Empty the Bench

The Cleveland Cavaliers won the Eastern Conference in 2007, so they’re the team to beat next season, right? They’re the team that East GMs should scrutinize and dissect this summer, then tweak their roster accordingly to better match up with when the ball drops on the 2007/08 season. “The Cavs are the blueprint for success in the East,” and it’s up to every other team to make the adjustments.

Unfortunately, that kind of thinking doesn’t always work out so well. Look at the Detroit Pistons: after the Miami Heat beat them in the 2006 ECF and eventually won the title, Detroit’s offseason moves and focus were largely based around coming back and beating the Heat, specifically Shaquille “I’ll do anything for a buck” O’Neal. Their bench was stacked with big men who could come in and, if anything else, give six hard fouls on Shaq and make him earn his points on the free-throw line. The only problem is that Miami didn’t make it out of the first round, and that extra surplus of big men proved mostly superfluous against the more athletic Chicago Bulls and, especially, Cleveland Cavs.

Now it seems the New Jersey Nets are adopting the same way of thinking as Detroit did last year. In today’s New York Post, Nets GM Ed Stefanski says that he does not intend to reopen talks of trading Jason Kidd to the Lakers for a package headed by Andrew Bynum (the right move) and that he is intent on resigning Vince Carter (a bad, bad move) because, in his estimation, they would have beat the Cavs if VC had a better series. So, of course, that means they could have won the NBA Finals then, right?

“Right now we are happy with how we ended the season,” Stefanski said. “You always want to win a championship, but with the health issue and Richard getting back healthy and (Nenad) Krstic coming back, and hopefully we can do something with Vince (who can opt out of his contract). We feel good about our nucleus. Can we add to it? There’s nothing in the works.”

The Nets are expected to sign Carter, because the Nets were close to knocking off the Cavs in the second round. The Nets believe if Carter had a better series, they would have won it. Carter likely won’t sign unless he’s assured Kidd is coming back.

One problem with that line of reasoning: Vince Carter is not a winner. Period. He is just not a winner, and if you’re pinning your championship hopes on him, you’re going to ultimately end up disappointed. Again, and again, and again. Sure, Carter is a fantastic regular-season scorer and even has been known to turn in a strong playoff performance every now and again. I’d only spend the kind of money he’s going to demand, however, on someone I feel 100% confident will come up big during crunch time in crucial postseason situations. Sorry, that’s just not Vince.

The other thing is that you simply can’t go into next season focusing on the Cavs’ wildly improbable playoff run to the Finals. All the credit in the world to them, really. They’re the only team in the East that did what they had to do (at least until June 7). But while some people have gone overboard with predictions that LeBron would now be in the NBA Finals, guaranteed, for the next 10 seasons or whatever, we’re going to hold off just a little bit on anointing this very-average Cavs squad the permanent Kings of the East for now. They still have holes–plenty of ‘em–not to mention a middling head coach and *no* picks in next Thursday’s draft. None.

The Cavs are the 2007 Eastern Conference Champions. If I’m a GM in the East, however, I’m not overthinking that fact too much when it comes to deciding how and where to improve my team. I’m not taking the “Detroit vs. Miami Approach” to my roster because history has an uncanny way of repeating itself.