Rick Noland: Cavaliers season report card

The test results are back, so it’s time for Professor Noland to dole out grades to the 2007-08 Cava-liers:
Lance Allred: He’s a nice guy, but he’s not an NBA player. Grade: F.
Devin Brown: He had some games where his aggressiveness and ability to drive made things happen. He had other games where he didn’t do much. Grade: C.
Daniel Gibson: He should be a long-term piece to this team’s puzzle, but bigger jumps in productivity and consistency were expected from "Boobie" this season. The kid’s a great shooter, but he’s got to become more than that. Grade: C+.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas: Until a few flameouts in the postseason, Big Z was having a stellar season. He’ll always be 7-foot-3 and he’ll always be able to shoot and get tip-ins. Not only that, he’s still better than most centers in the league. The fact he’s far and away the Cavaliers’ second-best player, however, is not a good thing. Grade: B+.
LeBron James: The 23-year-old still needs to learn to play without the ball and develop a post-up game, but the Cavaliers are a lottery team without him. Grade: A+.
Damon Jones: When Jones played, he played fairly well. Why he so often stopped playing, only coach Mike Brown knows. Grade: B-.
Dwayne Jones: The young big man proved serviceable for short periods, but he’ll never be much more useful than that. Grade: D+.
Sasha Pavlovic: Nothing has changed here. There are brief glimpses of a productive and talented player, but they’re always followed by long periods of invisibility. Grade: D.
Joe Smith: The veteran knows how to play and is a great presence in the locker room. Grade: B-.
Eric Snow: If nothing else, he turned out to be one of the team’s better assistant coaches. Grade: F.
Wally Szczerbiak: Mike Brown should have started him from the moment the Cavaliers made the big Feb. 21 trade. Who knows, Szczerbiak might have become a more productive player. As things stand now, though, he’s just another below-average shooting guard on a team that seems to have cornered that market. Grade: C-.
Billy Thomas: See "Lance Allred." Grade: D-.
Anderson Varejao: There was a stretch following his holdout where "The Wild Thing" was be-coming a very productive player, but then he sprained his ankle and struggled the rest of the way. Too often, Mike Brown played him too much. Grade: D+.
Ben Wallace: Never has so much been made out of four points and seven rebounds. Big Ben makes Larry Hughes look underpaid. Grade: D.
Delonte West: Who would have ever guessed he would be the most productive of the four players the Cavaliers got in their "blockbuster" trade? Grade: B-.
Mike Brown: Once and for all, the man needs an offensive-minded assistant. He also needs to learn how to substitute and convince his team a great regular-season record will help in the playoffs. That being said, the man’s methods have paid dividends in the postseason for three straight years. Grade: B-.
Danny Ferry: The offseason consisted of acquiring Devin Brown and Cedric Simmons (remember him?), not to mention lengthy holdouts by Pavlovic and Varejao. The Feb. 21 trade didn’t work out as planned, either, but at least Ferry tried something. Grade: C-.
Dan Gilbert: The man has been willing to spend large sums of money on players, practice facili-ties and locker room amenities. He’s also learned to stay out of the way on the basketball side. You can’t ask for much more from an owner. Grade: A-.
Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4061 or rickn@ohio.net.

 



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