What will it take?: Cleveland Cavaliers

I know, I know, I'm pretty long overdue with this post. I was hoping to get some of the more prominent names in the blogosphere involved, but alas, I don't really know anyone in the Cavs blogosphere, as I don't really follow the Cavs outside of the plethora of LeBron news that assaults my reader daily. So I guess that means I'm stuck doing my own analysis. Shucks. I'm sure that's what some of you are thinking.

Anyways, the Cavs have had a pretty strong showing ever since LeBron has been on the team, because well, LeBron is LeBron. The Cavs have made the playoffs for since the 2005-2006 season, and it's largely been on the shoulders of LeBron James, especially since Cleveland got shafted by Carlos Boozer in the 2004 free agency. Regardless, with a supporting cast featuring the likes of Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Drew Gooden, Donyell Marshall, Sasha Pavlovic, Eric Snow, Larry Hughes, and the like, LeBron carried the Cavs into the playoffs (albeit in a weaker Eastern Conference), and even as far as the NBA Finals past the Detroit Pistons in 2007, only to be swept by the San Antonio Spurs. I'm sure you're all familiar with the history so I'll try to fast-forward to today.

Basically, everyone (including Mike Brown) realized that the Cavs, while a strong defensive team, desperately needed offense outside of LeBron James. LeBron just wasn't the Allen Iverson type that dominated the ball, and honestly, good defensive teams were able to stop the Cavs' offense by simply bottlenecking the point of origin, LeBron, and since he was the only point of origin, it worked. During the past offseason, the Cavs realized this and made a three-way move sending Joe Smith to Oklahoma City, who in turn sent Luke Ridnour to Milwaukee, who subsequently handed Mo Williams over to Cleveland (and Desmond Mason to OKC). At that juncture, Mo Williams was the second most reliable scorer on the Bucks behind Michael Redd, but the emergence of Ramon Sessions had rendered Williams somewhat expendable. Williams was averaging 17.2 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 6.4 assists during his last season as a Buck.

What Williams added, was a player who could create his own shot, someone who didn't have to rely on LeBron to make offense, i.e. a second point of offensive origin. Currently, Mo Williams, is doing his Mo Williams thing, just on a better team (17.9 points, 3.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists). It's definitely improved the Cavs significantly, as it has made their offense flow better, that and the fact that Mike Brown has developed an offense outside of "pass LeBron the ball at the top of the key". However, despite having the best record in the league (58-13), there is still no guarantee that the Cavs will win a title or even make it to the Finals. They still have to fight through an improved Eastern Conference playoff bracket and then take out whoever the West throws out at them. If they do make it to the Finals again, it won't be the trouncing they received 2 years ago, but again, it's not a given that they'll take it either.

So what's it gonna take? Well, ideally I would've said another scoring option, because to me honestly, I don't think that Mo Williams is a very good second option (I think Zydrunas Ilgauskas is a crappier third option), not that he's a bad player, but I think if you had another player who could score, maybe on the low block or something, they'd be more effective. However, that essentially fell through with the lack of a trade come the deadline. Mo Williams will have big shooting nights, but not consistently as say like Ray Allen, so what's going to have to happen, is that the role players are going to have to step it up.

One of the Cavs biggest weaknesses is offense in the low post, if you look at their front court, you have some pairing of Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Joe Smith, Anderson Varejao, and JJ Hickson. Let's assume that they get Ben Wallace back healthy, because I think they're going to need him come playoff time, so throw him into the mix too (Lorenzen Wright does not count). While Big Z is consistent, he's not a guy that can really score at will, and really makes a living off of open face up 12 footers than anything else.

Production-wise JJ Hickson and Joe Smith are virtually identical on a per 36 minute basis. The primary difference being that JJ Hickson coughs up the ball a lot more than Smith. While they're both solid, they, and Big Z, are by no means extraordinary offensive threats in the low block. I haven't seen much of Hickson play, but I'd imagine that he's not great or that his IQ isn't as high as Cavs might like if Brown is leery of playing him as a rookie in the post season and therefore is going with tried and true Joe Smith and his veteran exerpience. If we look at Varejao and Wallace, while Varejao isn't completely useless on offense, like Ben Wallace is, they're both more of an impact on the defensive end, which means they are even less of a scoring option than Big Z, Hickson, and Smith.

The offense then has to come from the shooters. Mo Williams, Delonte West, Daniel Gibson, and Wally Sczerbiak have to keep up their solid shooting from this season in order to carry the team over the top. LeBron is going to find them, but they need to be able to make the shots that they get, and do so consistently, which I suppose is the case for most teams. However, I emphasize this for the Cavs simply because there really just aren't that many weapons to rely on, while Williams was certainly an upgrade (from Larry Hughes and Eric Snow), I don't know that it's necessarily enough to carry them over in 7 games straight, especially since they are a little weak in the low post (see Dallas Mavericks from 2005-2007). My focus in terms of offensive production I think really has to be Delonte West, who's definitely stepped it up for the brunt of the season, but really has to maintain that high level of play for the Cavs to win it all.

While the Cavs have always been a good defensive team, they can't really take all that for granted. With Ben Wallace down, the team really suffers defensively on the block, as Joe Smith and Zydrunas Ilgauskas are by no means stoppers. Joe Smith may know the system and is probably pretty good with the help, but honestly, we can't forget that he was criticized so much last season for his inability to guard Kevin Garnett in the playoffs. Joe Smith is not a young guy, and so his defense isn't really going to get better. They have to really help a lot on the defense with teams that play physical like Boston and Atlanta (and Orlando I guess), while I don't know that they'll win a lot of the frontcourt battles, they can't afford to be beat too much by the opposing bigs.

Of course the big assumption is that LeBron will be enough to tide this better team over. I think that in this off season if they can acquire a major piece, say a solid PF scorer or maybe another explosive swingman then they'd be solid. With what they have now, LeBron will have to continue to be pretty darn amazing, and everyone else is going to have to step it up.