I didn't manage to catch the Cavaliers 91-101 loss to the Raptors last night, but I'm relatively shocked. I've had my doubts about whether the Shaq trade would work out, but I figured it wouldn't catch up to them until the playoffs. You can't look too far into this 0-2 start, but losing to a Raptors team that most see as a fringe playoff team is a cause for concern. I actually have the Raptors as a 5-7 seed in the East, but I still expected the Cavs to come out and win this one. Toronto's Andrea Bargnani drove past Anderson Vaerjao for the first play, and it seems that would set the tone for the rest of the game, as the 7-foot Italian went off on the Cleveland frontline for 28 points on 11-15 shooting. One thing that caught my eye in the boxscore was that Shaq's +/- rating was -25. I'm no stat whiz so I can't tell you exactly what this statistic entails, but it's not often you see it dipping into the negative mid-twenties.
I'm sure the Cavs will get it together soon and establish themselves as one of the top team's in the East. I mean, they do have LeBron James. But I can't stress enough that the Cleveland frontcourt combined with Mike Brown's lack of offensive know-how is going to catch up to them. The past two years, Brown had assistant coach John Kuester running the offense. Now that Kuester is the Pistons' head coach, it's widely speculated that the Cavs might revert to their offensive tendencies of seasons prior to Kuester's arrival when it was give the ball to LeBron and get out of the way. That is if they haven't already.
As I'm not a huge Cavs fan myself, I suggest you take a look at this article by Biff from Cleveland Frowns for some true Akron/Cleveland perspective. I have to point out that Cleveland Frowns is one of few blogs with a banner that makes me feel less self-consciously skeezy about the Dank Game banner.
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