.0 | 6.0 | 8.0 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 4.0 | 8.0 |
| Brendan Haywood | C (5.0) | 3 | 13 | -.259 | -11.1 | -0.07 | 14.8 | 18.5 | 0.0 | 3.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 11.1 |
| Name | FG% | 2FG% | 3FG% | FT% | eFG% | TS% | FGA | 3FGA | FTA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Kirk | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0 | 0.0 | 32.0 |
| James Jones | 50.0% | 0.0% | 50.0% | 0.0% | 75.0% | 75.0% | 10.7 | 10.7 | 0.0 |
| Kyrie Irving | 45.7% | 47.9% | 41.5% | 85.5% | 53.0% | 59.7% | 19.4 | 6.8 | 7.9 |
| LeBron James | 46.7% | 49.1% | 39.3% | 77.1% | 51.6% | 56.6% | 23.3 | 5.8 | 8.6 |
| Shawn Marion | 44.1% | 43.5% | 46.2% | 83.3% | 49.2% | 51.1% | 9.9 | 2.2 | 1.0 |
| Tristan Thompson | 48.3% | 48.3% | 0.0% | 70.4% | 48.3% | 52.1% | 14.9 | 0.0 | 4.6 |
| Anderson Varejao | 57.4% | 58.7% | 0.0% | 71.4% | 57.4% | 60.2% | 14.0 | 0.3 | 4.2 |
| Kevin Love | 40.0% | 42.6% | 36.1% | 85.2% | 47.1% | 54.4% | 17.2 | 6.8 | 6.8 |
| Louis Amundson | 33.3% | 33.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 33.3% | 33.3% | 10.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Matthew Dellavedova | 30.0% | 20.0% | 40.0% | 0.0% | 40.0% | 40.0% | 8.1 | 4.1 | 0.0 |
| Mike Miller | 27.8% | 66.7% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 36.1% | 36.1% | 6.7 | 5.6 | 0.0 |
| Joe Harris | 34.4% | 37.5% | 33.3% | 75.0% | 46.9% | 48.9% | 10.7 | 8.0 | 1.3 |
| Dion Waiters | 37.7% | 40.2% | 29.2% | 68.4% | 41.0% | 43.7% | 19.2 | 4.3 | 3.4 |
| Will Cherry | 28.6% | 25.0% | 33.3% | 50.0% | 35.7% | 38.1% | 14.0 | 6.0 | 4.0 |
| Brendan Haywood | 40.0% | 40.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 40.0% | 40.0% | 18.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
As you can see, the Cavs have some above average players: James, Irving, Love, Marion, Thompson and Varajao. But it should be noted that both LeBron James and Kevin Love are greatly under-performing their historic production levels, and neither is really old enough to chalk it up to age. This should give Cleveland fans hope: regression to the mean is probably around the corner!
But there's more. The Cav's have 538 combined minutes of shooting guard production between Dion Waiters, Mike Miller, and Joe Harris. And all three of them have been absolutely horrific, producing almost a whole negative win just among themselves. Waiters in particular is a very special kind of poison. His abyssmal 43.7% true shooting doesn't seem to be stopping him from chucking like mad; he takes more shots per minute than Kevin Love and nearly as many as Irving (the team's best shooter). Let that sync in a minute. When Dion Waiters is on the court, he is taking more of Cleveland's shots than Kevin Love, and as many as Kyrie Irving. That is stupefyingly bad basketball. I'm still undecided about David Blatt as a coach, but the fact that he's allowed this to happen is a very big mark against him.
Speaking of Love, much has been made of how few looks he gets, and while this is a problem, I wouldn't be so quick to blame it on Kyrie. The ball is stopping in LeBron's hands a lot as well. Very often, this is because teams switch when he and Love play the pick and roll, and James usually prefers to abuse the resulting mismatch in a quasi-iso play. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think they can and should get Love the ball more often, but Irving is not the only guy dominating the rock.
What's really worrisome to me is that Love is setting career-worst marks in offensive rebounds and personal fouls. For the former, it seems like he's lurking around the perimeter too much. They should be using him in the high post more often and in high pick-and-rolls less. It's baffling to me that Kevin Martin and Corey Brewer feasted on layups through backdoor cuts when Love had the ball in the post, yet LeBron Goddamn James isn't getting a dunk per game or more from a set like that.
(Astute readers may note that his defensive rebounds are down. This, however, is more likely just diminishing returns: he is now playing with a lot of very good defensive rebounders, and DRBs, unlike ORBs, include a significant team component).
On the defensive end, Love having 4 fouls per 48 minutes when he hasn't sniffed 3 fouls per 48 in 2+ years should be terrifying the assistant coaches in Cleveland right now. Opposing defenses are attacking him relentlessly. The question is, "Why are they LETTING this happen!?" All things being equal, it's generally easier to defend an opponent when you know what they are trying to do on every set, isn't it? People are quick to scream "rim protection!", but that starts on the perimeter, by at least pretending to make it sort of difficult for your man to get around you and drive to the basket. The easier perimiter guys can penetrate to the spots they want, the harder initial help defenders have to work to contain, which really makes it hard for the secondary help defender (when you hear a coach talking about "helping the helper", they are talking about the secondary helper that has to slide over when a helper leaves a man open to help on the initial ball penetration). It's hard to fathom, but so far, Cleveland looks even worse at this than Minnesota did last year. It almost looks like the defensive schemes are trying to "funnel" ballhandlers into the help defense, which might be a great strategy when your defense is anchored by Anthony Davis and Omer Asik, but sounds like a terrible idea when your primary helper is Kevin Love.
Henry Abbott and David Thorpe have speculated that the Cavs need to make a trade. I agree. They need to dump Dion Waiters fast, while there is still even the tiniest illusion that he might someday become a competent NBA player.