Empty the Bench

LeBron James makes his teammates better. Check that: LeBron James makes teammates who still have game better players. Some of the ragtag crew he’s been forced to run with these past few seasons have been simply beyond salvation. I won’t name names… oh, hell, I’m talking Eric Snow, Sasha Pavlovic, post-Pistons Ben Wallace, etc.

Maurice “Mo” Williams most certainly has game, and the King will, undoubtedly, make his new starting point guard look better. As you’ve probably heard by now, the former Milwaukee Bucks guard was the centerpiece of a three-team trade that sent him packing to that beautiful metropolis of Cleveland to join the Cavaliers. Spare parts and castoffs mostly comprised the rest of the deal, which ended up looking like this:

- Cleveland gets PG Mo Williams
- Oklahoma City (aka the Seattle Sonics) get SF Desmond Mason and F/C Joe Smith
- Milwaukee gets PG Luke Ridnour, PG Damon Jones, and S/F Adrian Griffin

For thoughts on the trade from around the Internets, our man J.E. Skeets over at Ball Don’t Lie has done a fine job of compiling reactions from our fellow basketball writers.

Mo Williams Photos Credit: Icon SMI

Of course, we have some thoughts too. For the purposes of this post, however, I’m going to look at this strictly from a Cleveland Cavaliers perspective since they stand to gain the most from it and because there’ve been so many folks going ga-ga over the deal.

Is Mo Williams an upgrade for the Cavs at the point? Will The King help pad Williams’ stats? Yes, and often enough.

Is Williams the piece that will definitely put the Cavaliers over the top, slam-dunking the franchise onto the heads of the Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons, and perhaps the Philadelphia 76ers? No.

Many casual NBA fans out there may not be all too familiar with Mo Williams and what he brings to the table. After all, it’s not like the Milwaukee Bucks make even intermittent appearances on nationally televised games, and they haven’t won a playoff series since they advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2001. I’ll take a really quick look at Williams and what kind of impact he might have in Cleveland after the break.

Before I go on, let me make this clear: I think Mo Williams is a pretty good player and a very solid scorer. LeBron James has never had a teammate who’s averaged 17 points/per lining up alongside him, so this certainly makes things more interesting for the Cavs.

Drafted 47th overall in the 2003 NBA Draft by the Utah Jazz, Williams signed on with the Bucks after one year in Utah and saw his per-game minutes immediately shoot from about 13 to 28. He’s very adept at getting into the lane in half-court sets and is extremely quick in the open floor. He’s coming off his best pro season to date in 2007-08, when he averaged 17.2 points, 6.4 assists, 3.5 boards, 48% FG, and 1.2 steals per. He’s also a career 85% free-throw shooter.

The problem is, Williams can also be quite unreliable. Before last season he’d never shot better than 44% from the field. Over his past three campaigns he’s never played in more than 68 regular-season games, so there’s a history of injuries there for a guy who won’t turn 26 years old until December.

Like Allen Iverson, he needs to dominate the ball and is anything but a pass-first point guard. Despite averaging 36:30 minutes per last year, he attempted less than 3 free throws a night, which is pretty terrible. He’s also disinterested in defense most of the time and can be punished by bigger guards.

It’s obviously not solely on his shoulders, but since Williams stepped into a starting role for Milwaukee the team has made the playoffs only once and they have a combined 124-204 record during the regular season.

Cavaliers GM Danny Ferry is willing to take the good with the bad, however, which includes a contract that will pay him $43 million over the next five years. It’s not an unreasonable deal by any means, but we still don’t know how Williams will do on a team desperate to contend now for a title lest LeBron say “no thanks” in two years and head for greener pastures.

I’m just not convinced that brittle Mo Williams is the stud some are making him out to be. The Bucks sure don’t seem tearful about his departure and are willing to hand over the PG reigns to inexperienced second-year Ramon Sessions and injury-prone, underwhelming Luke Ridnour. Like I said, Williams is not an especially great passer and absolutely loves to shoot. It’ll be interesting to see how he fits in with James and Zydrunas Ilgauskas–on the court, not on paper.

And what of restricted free agent Delonte West? Yes, we’re partial to that impish little fellow here at ETB and think he’d flourish in the right system, so perhaps I’m overstating his talents a bit. But with Daniel “One-Trick Pony” Gibson recently inked to a long-term deal, this pretty much leaves West in limbo. I hope the team does him a favor and works out a sign-and-trade with somebody willing to give the kid some confidence and steady minutes; it’ll pain us here to see him languish on the bench behind a tandem of Williams and Gibson.

LeBron James has graded this move with an “A,” but I’m not sure what else he could possibly say about it in his first public, post-trade comments. It’ not like he could come out and say something like “well, Mo’s a good player, but I’m not sure he’s the right guy or capable of pushing over the top.”

Oh, he’ll make Mo Williams look better, but whether Mo Williams will make the the Cleveland Cavaliers a lot better is up in the air.

Related:
- Coach K to Me: “Stop Deferring to LeBron.”
- Ben Wallace, For Whom the Bell Tolls
- That’s a Wrap, Folks: Summing Up the 2007-08 NBA Regular Season In 36 Lists