The first chapter in my favorite book — The Book of Basketball, written by Bill Simmons — is titled “The Secret”. Bill spent years searching for the secret of winning basketball and he found it during a conversation with Hall of Fame point guard Isiah Thomas at a topless pool in Las Vegas.
Here — in an excerpt from the book — is what Isiah Told him:
"“The secret of basketball,” he told me, “is that it’s not about basketball.”The secret of basketball is that it’s not about basketball. That makes no sense, right? How can that possibly make sense?For the next few minutes, Isiah explained it to me. After coming soooooooooo close for two straight postseasons, the chemistry for the ’89 team was off for reasons that had nothing to do with talent.”"
Isiah went on to tell a story about how the 1989 Detroit Pistons traded Adrian Dantley for Mark Aguirre because Adrian wasn’t handling the rise of Dennis Rodman well, and it was hurting the team’s chemistry. Isiah went as far as to tell Bill that the Pistons would not have won the championship without making that deal.
Adrian Dantley was a better basketball player than Mark Aguirre but the Pistons were better off without him.
Must Read: Did Cavs improve after trade with Lakers?
This morning the Cleveland Cavaliers found themselves in the same predicament. The only logical recourse? Shuffle the deck.
The Cavs barely look like the same team any more. pic.twitter.com/679qB2WOSx
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 8, 2018
Sure, the Cavaliers got younger and more athletic. They added some much-needed size in the backcourt. However, the Cavaliers also eviscerated their front-court shooting. Yes, Kevin Love should return before the playoffs but LeBron James has always thrived on the floor spacing delivered courtesy of a shooting big. He will not have one for the next six weeks.
It’s also worth mentioning that George Hill is the only player acquired by Cleveland with substantial post-season experience.
The Cavaliers are now just four games ahead of the ninth seed in the East, and look an awful lot like a guy plugging new holes in his boat while uncovering old ones.
This is where The Secret comes in. Winning basketball in the NBA is as much a product of luck as it is anything else. Each team is trying to catch lightning in a bottle. The 2011 Mavericks weren’t amazingly talented. They just genuinely liked each other. They competed with an absolute trust in their process. The 2014 Spurs were the same way.
Anybody who watched a Cavaliers basketball game this year could see the writing on the wall. They hated each other. Not all of them, just specific cliques in the locker room.
Did you notice Cleveland kept J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson? These are two players who are unfailingly loyal to LeBron. (As they should be. He got them paid, after all.) They are certainly not playing to their potential to this point, but they are not sources of chaos.
Isaiah Thomas ran verbally roughshod over everyone in the Cavaliers’ organization — short of team owner Dan Gilbert, of course. Jae Crowder was quiet and distant. Iman Shumpert had delusions of grandeur. Derrick Rose abandoned the team.
These trades hit a reset button. The Cavaliers now have 29 games to catch their own version of lightning in a bottle. The pieces are there. Cleveland retained their depth — with the buyout market still on the horizon — added defensive personnel and kept their two most talented players.
If LeBron’s performance on Wednesday was any indication, they still have a good chance of making this happen.