A lot of people have been fond holding up Danny Ferry with a particular sort of ferocity while I’ve been trying to make the point that Ferry hasn’t done much as the Cavs’ GM and what he has done has been if not terrible then at least not good.
Enter: Kelly Dwyer, one of the better basketball writers on the internets. He writes for SI.com. In his column this week he has some thoughts about the Cavs roster, and in particular the possibility of blowing it up and starting over. Here are a few quotes:
Excluding LeBron James, natch, it appears as if the supporting cast that general manager Danny Ferry has assembled is entirely replaceable, but would anyone want these guys?
And:
Larry Hughes is the biggest issue here. His defense is sound, if unspectacular…Numbers like 14.4 points and 3.1 assists seem passable until you realize that Hughes is playing close to 36 minutes a night, and his ability to clean the glass seems to have diminished. Hughes averaged 6.3 rebounds in 38 minutes two years ago, but that mark is down to 3.5 this season.
And:
What’s worse is the idea that Hughes might stand alone as the worst free-agent acquisition of the last few years.
Finally:
Hughes is owed $36.4 million over three seasons after 2006-07, and it’s hard to see him justifying about half of that cash. The idea of pairing LeBron with an older, workingman’s version of himself seemed crazy enough to work when Cleveland brought Hughes on board in 2005, but the chemistry hasn’t been there, and Hughes’ trade value is about as low as trade value gets.
Ok. So the Cavs are struggling to win games even though they have played the 28th easiest schedule in the league. The team will almost certainly not win 50 games this season and the team is on pace to finish out of the top four in the Eastern Conference (the Cavs are currently in 5th). That’s what I would call a step back from last season. With Varejao about to become a free agent, Snow and Marshall aging right before our eyes, Hughes doing what Hughes has pretty much always done, which is not be a productive basketball player, it’s pretty clear that going forward the skies will be no brighter than they are right now and will probably be a whole lot darker.
I do not think it is possible to make a sensible defense of Danny Ferry’s job performance. Seriously. Not possible.
