Are the Cavs in danger of becoming irrelevant in this town?

[NarlCavs]

To the question posed in the thread title, the Cavs are already irrelevant in this area. They get minimal coverage and there is zero buzz about them. Been mentioned by others but it will always be Browns and football first and Cavs are usually third in fan interest even after the Indians. There is minimal media coverage of the Cavs. Rarely if ever discussed on sports radio and on the local news sports reports they provide minimal coverage and basically only show a few highlights just on game nights. They weren't covered during training camp and have no stories done on them on the expanded sports shows from local news channels.
Cavs only have major interest and coverage when they have a high level of success.

I'm patient and on board with the building process but my biggest problem at least right now is that I don't see anything close to being in place yet that will lead to a championship or championship contending team in the next decade or from this current building project/edition of the Cavs. They have a very long way to go to get toward that level and it's going to require more than just some players developing. It will be very tough to acquire the players with the necessary high level of talent that needs to be added to reach a possible championship level. I hope it happens but I just can't generate the optimism to think it will. Have followed the Cavs a long time and been through many editions and builds and rebuilds and so far this one isn't giving me tons of hope.

[Chris]

Irving doesn't have recurring injuries, so he isn't "injury prone." I'm not sure what statistics you are referring to, but every statistical analysis on injuries I'm familiar with only deal with recurring injuries. A finger injury isn't correlated to a future shoulder injury, for instance. The biggest issue Irving faces is how hard he plays, and how hard he drives to the basket. He's Wade-like in his desire to forfeit his body for a basket.

Injury prone means you are prone to being injured- so far, that is an accurate analysis of Kyrie Irving. It doesn't mean it will be his career, and I wouldn't be terribly worried since the injuries aren't the same and thus it could just be a sign of caution on the part of the Cavs and a bit of bad luck. A few more long hiatuses and I will start to see a real trend.

[daytripper]

A Dan Gilbert owned Cavalier team will always be more relevant than a Dolan owned Indian team. You can go to just about any small market team arena in the NBA outside of OKC and the attendance numbers will be down. Most of the big stars are playing in NY, LA, and Miami. Teams like Indiana and Milwuakee may have better records but in reality don't have a better shot to win a championship this year than the Cavs. At least the Cavs will have some future hope if they can add another star thru the draft.

Of course the Browns, even when they had that joker Lerner as the owner, are the exception in Cleveland because the NFL is by far the most popular professional sport in America where mid market teams like Pittsburgh, Green Bay and New Orleans can win championships.

[Ruggeder]

Irving doesn't have recurring injuries, so he isn't "injury prone." I'm not sure what statistics you are referring to, but every statistical analysis on injuries I'm familiar with only deal with recurring injuries. A finger injury isn't correlated to a future shoulder injury, for instance. The biggest issue Irving faces is how hard he plays, and how hard he drives to the basket. He's Wade-like in his desire to forfeit his body for a basket.

The recurrence are the injuries themselves. Some people are injury prone, it doesn't have to be the same thing being broken, contused, or torn every time. In fact, its worse that it isn't, because at least with that you could protect against a weak spot. If your injuries are everywhere, there is no way to prevent it. I guarantee that Dwayne Wade will be injured in the season, because he always is. I can guarantee Bynum will be too, although he already is. Some of those people's injuries are recurring, some are not like the others, but they will miss games. In my opinion, unless your stacked, and you don't care that they miss some games, it's stupid to hold on to these people. Miami can hold on to wade, they have enough in the tank when he misses. The lakers could as well, but they traded him as soon as they could for value, he was always going down when they needed him. I saw someone saying draft a high quality PG so he can backup when Irving is missed. That's a good idea if they aren't willing to trade him. I would rather see what were offered if he can't stay on the court, so that a draft pick isn't wasted taking someone just so that the injury prone person we have can be replaced when he almost certainly gets injured again.

[Jon]

Irving doesn't have recurring injuries, so he isn't "injury prone." I'm not sure what statistics you are referring to, but every statistical analysis on injuries I'm familiar with only deal with recurring injuries. A finger injury isn't correlated to a future shoulder injury, for instance.

We've been over this far too much already in regards to Anderson, but if someone keeps breaking bones ... maybe they're just not built to withstand a lot of stress? Andy, Boobie, and Kyrie all seem to break down a lot. In this case, the correlation (if there was one) would be to the individual. Clearly bone structure and muscle structure vary from individual to individual. Do you think Kyrie will volunteer to have his "bone mineral density" measured to satiate our curiosity?

The biggest issue Irving faces is how hard he plays, and how hard he drives to the basket. He's Wade-like in his desire to forfeit his body for a basket.

Kyrie is pretty amazing at avoiding contact, and it seems like he doesn't dunk or sky as much as he might perhaps to protect himself. Wade was always skying high, drawing contact, and crashing to the floor.

[SRStark20]

Cavs are still the last team to have done anything of interest around here when they made the playoff runs a few years ago. Besides that, Tribe made the playoffs in '07, and the Browns still really haven't done jack since they've come back.

It looks like it may all be changing though. The Browns are starting to not suck. Baseball is one of those sports where the records seem to fluctuate every year, and with the Tribe being "active" in the off-season, we could always push for contention in the shitty AL Central.

The Cavs are on their way as well. Just have to keep making good decisions and avoid the injury bug.

I actually like the Cavs more since LeBron left. Sure, the playoff runs and all of that were cool, but the team was pretty much the Cleveland LeBrons or whatever you want to call it. I feel like they can establish a true identity over the next 5-8 years and be a legitimate contender by 2015 if everything goes according to plan.

[Nathan S]

Long story short, in terms of scariness, knee injuries>>>other injuries. Knees probably end more careers (and generally cause a greater amount of lost production) than all other injuries combined. As far as I know, we have 30 healthy knees on the roster...and there aren't many teams that can say that.

[KI4MVP]

people need to stop comparing with OKC. They drafted Durant, Westbrook, Harden, & Ibaka. You can say they were lucky to get Durant as Oden was seen as the definite number 1 pick at the time, but you have to say the Westbrook and Ibaka picks were smart. Everybody thought Westbrook would be a bust and today he is probably a top 10 player in the league. Sam Presti sure knows how to run a team.

With the Cavs they only have Irving who looks like a star. Apart from that theres no Wetsbrook, and no Ibaka.
TBF to the cavs the drafts that they have had high picks hasnt been deep but the Waiters pick was awful. No way was that guy a number 4 pick.
I think you would have been much better with Andre Drummond or even Harison Barnes. Those two both have higher ceilings than Waiters.

Waiters ceiling is a nba player level. Drummond and Barnes can be all stars

Aren't you doing with Waiters what you claim people did to Westbrook? Through 17 games into their career

Wastbrook: 12.3 points, 4.1 assists, 3.2 rebounds
Waiters: 15.2 points, 3.4 assists, 2.3 rebounds

Westbrook rookie year: eFG% .417, WS/48 .035 (I didn't calculate these through 17 games)
Waiters: eFG% .428, WS/48 .033

I don't really have any problems with the players we took, but we could do better at giving them NBA caliber teammates.

[Malt]

We've been over this far too much already in regards to Anderson, but if someone keeps breaking bones ... maybe they're just not built to withstand a lot of stress? Andy, Boobie, and Kyrie all seem to break down a lot. In this case, the correlation (if there was one) would be to the individual. Clearly bone structure and muscle structure vary from individual to individual. Do you think Kyrie will volunteer to have his "bone mineral density" measured to satiate our curiosity?



Kyrie is pretty amazing at avoiding contact, and it seems like he doesn't dunk or sky as much as he might perhaps to protect himself. Wade was always skying high, drawing contact, and crashing to the floor.

I'm just not convinced we can say 5 injuries in a short period of time isn't an outlier. There would be more to fear if he had a shoulder, knee or ankle issue. But he seems to recover, and hasn't had recurring issues thusfar. Sometimes an outlier is an outlier. It's unfortunate we're seeing it at the beginning of his career. I can't find the article, but I know some great analysis was done on this subject once. It determined, in the case of varied injuries, a player's position and style of play determined injury and career length, but past injuries did not predict future injuries. This became especially obvious as players changed positions throughout their careers.

Now, Kyrie is a PG, and he'll always need to be a PG. So if the injuries aren't an outlier (and to be fair, some of these are freak injuries, like bumping knees with Wade), then Kyrie would likely need to change his style of play. Personally, I'm not so certain that guys without recurring injuries are ever really "injury prone", they may just be victims of statistical variations. But that's a wholly different discussion. I'm very skeptical of using Kyrie's recent injury issues to forecast his career though. It seems VERY premature.

[Noonan]

Try to look at the injuries as a blessing instead of a recipe for irrelevancy. None of the injuries are serious and this was never going to be a good season. Instead of winning around 27-32 games the Cavs will probably win around 20-25 games and have more ping pong balls to show for it. Hopefully both individually and as a team they can begin to show more signs of growth by February/March.

Next season is the year. If they don't make a jump to the playofs then the rebuild is not on schedule.

[ArchieBunker7]

I'm just not convinced we can say 5 injuries in a short period of time isn't an outlier. There would be more to fear if he had a shoulder, knee or ankle issue. But he seems to recover, and hasn't had recurring issues thusfar. Sometimes an outlier is an outlier. It's unfortunate we're seeing it at the beginning of his career. I can't find the article, but I know some great analysis was done on this subject once. It determined, in the case of varied injuries, a player's position and style of play determined injury and career length, but past injuries did not predict future injuries. This became especially obvious as players changed positions throughout their careers.

Now, Kyrie is a PG, and he'll always need to be a PG. So if the injuries aren't an outlier (and to be fair, some of these are freak injuries, like bumping knees with Wade), then Kyrie would likely need to change his style of play. Personally, I'm not so certain that guys without recurring injuries are ever really "injury prone", they may just be victims of statistical variations. But that's a wholly different discussion. I'm very skeptical of using Kyrie's recent injury issues to forecast his career though. It seems VERY premature.

I hope you're right, but Grady Sizemore had a shitload of different injuries that derailed an otherwise promising career. I'm not sure you could find one person who wouldn't agree he is injury prone, even though many of his injuries were different.

[Pyro]

You can't compare attendance between the three sports in this town, because all three have different attendance maximums. Furthermore, TV ratings for the Indians are up, while ratings for the Cavs are down.

[MoFlo]

Strongly disagree with that, Northeast Ohio was Cavaliers crazy during the LeBron Era. Nobody gave a damn about any other Cleveland team then but the die hards.

That's kind of his point and he even added:

The Cavaliers have always had to win to get a buzz here

Of course whichever team is closest to getting a ring is going to get the most recognition around here, that goes without saying.

And I also disagree.. 2007 was a very good year for Cleveland sports imparticular. With the Browns being watchable for the 1st time in years & the Tribe sparking all kinds of interest in their ALCS bid, the Cavs were hardly the only team generating buzz in the LeBron era and it was far from nobody giving a damn about the Browns & Tribe.

[Jon]

I'm just not convinced we can say 5 injuries in a short period of time isn't an outlier.

Could be, but without actual scientific evidence (such as a bone density measurement) any situation can be dismissed by the ridiculously small sample size.

I just don't think statistical analysis is appropriate.

Either he has a higher chance of injury than other players (due to whatever specific factors that may effect him) or he doesn't. Heck, for all we know he has an undiagnosed bone disease. *shrugs*

[Jon]

Try to look at the injuries as a blessing instead of a recipe for irrelevancy.

I'm not feeling blessed.

We were losing just fine WITH Kyrie. What we're losing is the chance for him and the rest of our core to develop as a group.