Chad Ford: Cleveland is in Trouble

From BallerBlogger.com:

June 23, 2009 8:51 PM | By Brandon Hoffman

Caught the B.S. Report with Bill Simmons and Chad Ford today. Simmons and Ford discuss the Richard Jefferson trade and break down the NBA draft. At about the 55-minute mark, the podcast turns from Sam Presti and Kevin Durant in Oklahoma City to Danny Ferry and LeBron James in Cleveland. Ford postulates:

“Sam Presti and Danny Ferry both came out of the Spurs GM mill. But they had such different approaches. Danny Ferry felt, ‘I have to get a lot of veterans around LeBron and we have to compete for a championship right away.’ And he really set himself up because now LeBron doesn’t have anybody young to grow around. There’s pressure on them them every year to win a title or LeBron’s leaving. And now these guys are getting older.

“The Cavs are in real trouble, because it is going to be hard for LeBron to look at Cleveland, and really come up with good reasons to stay there, other than it’s his hometown and he would certainly break the hearts of Cavs fans everywhere if he [left].

“He will have better options.

“Sam Presti seems to kind of understand, ‘I need to surround Kevin Durant with young talent that can grow together.’ They’ll continue to get better and better gradually, and right when it’s time for Kevin Durant to leave or not to leave is right when they’re going to start to make their run as a real contender. And that’s going to be too alluring for him to walk away from.

“I think the Cavs’ formula was all wrong. They should have surrounded LeBron with young guys. I think Presti has got it right.”

Now I understand why Ferry more often than not went for veterans.

Thing is, many are past their prime, and whether young or old, are specialists rather than well-rounded players.

Cleveland's growth hasn't been steady like Chicago's when Krause was building the team around Jordan.