2023 NBA Playoffs 1st Round: Cavs vs. Knicks

[B Mac]

Superstar = HoF level player.

Star = All Star Game player OR top players on shitty teams. For example I would call Sexton our Star player even though he was no real threat to make the all star team. That Brooklyn game where he wrecked that bullshit big three wasn't sustainable but it was a nice moment during our lean years.

I always enjoy looking at the HOF probability percentages of current or recently retired players:

Active​

Rank	Player	HoF Prob
1.	LeBron James	1.0000
2.	Kevin Durant	1.0000
3.	Chris Paul	1.0000
4.	Stephen Curry	1.0000
5.	James Harden	0.9999
6.	Russell Westbrook	0.9994
7.	Anthony Davis	0.9860
8.	Carmelo Anthony	0.9842
9.	Damian Lillard	0.9642
10.	Giannis Antetokounmpo	0.9491
11.	Paul George	0.9363
12.	Kyrie Irving	0.9345
13.	Kyle Lowry	0.8574
14.	Kawhi Leonard	0.7769
15.	Draymond Green	0.7682
16.	Nikola Jokić	0.7395
17.	Kevin Love	0.7347
18.	Jimmy Butler	0.7298
19.	Klay Thompson	0.7021
20.	Blake Griffin	0.5481
21.	DeMar DeRozan	0.4242
22.	John Wall	0.3239
23.	Rudy Gobert	0.2163
24.	Kemba Walker	0.1510
25.	Andre Iguodala	0.1269
26.	Al Horford	0.1223
27.	Karl-Anthony Towns	0.1080
28.	Derrick Rose	0.1052
29.	Jayson Tatum	0.0686
30.	Donovan Mitchell	0.0657

 

[HammerGold]

Of the guys above 50% Griffin, Thompson, Love, Green, Lowry were not superstars

 

[inliner311]

Mitchell has had pretty good supporting casts and has never made a conference finals. He's not a superstar. There's only like 5-6 superstars at most in the NBA.

I think SG is one of the harder spots to build around as your #1 player. It's kind of tied into the fact that starting level PGs that can defend are hard to find. If you have a SG that is more of a combo guard than a wing, I think it makes it even harder.

I've seen people bring up that the Jazz traded Mitchell because they didn't see him as a #1 option on a championship level team. I think that's only partly true, I think the path to build a championship level team around a player like him is very hard. I think the Jazz gave up on the idea of building around Mitchell because the types of players that worked around him were going to be hard to find. Conley and Ingles were both on the decline but fit the mold of who you would want around a star SG. Finding replacements for both those guys were going to be extremely hard.

I think all of our top 4 players are good players but they are mismatched puzzle pieces. They compliment each other in some ways but when you only have one other starting spot to make everything fit together it's just asking for a unicorn type player to be the connective piece.

 

[HammerGold]

I think SG is one of the harder spots to build around as your #1 player. It's kind of tied into the fact that starting level PGs that can defend are hard to find. If you have a SG that is more of a combo guard than a wing, I think it makes it even harder.

I've seen people bring up that the Jazz traded Mitchell because they didn't see him as a #1 option on a championship level team. I think that's only partly true, I think the path to build a championship level team around a player like him is very hard. I think the Jazz gave up on the idea of building around Mitchell because the types of players that worked around him were going to be hard to find. Conley and Ingles were both on the decline but fit the mold of who you would want around a star SG. Finding replacements for both those guys were going to be extremely hard.

I think all of our top 4 players are good players but they are mismatched puzzle pieces. They compliment each other is some ways but when you only have one other starting to make everything fit together it's just asking for a unicorn type player to be the connective piece.

I think those are good points. I see Mitchell as more of a #2 on a championship team. People like to talk about some of his gaudy offensive numbers in playoff series but he's also been cooked pretty bad on defense too. The guy isn't a DWade and he isn't even a James Harden caliber player. A team would need to be both stacked and build perfectly around him to win a championship.

I think you would need a stretch 5 who's also a great defender (someone like Brooke Lopez), a bigger point guard who plays strong defense and other shooters of course. Not what we have.

 

[CavsFaninNJ]

Of the guys above 50% Griffin, Thompson, Love, Green, Lowry were not superstars

If Mitchell's superstardom is in question, Kyrie Irving was never ever a superstar.

 

[HammerGold]

If Mitchell's superstardom is in question, Kyrie Irving was never ever a superstar.

Yeah kyrie isn't either. Forget to mention him.

 

[cavsfever]

I always enjoy looking at the HOF probability percentages of current or recently retired players:

Active​

Rank	Player	HoF Prob
1.	LeBron James	1.0000
2.	Kevin Durant	1.0000
3.	Chris Paul	1.0000
4.	Stephen Curry	1.0000
5.	James Harden	0.9999
6.	Russell Westbrook	0.9994
7.	Anthony Davis	0.9860
8.	Carmelo Anthony	0.9842
9.	Damian Lillard	0.9642
10.	Giannis Antetokounmpo	0.9491
11.	Paul George	0.9363
12.	Kyrie Irving	0.9345
13.	Kyle Lowry	0.8574
14.	Kawhi Leonard	0.7769
15.	Draymond Green	0.7682
16.	Nikola Jokić	0.7395
17.	Kevin Love	0.7347
18.	Jimmy Butler	0.7298
19.	Klay Thompson	0.7021
20.	Blake Griffin	0.5481
21.	DeMar DeRozan	0.4242
22.	John Wall	0.3239
23.	Rudy Gobert	0.2163
24.	Kemba Walker	0.1510
25.	Andre Iguodala	0.1269
26.	Al Horford	0.1223
27.	Karl-Anthony Towns	0.1080
28.	Derrick Rose	0.1052
29.	Jayson Tatum	0.0686
30.	Donovan Mitchell	0.0657

something is very wrong when Kevin Love has ten times the HOF probability of Jayson Tatum or Donovan Mitchell. Or when Jayson Tatum has half the chance of Kemba Walker.

 

[cavsfever]

I think all of our top 4 players are good players but they are mismatched puzzle pieces. They compliment each other in some ways but when you only have one other starting to make everything fit together it's just asking for a unicorn type player to be the connective piece.

This is why people are going harder and harder on predicting Mobley to be an all time great. It's like, the more problems you can see in other parts of the lineup the harder you have to fantasize about Mobley magically becoming the GOAT.

 

[Dr. Claw]

I’m confused that people are so complacent about the possibility of being BTFO by the Knicks in a series where we had home court advantage and we’re expected to win. That would NOT be on schedule, that would NOT be growing pains, that would NOT be OK. People seem to think we have some kind of 5-10 year schedule for contention and that more help will be coming over those 5-10 years. But help is not coming and if we don’t start to look like a serious contender, I mean a championship level contender, by year after next then there is a good chance we lose Mitchell for nothing and we are up shits creek.

The assumption behind the Mitchell trade was not that we get to relax, kick back, and be an easy first round out for a while while we wait for Mobley to become Giannis someday. The presumption was that our big four made us one of the best up and coming teams in the league right away and we could maybe just round it out to become a Finals contender over the next year or two. We gave most of our personnel flexibility, depth, and assets to get Mitchell in that trade. Koby must have believed the roster with Mitchell didn’t have major holes and could be a contending roster

I think you mistake "complacency" for "apathy" which is where I am before I go full into nihilism (that happens if the Warriors win another title ever with the Three Stooges in their lineup)

I would have been "OK" with this outcome without the trade. But now the Cavs are kind of in a Brooklyn Nets-lite situation. Only thing that would make this worse is if Luke Walton is JBB's successor, Mitchell gets traded ahead of time, and Altman/Gansey fails to bring rotation-worthy SFs and PFs to this team. The cupboard is nearly bare.

Unless the Knicks find another higher-tier talent to go with Brunson I'm not worried about them in the future. If the Heat don't retool, I'm not worried about them. I still see the Bucks and Celtics as the class of the conference and everyone's gotta catch up. That's with the Bucks having to shuffle some deck pieces in the immediate future.

 

[CavsFaninNJ]

This is why people are going harder and harder on predicting Mobley to be an all time great. It's like, the more problems you can see in other parts of the lineup the harder you have to fantasize about Mobley magically becoming the GOAT.

That's unfair. A lot of people with no emotional connection to the Cavs (Bill Simmons for example) think Mobley is going to be a top 5 2-way player in the league, and that his ceiling is higher than that.

 

[benchplayer]

I think those are good points. I see Mitchell as more of a #2 on a championship team. People like to talk about some of his gaudy offensive numbers in playoff series but he's also been cooked pretty bad on defense too. The guy isn't a DWade and he isn't even a James Harden caliber player. A team would need to be both stacked and build perfectly around him to win a championship.

I think you would need a stretch 5 who's also a great defender (someone like Brooke Lopez), a bigger point guard who plays strong defense and other shooters of course. Not what we have.

To be fair to Mitchell, Even LeBron needed a stacked team that was built around him, and he's one of the greatest ever. Durant wouldn't even have a ring if he didn't go to one of the best teams ever. Donovon is a superstar.

As for the team, If we had a good coach, we'd win this series. In the playoffs coaching matters, there's a reason Lebron wanted Ty Lue.

 

[cavsfever]

To be fair to Mitchell, Even LeBron needed a stacked team that was built around him, and he's one of the greatest ever. Durant wouldn't even have a ring if he didn't go to one of the best teams ever. Donovon is a superstar.

As for the team, If we had a good coach, we'd win this series. In the playoffs coaching matters, there's a reason Lebron wanted Ty Lue.

How stacked were those 2015-2018 teams really? Without Lebron not sure any of them get beyond the first round. They were definitely built to fit well with him though (except for 2018)

 

[CavsFaninNJ]

How stacked were those 2015-2018 teams really? Without Lebron not sure any of them get beyond the first round. They were definitely built to fit well with him though (except for 2018)

Without LeBron that team wouldn't have gone past the first round - but because Kyrie is one of the most overrated players in NBA history. We saw his ability to lead a team or be a #1 option on a good team long before LeBron got here. Dribble dribble dribble. Blinders on. No leadership qualities. Efficiency ain't everything.

But Kyrie is a really good #2. And Love was a good #3. So I still call those teams stacked.

 

[HammerGold]

To be fair to Mitchell, Even LeBron needed a stacked team that was built around him, and he's one of the greatest ever. Durant wouldn't even have a ring if he didn't go to one of the best teams ever. Donovon is a superstar.

As for the team, If we had a good coach, we'd win this series. In the playoffs coaching matters, there's a reason Lebron wanted Ty Lue.

LeBron went against crazy stacked teams out of the West for the most part, he was unlucky in that regard. His Cavs teams weren't that stacked because Love wasn't what people thought. He had kyrie as a Robin and that was kind of it besides role players.

 

[cavsfever]

LeBron went against crazy stacked teams out of the West for the most part, he was unlucky in that regard. His Cavs teams weren't that stacked because Love wasn't what people thought. He had kyrie as a Robin and that was kind of it besides role players.

This. I actually think TT was more important to team success than KLove overall. At least as important anyway

I tell you though if Lebron had had ANYONE on the 2015 Finals, even KLove, he would have won it. That Finals was the damnedest thing I ever saw