NBA ROCK

Did the Cavaliers make a good trade when they got Delonte West, Ben Wallace, Joe Smith, and Wally Szczerbiak? I thought so at first. But after last night’s gut-wrencher against the Bucks, I’m not so sure anymore. Why not? Big Z didn’t play. So the Cleveland offense = Lebron James. Here was their starting lineup:

• PG: Delonte West
• SG: Devin Brown
• SF: Lebron James
• PF: Anderson Varejao
• C: Ben Wallace

Lebron scored 35, Szczerbiak 13, Jones 12, Smith 12, and Devin Brown scored 10. They need someone else to step up and score with Lebron. Well you might say “Wally scored 13!”. Well, Wally also shot 27% (5-18) from the field while scoring those 13. Damon Jones put up a decent amount of points, but he isn’t doing so on a consistent basis. The only consistent players for the Cavs other than Lebron James is Joe Smith and Zydrunas Illgauskas — but Big Z didn’t play.

I understand that if you’re a defense-oriented team, you believe that your defense will lend itself to your offense as Lebron explains — or rather tries to explain in this vid from last year’s playoffs:

But what are you going to do when one of your 3-consistent offensive players doesn’t play? Rely on Lebron to carry your offense? Ok, bad example. But you get my drift. My point is that if the Cavs hope to be successful this year in the playoffs, they need to start praying that everyone gets healthy by crunch time. And that I’m not completely sold on the trade like I was when it first went through. Time will tell.

Take a look at the top 8 teams in the West:

1. Lakers
2. Spurs
3. Suns
4. Hornets
5. Mavericks
6. Jazz
7. Warriors
8. Nuggets

I had to double-back when I saw that the Lakers were 1st place. Not to take away from the Lakers’ success or anything, but I didn’t think they were that good. It appears there’s some chemistry happening between the Lakers’ big 3 (The Boston who?) in Los Angeles. A chemistry that’s lead the Lakers to an 8-game winning streak.

Kobe Bryant’s is experience a small shift in his numbers since Gasol has arrived. The bad: PPG (down about 2 PPG) and RPG (down about 1.5 RPG). The good: APG (up nearly 1.0 APG) and FT% (up about 4%). Granted Gasol doesn’t directly affect Kobe’s free throw %, I thought it was an interesting stat change.

Despite averaging around one less RPG, and a couple of other drops in averages in L.A. than in Memphis, Gasol is scoring 2.4 more PPG, and shooting at 63.2% while playing 2 minutes less a game. Sounds like Gasol is finding his niche on the west coast while helping Lamar Odom find his.

With Pau Gasol in the lineup, Odom is now the Lakers’ third option on offense…Good or bad? Well you saw the Lakers’ ranking atop the western conference, now take a look at Lamar Odom’s Averages over is last 10 games with Gasol:

• PPG: 15.6
• RPG:12.3
• APG: 4.4
• FT%: 65.9
• FG%: 63.2
• 3P%: 58.3

That’s absolutely amazing for a guy of his stature as your third option. Who knew Gasol would help Lamar Odom flourish? Don’t answer that, I’m sure someone called it.

Hard to believe that 2 seasons ago the Miami Heat were world champs, isn’t it? Fast forward 2 seasons later and they’ve claimed the worst record in the NBA. You can debate it either way, but I’m going to say that trading Shaq away for Shawn Marion was a good move for the Heat. Marion is, after all, putting up better numbers for the Heat than he did Phoenix. This is understandable since the Heat doesn’t have the star power that the Suns have.

I think we’re going to see the Heat making some moves for the long-term. I think we’re going to see said moves happen sooner rather than later. I say this because Dwayne Wade can opt out of his contract after the 2009-2010 season. This gives the Miami Heat 2 years to put key players in place around Dwayne Wade. If Pat Riley has anything to do with putting players in place, I’ll put money on him bringing in a center. It’s his style — a center-oriented offense. On paper it sounds great, too; your star center gets doubled and he kicks it out to an open man resulting in a nothing but net splash. Don’t be surprised if Riley pursues Eddy Curry. Otherwise, it’s slim-pickings for Pat Riley and his power-in-the-post mentality:

• Emeka Okafor (restricted free agent)
• Jamaal Magloire (unrestricted free agent)

Maybe 2008 won’t the year the Heat find a new big man via free agency. All the more reason to expect a trade to swing Eddy Curry Miami’s way. It wouldn’t be a bad deal for the Knicks, either. A 17-39 record paired with a salary cap nightmare = time to rebuild.