Let’s be straight up for a minute — it’s very easy for us to hate on the Cavs and Mike Brown right now. Myself included. We knew going into this series that the Cavs were the underdog. Before I swayed myself with the stats that LeBron tore up Bruce Bowen in the two games they played in the regular season I thought the Spurs would mop the floor with Cleveland (I ended up giving the Cavs 2 games). The rosters just don’t match up and the coaching doesn’t match up. At least this year they don’t.
The Cavs aren’t supposed to be here, though. They are probably a year or two away from a roster that resembles a team that should be in the NBA Finals and can compete in the NBA Finals. All this series will do — sweep or no sweep — will help them. It will certainly help LeBron, who has added valuable big-game experience to his 22-year-old resume. It will certainly help Daniel Gibson, who is destined to be a very nice role player on this team for the foreseeable future.
And it will most certainly help Mike Brown, who I guarantee you will not get fired. That’s right - I guarantee Mike Brown is the coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers next year and I would put money on a very loud vote of confidence for him this off season, either in the form of a verbal commitment or a contract extension.
There are two key aspects to being a successful professional coach/manager:
1. The players need to respect you and want to play hard for you.
2. The coach needs to be able to manage a game.
Coach Brown has number one, which is probably the most important towards the overall performance of your team. The Cavs have played their guts out for Coach Brown all season, as evidenced by their overall defensive numbers and them making it this far in the first place.
It’s the second aspect where Coach Brown has been so brutally scrutinized over the last month. His in-game inexperience in regards to timeouts, X’s and O’s, and on-court substituting has been so lacking throughout the playoffs that the hate is now pouring in.
Danny Ferry should be able to fix this, though. Ferry has a huge offseason ahead of him. He needs to bring in players that will not only compliment LeBron, but he also needs a second player who can play at LeBron’s level (Larry Hughes is not that guy). Whether Ferry can sign a Chauncey or a Rashard is yet to be seen, and honestly could be difficult. That being said, Danny Ferry can improve this team without adding a single player (I am not suggesting he does not add a single player). No offense to current assistants Kenny Natt, Hank Egan, Michael Malone, Melvin Hunt, and Chris Jent but the Cavs need to invest in a bench coach with some NBA head coaching experience, or someone who has been around the X’s and O’s of the offensive game for years and years. Mike Brown needs his PJ Carlesimo, his Alvin Gentry, his Del Harris. He needs a bench coach.
I would be shocked if Mike Brown was not on the Cavs’ sidelines next season.
I would also be shocked if there wasn’t a second recognizable head coach
sitting next to him on the bench.
Related posts:
June 13th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
PR says:
I thought (& hoped) that this was just a one time thing… When does Pat get back??
June 13th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
TheJed says:
second greatest. post. ever.
June 13th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
TheJed says:
PR aka “Foot out the door”,
I’ve already doubled the amount of blogs that you’ve written.
Does Nike really know what they’re getting with you?
June 13th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Noah says:
does anyone else feel like Reggie Miller should come out of retirement and drop threes along side Lebron like he did on the Knicks back in his Pacers days…
June 13th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Austin Burton says:
They need another slasher-type who can create his own shot. Sasha is good at getting to the rim, but one more guy would help. Even if it’s Shannon Brown next year or someone like Jerry Stackhouse, that’d be huge for the Cavs.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
TheJed says:
If they go out and sign Matt Carroll and Chauncey they’ve drastically improved their team.
June 13th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
db says:
Nothing wrong with Brown’s motivational skills or defensive schemes, and that’s why the Cavs are in the finals and Detroit isn’t (Dumars recommitting to Flip spells the end of the Pistons run). You’re right, he needs someone who understands offense, but he also needs some players who can understand how to run an offense. What was the quote from Gooden, “We just need to forget the Xs and Os and play hard”? You love to hear that as a coach. LeBron also likes to freelance. It wouldn’t surprise me if all Brown’s offensive schemes got canned because the playeres couldn’t be bothered remembering them. Snow is about the only guy who consistently makes good decisions, pity he doesn’t have any game left.
One of the reasons SA win is because everyone on that team buys into the system or they don’t play.
June 13th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
TheJed says:
Believe me, there is no doubt that they need new players. How many guys from this years team are on next years?
June 13th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
afterthought says:
Brown has been awful. The question is if the cavs still believe in him.
June 13th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
poop says:
I’ve watched every cleveland game this season and brown can’t be blamed completely. Larry hughes had a good year for the cavs and isn’t faking an injury. If he’s healthy this is a different series.
June 13th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Chief says:
Good piece, and I can appreciate some one being able to resist tearing into Mike Brown right about now but I look at the undermatched 76ers final’s team that showed the bully Lakers that they were here to play no matter what. Sure they got blown out the water after game 1 but at least a nuetral fan could watch every game and not wonder what else was on TV. Same as in the case with Nets and the Pacers who didn’t have a chance but made the games respectable at least, they all had one thing in common: great coaching. Mike Brown could do two times better and the Cavs wouldn’t beat the Spurs but at least we would have to watch until the end of the game to find out. No matter the score of any of the three games played; the Cavs give little to be optomistic about for this series at least and it would be a lot easier on the eyes if the Cavs had a coach who didn’t call senseless timeouts where they don’t come out with a play drawn up in the timeout but rather it looks like he just says “LeBron are you ok? Come on guys you can do this! We need you LeBron…” Like no crap sherlock, the Cavs look bamboosled and disheveled on every possesion as if they were the Knicks under Don Chaney… it doesn’t get worse
June 14th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Leon says:
The coach
Get a veteran assistant coach who has also been through the wars and have them develop an offense that maximises the roster’s strengths. The pressure would be on Browne to make this work, and if things do not work out early in the season, this same assistant could become the new head coach when Browne is fired. In this way it gives the assistant time to gell with the players and get their respect.
The roster
Need a point guard (Mo Williams?),and another reliable scorer who has done it in the playoffs, not just the regular season. Also this series has shown how ineffective their bigs can be so that needs an upgrade. Some of these things could be rectified with an offense that can help (see triangle, utah’s motion offense with some pick and roll, or the old post lebron, he gets doubled and swing it around to the open shooter). You could also move Z from the starting lineup add Varejo and run like the wind.
All of this will not work if Lebron does not become more aggressive on the court (see Jordan, Bird etc) and can become a more consistent shooter.
June 14th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Paygan247 says:
I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t included in the fire Mike Brown crowd via the other article. Im definitely in the he’s worth criticizing arena. Yes, the Cavs need to update their scorers/defender at SG, Gerald Wallace, there’s a guy on Washington, Deshawn Stevenson, who’s more likely to be available at a lower price. To me, the Cavs have a small pg to run with Tony Parker, Steve Nash, with Gibson. With Stevenson, they’d have a player to check JKidd, and others, making Larry Hughes expendable. I hope to see some attempts at improvement in the offseason, but with Danny Ferry running things, I doubt it.