By: Scott Barkett
It’s late March, which means only one thing for the post-LeBron Cleveland Cavaliers. Despite a season of impressive efforts against top-tier NBA teams, the real test is just beginning for Coach Scott’s young squad.
The time has come again to focus up and study extra game film. Months of hard work come down to these last few weeks and there’s no way owner Dan Gilbert will accept anything less than the Cavs' best effort.
If a starter has a hangnail? Two weeks rest, minimum. Can't be too careful! And the Cavs must figure out more ways to get Boobie Gibson and Omri Casspi some well earned playing time. That's right...it’s tanking season!
Wait, what?
Okay, so that was a contrived introduction. You knew damn well as soon as you clicked this link that you were going to read about some good old fashioned tanking.
But I didn’t lie—recent history shows that both Boobie Gibson and Omri Casspi are elite level players for any taking team. They’re so woefully overmatched on an NBA court that other tanking teams struggle to pull players off the bench of similar...ability.
For rebuilding teams in the NBA, there are two main schools of thought currently en vogue. One school is packed—think Introduction to Complete Sentences at University of Michigan in the Fall—and the other is a one-room school house with only a couple of pupils.
The former of course is Tankington University, home of Drakenomics 101—In order to reach the top, you must start from the bottom. Like it or not, Dan Gilbert’s Cleveland Cavaliers are unabashedly in this category.
The latter group we’ll call the Prideland School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Prominent enrollees include the Indiana Pacers and the Houston Rockets. After years of scorn, they just installed a couple of brand new Smart Boards and gave everyone an iPad. Now they've made the rank and file at Tankington University quite jealous.
Suddenly, it’s a little less straightforward of a proposition to unconditionally support the Cavs’ rebuilding strategy.
