| Korver another example of Paxson's failures Authored by Keith Berzanske - March 29, 2005 - 2:17 am
| Current Featured Columns | | Merry Christmas, Raptors Fans The Raptors might not be playing good basketball right now, but there are plenty of things for Toronto fans to be thankful for this holiday season.
A Melo Behind The SuperstarsCarmelo Anthony has never been one of the league's most efficient offensive players.
 |
Maynor Using Utah’s Resources
Eric Maynor is an increasingly rare four-year, small college rookie. He sat down with RealGM to discuss how his first few weeks of NBA life has gone and what he has learned from Deron Williams and Jerry Sloan.
|
 |
Why LeBron To The Clippers Makes Sense
LeBron James already plays for a perennial underdog in Cleveland, but moving to the Clippers would allow him to do so in a huge market and with a core that will immediately compete for championships while also having an encouraging long term outlook.
|
 |
‘Home-Heavy Schedule’ Brings Question Marks
The Heat have been plagued by inconsistencies, making it difficult to determine how good they really are this season.
|
|
More from RealGM's Columnists
|
| |
This is my first article since then, and it wasn't because I needed the time to analyze the coaching change. I was simply hoping that Jim Paxson would follow Silas out the door so that I could write a more detailed piece about the Cavaliers' new direction. Yet, a week later, Paxson remains.
It's safe to say that if my job performance in any way resembled Paxson's, I'd freefall so fast that it would be difficult to discern my life from Rocky's in Rocky V. But at least Rocky could claim that it wasn't all his fault. Who can Paxson blame?
The answer for years has been the coach, and we've seen Paxson go through 5 so far in 5 years in a seemingly never ending diversion away from the real problem. Never mind that he also hired these coaches, largely an underqualified bunch who was in over their head. Paul Silas was actually the exception, but even Silas had his limitations. But that's something to analyze later, after we have examined the record of the man who is truly responsible for the things that ail the Cavaliers. That man is Jim Paxson.
I hate to be accused of any bias (after all, I could be holding a grudge that lives on from the 2002 draft day selection of DaJuan Wagner), so I'll let the facts speak for themselves.
DRAFT PICKS
1999 08 Andre Miller
1999 11 Trajan Langdon
1999 39 AJ Bramlett
2000 08 Jamal Crawford
2001 08 DeSagana Diop
2001 20 Brendan Haywood
2001 36 Jeff Trepagnier
2002 06 DaJuan Wagner
2002 35 Carlos B$$zer
2003 01 LeBron James
2003 31 Jason Kapono
2004 10 Luke Jackson
2005, 2007 1st round picks traded away
This is a pretty poor track record. We can ignore the obvious pick of LeBron James, which could have been made by Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel. And while I think that Luke Jackson will be a very good player, at this point his selection can only be given a grade of incomplete.
Of the 10 remaining picks, only 3 stand out as solid: Miller, Haywood, and B$$zer. Unfortunately, Haywood never played a minute for the Cavaliers. He was traded for the immortal Michael Doleac on draft day. I hardly need to recount what happened with B$$zer, unless you are the guy from "Memento'. Miller was traded for Darius Miles, who was traded for Jeff McInnis, who is not as good as Miller.
And that was the good news.
The Trajan Langdon draft pick was awful. Langdon's ballhandling was even worse than advertised, and as well as he could shoot, he rarely was able to work himself free enough to get off a shot. His failures on offense were glaring enough to distract from his ineptitude on defense.
As if the pick weren't bad enough, Paxson made room for Langdon on the roster by trading Derek Anderson for Lamond Murray, and then resigned Cedric Henderson to partner with Murray as a small forward combo. Paxson's theory? There was no small forward available at #11 that was better than Henderson anyway.
Oops...
Some of the small forwards supposedly inferior to Henderson were:
13 Corey Maggette
16 Ron Artest
18 James Posey
23 Devean George
24 Andrei Kirilenko
27 Jumaine Jones
Now, I can understand missing on one player, but this is a pretty glaring oversight on Paxson's part. We're talking about All-Stars, Defensive Players of the year, 20 point scorers, league leading shotblockers, 6th men who can shoot threes - need I go on?
Sadly I must. You'd think Paxson, a former shooting guard himself with a penchant for shooting from long range, would be able to recognize talent at his OWN POSITION!!! But when the second round rolled around in 2003, Paxson, still high from getting LeBron, hit the snooze bar and grabbed Jason Kapono, leaving me muttering to my TV about Luke Walton and Kyle Korver. And indeed, I understood Paxson's philosophy - the Cavaliers desperately needed an outside shooter. In that vein, passing on Walton can be excused. But that still leaves Korver, who not only specialized in hitting long range jumpers, but also led an inferior team to a nice run through the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. Korver showed that although he could shoot, he was not one-dimensional, unlike Kapono, who makes Tim Legler look like Dan Majerle.
Korver is the NBA's version of Sammy Hagar, a guy who headlined his own band at Creighton for 4 years, and who was the man there. Yet once he came to Philly, he had no problem playing second fiddle to Allen Iverson's Eddie Van Halen. And while the team revolves around Iverson and how well he plays, Korver is a key contributor, not just a bystander. He's become a starter, has shown he can defend, and is shooting 40% from behind the arc and 88% from the foul line. Korver is nicely filling the box score with 11-12 points, 4-5 rebounds, 2-3 assists, and 1-2 steals per night. Except for the long range accuracy, Kapono hasn't even approached these numbers, despite playing on an expansion team.
One of Paxson's recurring themes is the mismanagement of assets. Kapono was left unprotected in the expansion draft. After the was snatched by Charlotte, the Cavaliers had no shooter, so Paxson attempted to rectify the problem by trading a first round pick that belonged to a chaotic Raptors franchise to acquire Sasha Pavlovic. Pavlovic has been inferior to Kapono, for the most part, not to mention Korver.
I think I've already covered the failures of DaJuan Wagner and the details of the draft day blunder in about as much detail as is humanly possible over the past couple of years, so I'll refrain from rehashing. But suffice to say, Wagner is a bust. He's just lost out on the court. It hurts to think the Cavaliers passed on players like Nene, Amare Stoudamire and Caron Butler to select Wagner.
Crawford was traded for Mihm, which is not terrible considering that Mihm was the best center on the board and Ilgauskas's status was uncertain at the time. Diop, however, was not the best center on the board - Zach Randolph was. Non-centers on the board included Richard Jefferson, Troy Murphy, Joe Johnson, Gilbert Arenas, Tony Parker, Gerald Wallace, and Jamaal Tinsley. Bramlett was selected ahead of players like Lee Nailon and Manu Ginobili, while Bobby Simmons, Mehmut Okur, and Earl Watson were all still on the board when Trepagnier was nabbed.
In other words not only is Paxson skipping 5-6 guys that are better than his selection each time, he is often missing 1-2 that are at the same position and age level as the players he is picking. Paxson's draft record, in short, has to be considered a miserable failure.
FREE AGENTS/WAIVERS
Here is a list of notable players waived outright by Jim Paxson over the last 5 years:
Earl Boykins
Anthony Johnson
Matt Barnes
Lee Nailon
Tierre Brown
Steven Hunter
Brian Skinner
Think any of these guys could help right now?
Meanwhile, has Paxson ever signed any noteworthy free agents?
Let's see...
Ira Newble
.....
That's it?!! IRA F%&#ING NEWBLE?!!!! %#*%&$(@!%$!$%!@
Here are more typical examples of Paxson signings:
Mark Bryant
Ryan Stack
Mark Hendrickson
Kornel David
Pete Chilcutt
Lari Ketner
Donny Marshall
Bimbo Coles
Earl Boykins
Lee Nailon
Willie Burton
Khalid Reeves
Robert Werdann
Michael Hawkins
Etdrick Bohannon
Chucky Brown
Bryant Stith
Trevor Winter
Gerard King
Reggie Slater
Smush Parker
Vonteego Cummings
Tierre Brown
Kevin Ollie
Jelani McCoy
Jerome Moiso
Mateen Cleaves
As previously noted, on the rare occasions Paxson did sign someone noteworthy (Boykins, Nailon, TBrown), he was fairly oblivious, as the player was then waived again soon after. The only player of note that stuck around were Coles and Parker, who each were overmatched as starting point guards. Ollie was given a ridiculous contract, considering his journeyman status.
This year's signings, Lucious Harris and Scott Williams, have barely shown a pulse. Then again, neither has Paxson the past 5 years.
**********************************************************
The internet can be a tricky thing, my loyal readers...
A succinct analysis of all the trades from the 'Paxson era' (what a dubious moniker!) was scribed for this space yesterday, as promised, but was somehow lost in cyberspace. It's like the whole article never happened, like in Galaxy Quest when Tim Allen activated the Omega 13. Unfortunately, this means that you'll be a reading a slightly less coherent rewrite, which should still make it abundantly clear that during the past several years I'm sure there are times when Jim Paxson wished that he himself had the Omega 13 and could undo bad decisions. But, I digress...
TRADES
08 04 1999 Derek Anderson and Johnny Newman to LA Clippers for Lamond Murray
06 27 2000 Bob Sura to Golden State for JR Reid and Tractor Traylor
06 29 2000 Jamal Crawford and cash to Chicago for Chris Mihm
08 03 2000 ***Andrew DeClercq to Orlando for Matt Harpring
08 30 2000 Shawn Kemp to Portland for Chris Gatling, Clarence Weatherspoon, Gary Grant and a 1st round pick (Mia)
01 02 2001 Brevin Knight to Atlanta for Jim Jackson, Anthony Johnson, and Larry Robinson
06 28 2001 Brendan Haywood to Orlando for Michael Doleac
08 03 2001 Matt Harpring, Tractor Traylor, and Cedric Henderson to Philadelphia for Jumaine Jones and Tyrone Hill
10 26 2001 ***Chris Gatling to Miami for Ricky Davis and Brian Skinner
06 27 2002 Wesley Person to Memphis for Nick Anderson and Matt Barnes
07 30 2002 Andre Miller and Bryant Stith to LA Clippers for Darius Miles and Harold Jamison
09 17 2002 2nd round pick for Milt Palacio
09 25 2002 Lamond Murray and 2nd round pick to Toronto for Michael Stewart and 1st round pick
07 29 2003 Jumaine Jones to Boston for JR Bremer, Bruno Sundov, and 2nd round pick
{note: what's hysterical is that this is the point at which Paxson was inexplicably PROMOTED to president and general manager of basketball operations. What had he done that had merited this promotion? As well as the aforementioned litany of questionable personnel moves, he was already on his 4th head coach.}
12 15 2003 ***Ricky Davis, Chris Mihm, and Michael Stewart to Boston for Tony Battie, Eric Williams, and Kedrick Brown
01 21 2004 ***Darius Miles to Portland for Jeff McInnis
06 23 2004 1st round pick to Charlotte for Aleksandar Pavlovic
07 20 2004 ***Kedrick Brown and Kevin Ollie to Philadelphia for Eric Snow
07 23 2004 ***Tony Battie to Orlando for Drew Gooden, Anderson Varejao, and Steven Hunter
02 24 2005 1st round pick to Boston for Jiri Welsch
That's 20 trades, and in only 6 of them (noted with ***) can we say that the Cavaliers got the better end of the deal. And of these 6, the Davis trade was really more about addition by subtraction, and adding veterans over youth (I think we can agree that Davis and Mihm have more talent than the players acquired and that more could have been gotten in return for them), and while we gave up nothing to get Snow, he has an albatross of a contract that will long outlive his usefulness.
Harpring was stolen, but then given away just a year later. And as previously mentioned, the Miles trade is not as good as it looks because of what we had to trade to get Miles in the first place. It's like trading 50 cents for a dime and then trading the dime for a quarter. You're still down.
There are some glaring patterns with all of Paxson's trades:
(1) Not understanding the value of draft picks
Paxson errs on this at both ends. He fails to acquire draft picks in return when trading assets for lesser assets. He should have been able to get picks thrown in in several deals, notably the Miller deal and the Haywood deal. He also gives away 1st round picks for marginally talented or unproven players, as in the case of Pavlovic and Welsch, not to mention giving away Haywood after drafting him.
(2) Making unequal exchanges in talent to clear cap space, but not taking advantage of the cap space.
Bob Sura was given away supposedly because of his contract, but Sura's problems were injuries and having to deal with changes in coaching staffs. The team should have held on to Sura - his talent was obvious. Dumping Shawn Kemp's contract was a good move, although one wonders if the Cavaliers could have just bought out Kemp like the Blazers did.
(3) Minority Report Syndrome
A GM should not have a record which, upon review, makes his boss think 'If only I had the machine from Minority Report...'
I can almost picture Dan Gilbert daydreaming...
{...cast your mind...}
---------------------------------------------------
SCENE: JIM PAXSON'S OFFICE (7.30.2002)
PHONE RINGS
PAXSON: Oh, hey, Elgin Baylor, how are you? You want Andre Miller? You want to give us the 8th and 12th picks in the first round? Man, I don't know - we've already got a draft pick. How many of those things can you really need? Tell you what, I'm not really a Quentin Richardson fan either - how about Darius Miles? Available? GREAT. Let's just -
***CRASH***
GLASS BREAKS, TOM CRUISE ENTERS THROUGH WINDOW WITH 20 AGENTS IN TOW. CRUISE GRABS THE PHONE, SLAMS IT DOWN, SLAMS PAXSON DOWN, AND CUFFS HIM
CRUISE: Jim Paxson, by mandate of the Cleveland Precrime Division, I'm placing you under arrest for the future trade of Andre Miller that was to take place today, July 30 at 0800 hours and four minutes.
PAXSON: I didn't do anything! I wasn't gonna do anything!
CRUISE: Cavaliers fans have heard that before...take him away!
---------------------------------------------------
Yes you fans have heard it before, and maybe you blocked it all out. But you've just seen Paxson's record, in its entirety, in black and white. And this is a key summer coming up, where the Cavaliers will have tough decisions to make regarding their own free agents Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Jeff McInnis, and DaJuan Wagner, in addition to all of the other free agent options. Is Jim Paxson the man you really want behind the wheel heading into what could be the most important offseason in the team's history? Is Jim Paxson the man you want to be responsible for hiring the next coach of the Cavaliers?
You can help! Print this article out, pass it around, spread the knowledge. Fax a copy to Dan Gilbert, the new owner of the Cavaliers, and get your friends to do the same. Gilbert is sharp, but he's new in town and new to the Cavaliers, and he may not realize the depths to which Paxson's ineptitude has reached. You may not have realized it yourself until you read this synopsis - sometimes when things are spread out over time they seem less glaring. But if Paxson stays on board, the Cavaliers risk becoming what the Clippers have the past 20 years under the guidance of Elgin Baylor, or, even more frightening, what the Hawks became as they let Pete Babcock run the ship for almost 15 years despite a littany of wasted draft picks, failed free agent signings, and bad trades.
Maybe I'm overstating; it's true that as long as LeBron James is healthy and on our side, the Cavaliers will be a winning team. But do we want to settle for being a winning team like the mid 80's Hawks, with Dominique Wilkins, or do we want to become a championship caliber team, with pieces that complement our star and his skill set?
The answer is obvious. |
