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Iman Shumpert: Gone! Thank God!

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Man he needs to get that jumper going again. Looks totally broken.
 
Chris Parker said:
You might be right about that. Really hard to know what Kings plan is.
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I wish they would blow everything up and make WCS available... its not likely to happen, but we need someone like him for certain type of opponents... we seem to struggle a lot against teams with long front courts...

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Hopefully shumps can get out of his big slump by starting. Then korver first man off bench
 
I posted this in the last game thread, but worth posting again...

Shumpert's shooting since the Christmas day game vs GSW:

33.3% FG Percentage (21 for 63)
19.2% 3PT Percentage (5 for 26)

Smart teams will help off of him just as much as they do vs Liggins. I expect this to be temporary until Korver gets a hold of the entire offense.

Or unless Shumpert starts showing signs he knows how to shoot again. But it seems Lue is saving the LeBron + 4 out bench lineups for the playoffs, which destroyed everyone offensively. Because of this, I'd prefer starting Korver until JR is back. Maximize his minutes with LeBron.
 
Windy said yesterday on Hey Windy (haven't had time to do the transcript for it yet) that a defensive adjustment that teams around the league have made on us is that they're purposely leaving Liggins open now and daring him to shoot. And Liggins' shooting has been down of late (which means that strategy is working against us and our offense is getting more bogged down).

We need Shumpert to shoot as he was doing early in the season. That would make defenses pay for sagging off Liggins/Shumpert.
 
From Dave McMenamin:

Tyronn Lue says he will start Iman Shumpert in place of DeAndre Liggins on Friday in Sacramento. "I just wanted to do it," Lue said. "Just playing with the starters, I think Shump played a lot better. That's what he was accustomed to doing. He's been trying to come in and help carry the second unit. It's tough on him. So starting, he's always been great. So, getting him back in the starting lineup, we know he'll play great." After a hot start to the season, Shumpert has been in a rut. He is shooting just 21-for-63 (33.3 pct) over the Cavs' last 10 games.
 
Well DeAndre is shooting 39% from 3 on the season, Shumpert is shooting 36.7%.
Liggins also has a better career 3PT average than Shumpert, so not sure whats the benefit of starting Shump over Liggins, because the eye test shows that Liggins is the superior defender.

Just because Liggins had a couple of bad shooting games don't mean you bench him and crush his confidence imo, because overall Liggins played well with the starting lineup, if you want to make sure teams respect that position and not sag off you put Korver in there, because they're going to leave Shumpert open just like they're leaving Liggins open.

You could just start Korver in that JR smith sharpshooter role, and bring Shump/Liggins off the bench to play with LeBron, I think that lineup should be pretty good defensively.

Interested to see how this move effects Liggins, hoping for the best. I like it that Lue is going back to LeBron running the 2nd unit.
 
K1rieIrving>AllOtherPG's said:
Well DeAndre is shooting 39% from 3 on the season, Shumpert is shooting 36.7%.
Liggins also has a better career 3PT average than Shumpert, so not sure whats the benefit of starting Shump over Liggins, because the eye test shows that Liggins is the superior defender.

Just because Liggins had a couple of bad shooting games don't mean you bench him and crush his confidence imo, because overall Liggins played well with the starting lineup, if you want to make sure teams respect that position and not sag off you put Korver in there, because they're going to leave Shumpert open just like they're leaving Liggins open.

You could just start Korver in that JR smith sharpshooter role, and bring Shump/Liggins off the bench to play with LeBron, I think that lineup should be pretty good defensively.

Interested to see how this move effects Liggins, hoping for the best. I like it that Lue is going back to LeBron running the 2nd unit.
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We could be trying to revitalize shumpert's play both for more team production and showcasing him for a possible trade. Liggins is going to come in and play balls to the wall defense regardless. I'm sure Lue know how to communicate this to him.
 
Just wrote this little piece on Shumpert's defensive struggles. Someone asked me to write it before the game, so it probably comes off a little more negative than my actual feelings, but I think it gets the job done.

Click the link to watch the videos.

https://sportsbystats.com/2017/01/13/the-cleveland-cavaliers-have-an-iman-shumpert-problem/

Two years ago the Cavs made a series of trades that netted them the sharpshooter J.R. Smith, a big Russian teddy bear named Timofey Mozgov, and a “three-and-D” wing with massive potential, Iman Shumpert.

The latter part of this trade was the supposed “highlight.” Shumpert was touted to be the next Jimmy Butler-esque defensive player, he had experience as a point guard, and he could make open three-point shots at a very respectable clip.

In the 2015 NBA Playoffs – where J.R. Smith was suspended two games, Kevin Love’s arm was ripped out of socket causing him to miss the last three rounds, and Kyrie Irving’s knee issues caused him to miss multiple games – Shumpert was outstanding. In nearly thirty-five minutes per game Shumpert averaged 9.4 points per game with a 35.5% three-point percentage, 4.9 rebounds per game, 1.2 assists per game, 1.3 steals per game, and held opponents to a 2.8% worse field goal percentage than they averaged.

Shumpert was becoming a positive contributor in front of NBA fans’ eyes. The thought was that he could become a Tony Allen type defender with a respectable offensive game. The Cavs knew they had to retain him, and very quickly signed him to a double-digit salary over multiple years. Everyone rejoiced.

That is, everyone rejoiced until Shumpert broke his hand before the 2015-16 season started. Shumpert started the season late, and while he had a few memorable moments – great defense against Orlando in his first game back, a game-saving steal against Dirk, important defense against new teammate Kyle Korver in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, etc. – he was mediocre overall.



This mediocrity has continued into the 2016-17 season. Overall, Shumpert just has not been effective. The initial plan going into the season was that the former Georgia Tech guard would serve as the backup point guard to Kyrie Irving. That plan has failed.

Shumpert is averaging 1.7 assists per game and only twenty passes per game, he is turning the ball over more than ever in his career, and since the Christmas Day game against Golden State is shooting 33.3% from the field, 19.2% from the three-point line, 16.7% on catch-and-shoot attempts, and 30.5% on open and wide-open shots.

These numbers are absolutely horrendous. Shumpert has been beyond useless on offense, and frankly, teams are starting to leave him wide-open with no fear of him shooting. And for good reason.



On the above play, Gordon Hayward leaves Shumpert completely alone from the three-point line, Shumpert gets a good look at the basket, and completely bricks the open three.

If this were the only problem, though, Shumpert would still be useful to the Cavs because of his defense. But his defense has been just as abysmal as his offense. Shumpert ranks in the bottom 18th percentile of pick-and-roll defenders and the bottom 50th percentile of isolation defenders.

The Cavs are arguably better at defending isolation plays without Shumpert. They rank in the 86th percentile at defending isolation plays in the NBA. Thus, Shumper’s ISO defense is worse than the Cavs as a team. Below is a video demonstrating examples of Shump’s bad overall defense.




The three clips above show instances where Shumpert overplays driving lanes, and consequently, leaves the man he is defending wide-open. In these cases those men include Gordon Hayward and Evan Turner, and as a result, they torched the Cavs.

Shumpert’s abysmal pick-and-roll defense does not help the Cavs – who rank in the bottom four percentile in the NBA – and consequently he does not help cover Kyrie Irving, who is one of the worst pick-and-roll defenders in the NBA, ranking in the bottom ten percentile. What this means is that when Shumpert and Irving share the floor, the Cavs have arguably the worst defense on ball handlers in the pick-and-roll in the NBA. The video below demonstrates why.



In the first clip, Portland attacks both Irving and Shumpert in the pick-and-roll, the latter blitz’s the ball-handler too hard, and Portland scores a wide-open three-point shot. In the second, Shumpert overplays the driving lanes, leaving a wide-open three for the Jazz.

These two clips point to something even scarier than Irving’s laziness and Love’s lack of lateral quickness. Iman Shumpert is perfectly able to defend the pick-and-roll, but he is not thinking, and thus makes the wrong reads. This same problem can be seen in the above video regarding Shumpert overplaying driving lanes. He simply is not a smart defender. Consequently no matter how hard he defends, or how athletic he may be, Shumpert may never have the basketball IQ to become an elite defender.

Shumpert will replace Liggins in the starting lineup against the Kings. Hopefully, for Cavaliers fans, this serves as a boost to the wing’s play. If not – on a team with far better shooters and a few better defenders – he may find himself unnecessary in Cleveland. That would be a shame for both the Cavs and for Shumpert, as only two years ago he was thought of to be a large part of the team’s exciting future.
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K1rieIrving>AllOtherPG's said:
Well DeAndre is shooting 39% from 3 on the season, Shumpert is shooting 36.7%.
Liggins also has a better career 3PT average than Shumpert, so not sure whats the benefit of starting Shump over Liggins, because the eye test shows that Liggins is the superior defender.

Just because Liggins had a couple of bad shooting games don't mean you bench him and crush his confidence imo, because overall Liggins played well with the starting lineup, if you want to make sure teams respect that position and not sag off you put Korver in there, because they're going to leave Shumpert open just like they're leaving Liggins open.

You could just start Korver in that JR smith sharpshooter role, and bring Shump/Liggins off the bench to play with LeBron, I think that lineup should be pretty good defensively.

Interested to see how this move effects Liggins, hoping for the best. I like it that Lue is going back to LeBron running the 2nd unit.
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It sounds to me like more of move to try and get Shump going instead of one made to punish Liggins. Lue is pretty much explicitly stating that Shumpert is struggling.
 
I just really really don't think it's that hard to find highly inconsistent wing defense, middling 3 point shooting, and an inability to handle the ball in the bottom half of the 1st round of the draft.

I said last year I'd trade Shumpert for a 1st rounder if someone was offering, and I'd do it again this summer.

Of course he'll have like a good 3 minute defensive stretch against Klay Thompson and we'll be back to "You just can't possibly trade someone with this type of defensive potential!!"

I'm ready to get off the Shumpert roller coaster. You can get someone who does what he does, in the draft, for a cheaper price. The only reason you don't make this move is because you still believe in Shumpert's youth and potential. But, I think we've seen enough over his career to go ahead and put a low ceiling on that remaining potential.

But we won the Finals, so it made moving him impossible. People managed to twist his actual piss poor play in the FInals into a positive, because we won. Just because Kyrie Irving made that shot doesn't change Shumpert's impact. If we had lost that Finals, he would have been getting kill here. He was bad. Don't take a good minute of defense here and there and act like no one else can possibly duplicate that.

So I maintain my position on Shumpert that I've had for a while. We should look to trade him this summer, and if someone is offering up a 1st rounder, we should take it. I'm going to continue to take the long view of Shumpert's career, and not get caught up in a bad stretch here or some good defense there. This season is a pretty good microcosm of his career as a whole. Hot start, bad stretches, varying degrees of defensive effort. We can find this at a cheaper rate.
 
In Griffin's press conference from earlier today (held in the hall of Sacramento's arena), he said that Liggins seems to be pressing a bit at the moment and that Shumpert will/may be more comfortable playing with the starters right now. Said Shumpert more confident in his jump shot (well, at least someone is...lol) than Liggins is and that the coaches are looking for more floor spacing (shooting) with the first unit right now.

Sounds like Liggins is putting a lot of pressure on himself.
 
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