CSI 70: Chris Grant, Mike Brown, Kyrie Irving and Anthony Bennett

CSI will be back and better than ever this week with new content, new pods and new discussions heading to the Cavaliers All-Star break, the Browns 2014 draft, and the Indians spring training. Also look for our podcasts to take off with daily content from Steve, Mike and I, as well as our newcomer, Jeff Ellis, who will begin posting original draft content here starting with a piece for tomorrow!

Today’s podcast is focusing on Chris Grant and the Cleveland Cavaliers, and what they can do to turn things around during the 2013-2014 season, and what they should do with Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters, Luol Deng, Anderson Varejao and Anthony Bennett heading into the offseason and beyond. This team is as hard to figure out as any Cavaliers’ team in the past 20 seasons, and with David Griffin taking over, can they turn things around, and do they even want to?

Here’s the show:

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The future of Kyrie Irving in Cleveland

It was bound to happen.

At one point or another, someone was bound to report that Kyrie Irving wanted to leave Cleveland. If you want to be honest about it, someone already did report that Kyrie Irving was going to leave Cleveland long before Chad Ford made his flippant comment yesterday in his online chat. I seem to recall CBS Radio’s Brandon Tierney saying the same thing.

The point is that at the end of every season, when Cavaliers’ fans take stock of the team, the first question everyone asks is, “Is he going to leave?”

It’s habit.

It’s what happens when the greatest basketball player in all the land grows up an hour from Cleveland, gets drafted by his “hometown” Cavs, nearly leads them to the Promised Land, then toys with the fans for year before taking his talents to South Beach.

I don’t blame LeBron for leaving. That was his right. But Cleveland fans are now gun-shy with their meaningful basketball players.

Kyrie Irving isn’t LeBron James. He’s not the best basketball player on the planet, nor is he going to be. He likely is the best basketball player in Cleveland though, and nearly from the time he was drafted with that #1 pick in June of 2011, Cleveland fans have been wondering:

“Is he going to leave?”

Cleveland Cavaliers finger-pointing

The Cleveland Cavaliers are a team that truly seems rudderless. They play well over long stretches , only to get blown out by 44. They take big leads in games, only to give them up as though 25-point leads are close games.

When you stare at the Cavs for any length of time, you see a team that lacks leaders, consistency and direction.

Throughout the season, you can point to several different issues that have been or are at root with the struggles of this team. Dan Gilbert, Chris Grant, Mike Brown and nearly every member of the team has, at one point or another, been at the center of finger-pointing, and you can take that phrase at face value, because I’m not always pointing the same finger.

The frustration is that this isn’t a bad basketball team talent-wise. Kyrie Irving has talent. Dion Waiters has talent. Tristan Thompson has talent. Yeah, even Anthony Bennett has talent. The problem? Well, if there were one, things wouldn’t be where they are right now. The Cavs are 16-29. They were 13-32 last year, but were 17-28 two seasons ago. In other words, they aren’t any better…yet.

As the Cavaliers head to New York tonight after a 1-4 road trip, you can’t help but feel this is a make-or-break road trip. Can they be a good basketball team? Do we even want them to be?

Let’s point some fingers…and feel free to use whichever finger you see fit:

The Sunday Drive with the Oregon spread offense in Cleveland?

Oregon Offensive Coordinator Philip Montgomery

I’ve been feeling a bit closer to the North Coast over the past few weeks, as the temperatures here in North Carolina have more resembled the frozen tundra of the borderlands of Lake Erie. While the temperature here has dipped below freezing far too many times for my liking, we have avoided the ample snow-footage that the Lake provides. I don’t miss the thrice-daily slogs out to my snow blower to clear the driveway of both wind-blow and street-plow piled snow. Still, the recent cold blast has me dreaming wistfully of the Indians’ Spring Training, the Browns’ draft and summer camp, and the Cavs foray back into the lottery.

Thankfully, all three Cleveland teams were active in one way or another over the past week, albeit in very different ways, which kept me from crawling into sports hibernation.

While my attention has needed some warming up no thanks to the weather, it’s been mostly focused on the warm seasons of 2014 for Cleveland sports. The Indians, however, continue to do everything they can to keep some of that attention pointing right back to the 1990’s thanks to their 2014 version of Tribe Fest. The Tribe has their normal conglomerate of current players headlining the event, but the focus

Quick thoughts on the Cavs post-Bynum

Will Bynum’s departure help Thompson and the Cavs? (Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer)

The Cleveland Cavaliers are directly in the middle of the whirlwind of the news that Andrew Bynum is either suspended indefinitely from the team, or is on the trading block, or both. While that story will certainly play out over the next few hours, there’s another interesting tidbit that will take place as well.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have to play basketball. So where do they go from here?

Bynum had been starting for the Cavaliers, and had been averaging 20 minutes per game on the season, and 22.6 minutes in the month of December. He’s averaging 8.4 points, 5.3 boards and 1.2 blocks per game since the start of the year, and 9 1/2 points, 6 1/2 boards and a block since the start of the month.

The numbers certainly aren’t special in and of themselves, but when taken into account what his presence has meant for the team on several levels, including supplementing Anderson Varejao, his presence has certainly been important on the court.

Varejao, as much an injury concern as Bynum, has averaged almost 29 minutes a game, putting up 7.9 points and 8.8 boards a game on the season. When you put the two together as one center, you have some pretty elite numbers: 17 points, 14 boards and two blocks a game. You can also credit Bynum’s presence for allowing Varejao to play fewer minutes, thus keeping him healthy.

While Andrew Bynum has been a surprise, it’s not like he’s been a star, and for stretches, he’s not been a very good basketball player. Perhaps getting  Zeller more playing time allows this team to get better in the long run, and perhaps they lose a few more games this year and get a better pick next year.

The Sunday Drive with winning, losing, dysfunction and Brantley

Michael Brantley (photo: AP)

The Sunday Drive is a bit late today, as all things tend to be in this crazy week leading up to the holidays. It’s also going to be a bit short, as time is running out on the day, and I don’t want to start making this thing a Sunday or Monday Drive.

Here are some really quick thoughts about Cleveland sports, and we’ll get back to a full edition next weekend.

Let’s get driving:

What does being a Browns’ fan entail these days? It’s entirely a Catch-22. The top priority is getting an all-important high draft pick in next year’s draft. Of course, you can’t follow a football team and not root for them to win, right? In a perfect world, the only thing a football fan should be worrying about heading into the final week of the season is either how long to play the starters because the team has already clinched, or how important it is to win to actually clinch.

That’s rarely the case for the Cleveland Browns. Instead, the only thing that matters from year-to-year is how many games the Browns can lose, and because of that, how high up the draft board they can move up.

Talk about dysfunctional.

Cleveland Sports Insiders: The Podcasts 60 & 61

Welcome to the next TWO editions of Cleveland Sports Insiders, one of the many podcasts here at Indians Baseball Insider! Tonight, you get two for the price of one, as IBI columnists Jim Pete and Michael Hattery tackle both the Cleveland Indians, and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

In the first podcast, Mike and Jim talk about the Indians’ offense in 2014, and how good it is as is, the needs of the Indians going forward with regards to the starting pitching and the bullpen, whether or not the Indians should deal Michael Brantley and what they should get for him if they do, and the perception of this team if the Indians truly don’t do anything in the midst of all this spending.

In the second podcast, Mike and Jim talk about the Cleveland Cavaliers two most recent “breakout” players in Andrew Bynum. Bynum has been playing in 25-to-30 minutes a night, and coming close to a double-double, while Waiters has been showcasing some star-power since allegedly calling out Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson for buddy ball. Have the Cavs found their new stars, or is there something else at play with Mike Brown‘s Cavs?

Cavalier Daggers…with Dion Waiters domination…

Dion Waiters (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

If there is one word that describes how I’ve felt about the Cavaliers over the past fourteen days, curious wouldn’t be that word.

Disgusted would fit.

Annoyed would work.

Disenchanted would suit me just fine.

Curious would be far from the discussion, unless you incorporate the Miami Heat into the discussion…especially this year.

On Wednesday night, the night before Thanksgiving, the Miami Heat headed to Cleveland for a matchup with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Miami Heat are the defending champions.

The Miami Heat are the two-time defending champions.

The Cleveland Cavaliers, most assuredly, are not.

There couldn’t be two teams further from each other over the past three seasons since LeBron James left Cleveland amidst a flurry of burned jerseys, grown men crying, and football sized banners being cut down.

The Heat, if at all possible, seem to be a team that are really just now figuring out how to manage themselves the right way during the regular season. They have a coach that’s still learning, and a team that truly fits together and understands the roles that they play.

Role models create roles.

The Cavaliers, if at all possible, seem to be a team that plays worse night-after-night, never really figuring out how to manage their new pieces and parts, and truly not really seeming to care about how to do it. Their starting lineup seems to change on a daily basis, and I doubt that anyone either knows their roles, or really cares much to figure it out.

It’s hard not to look at the team and think…black holes…

Of course, it’s early in the season and the Cavs still have plenty of time to gel together…or at least that’s what everyone on twitter tells me.

Let’s take a look at today’s Cavalier Daggers:

Cleveland Sports Insiders: The Podcast 58: Here Comes LeBron

Michael Hattery and Jim Pete focus their attention on the Cleveland Cavaliers, and in particular, on the return of one LeBron James. Will the Cleveland faithful be more receptive to the man that took his talents to South Beach three years ago, and since has won three MVP awards, two NBA finals MVP awards, and two NBA titles?

The Sunday Drive with Josh Gordon, Chris Grant and Carlos Beltran

Gordon (AP Photo/David Richard)

This weekend was a horrific mess of circumstances here in my little slice of Cleveland away from home. We had playdates and birthday parties and sleepovers and horses and dinner dates to contend with. When you toss in the biggest East Coast parade not located in New York City or Orlando, you have one massive conundrum of hoopla, sleep, running around, crying and did I mention sleep?

Okay..sleep deprivation is more like it.

As crazy as things were here in my own version of the North Coast Carolina, they were relatively silent back in Cleveland with regards to the Browns, the Indians and the Cavaliers.

Seriously.

Unless you throw in the fact that it’s Pittsburgh Steelers week, or the fact that the Indians made their first move of the offseason, or that the Cavs are in a spiral of struggle after getting rolled by San Antonio on Sunday night.

Yeah, it can only mean that it’s the holiday season, and with Thanksgiving and Michigan Week about to take over here, let’s get driving, before I fall asleep from the Turkey.

It’s Steelers’ week, and while that has generally meant a lot more to the Browns in recent years than the Steelers, it’s still the Browns’ top rival. I’ve been to many, many games at Cleveland Stadium involving these two teams, and I’ve seen some of the most amusing exchanges between fans. My favorite memory is of a ‘Terrible Towel’ waving fan sitting in front of me during halftime of a 1984 game between the two teams. The Steelers were up 7-0 at that point, and he was taking particular glee in waving the towel as though the Steelers had won the Super Bowl that very afternoon. Several minutes later, he was literally carried off by a contingent of pre-Dawg Pound Browns’ fans. He never returned. The Browns went on to win 20-10.