Cleveland Cavaliers
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An opposing team's scout sizes up the Cavaliers

I'm not a big fan of this team, and I think you'll find a lot of people in the league who feel the same way. They have a sense of entitlement because they have LeBron James, and I really didn't think they deserved to be in the Finals with the talent they had around LeBron. I just don't see how they can repeat that success because they haven't done anything to improve the team ...

LeBron played another summer for USA Basketball on top of all of the minutes he plays for Cleveland. That's a lot of wear and tear no matter how strong he is. That's why you saw him pacing himself more last year during the regular season. I don't think it was a conscious deal that he settled for more jumpers. I think it has more to do with Mike Brown not being confident offensively as a coach, and that's reflected in how they constantly change stuff and the way they call plays. Defensively, Brown did get them to buy into the idea that they need to make stops to win. And he did it like John Calipari has done it in college at Memphis, by saying that if you guys get stops, then you can do whatever you want on offense. If they get stops, they can push the ball and run pick-and-rolls. It's a good strategy for Brown in this way too: He wasn't going to be a guy to say we're go to run this play -- and then watch LeBron walk it up and call his own play. By doing it the way he did it on offense, it helped Brown's standing and didn't allow the situation to look mutinous ...

I don't anticipate seeing a lot of improvement from LeBron, who obviously is one of the best players already. This is probably going to have to be a year of pacing himself even a little bit more than last year. They don't have as much to prove right now, with their sense of entitlement. It wasn't like they burned up everybody in the regular season: They sort of coasted through then turned it on and got hot during the playoffs, so I imagine they'll have the same approach this year ...

If things don't turn out right there will be somebody to blame, and it won't be LeBron. We'll have a better feel for this in a few more years, but I have a suspicion that LeBron is going to turn out to have more in common with Carmelo Anthony than he does with Dwyane Wade. My own feeling is that Wade has a better chance to be like Michael Jordan than LeBron does, because Wade looks more willing to play hard all of the time than LeBron ...

Larry Hughes is one of those enigmas wrapped in a riddle. He teases you so much with his talent, but he's a fragile guy physically as well as with his confidence and his mentality. He's not a point guard. You can buy time with Hughes playing the point position and with LeBron handling the ball most of the time -- and in that case Hughes serves as a secondary ball-handler, but he's not a decision-maker. If he misses his first couple of shots, he can miss 10. I just don't know if you can depend on him. I think he'd be a lot better as your third guard rather than as a starter -- he could be an excellent first guy coming off the bench and playing a couple of positions as a Sixth Man candidate. If the question is whether they regret signing him, I bet they don't because they went to the Finals after signing him ...

Another option for them is to go with a Daniel Gibson-Hughes-LeBron lineup in order to create more offense. It's not a bad defensive lineup either, though you can't play Zydrunas Ilgauskas with those three because he doesn't play at the same speed, so then you'd have to play Drew Gooden as an undersized center ...

Their preseason contract problems [with Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic] might get them off to a slow start and cause some internal problems, because LeBron has already pointed out that he wants those guys back and he's disappointed that they didn't do anything to improve the team over the summer. The vulnerable guy there is going to be Mike Brown ...

Varejao is a good player -- and especially good where he is now with this team. If he goes elsewhere, it will be like one of those Malik Rose deals, where on one team he's a productive player but move him somewhere else and he is no longer a difference-maker. Varejao plays so hard that he gets a lot of things done and he gives them the size and energy they need alongside Ilgauskas and Gooden. But there isn't any upside in Varejao -- he's going to be the same guy 10 years from now as he is today ...

Pavlovic played a big role for them and was an important contributor in the playoffs. He played with aggressiveness and tenacity, and his defense was much better -- I didn't think you could take advantage of him at the end of the year. He played himself into a position where he's going to get some money ...

All of these guys -- including Varejao and Pavlovic -- have the benefit of playing with LeBron, because he draws so much attention that he creates opportunities for them. When you helped off Pavlovic onto LeBron, Pavlovic was a spot-up guy who could hurt you, and if you closed out on Pavlovic, he could put it on the floor and score on you. The only guy who has been limited because of LeBron has been Ilgauskas, whose role has been reduced. Ilgauskas is a guy you have to double-team during the playoffs, and he passes very well out of the double team because he can see over you and make the play. He's not the most mobile guy in the world, but he does play team defense ...

Gooden can be really good, but he can also be flaky. He gives the impression that he thinks he's a better offensive player than he is, and that he wants touches all of the time. They're an excellent rebounding team because of those three big guys up front ...

Eric Snow is a hard-hat leader and a strong, tough guy. After Gibson's success the fans are going to expect Gibson to play a lot, but Snow is important to helping them coach on the floor because otherwise LeBron is in charge out there. When Snow isn't on the floor, it puts more pressure on Mike Brown to be the boss ...

Gibson is a great shooter, a good scorer and a quick guy. But he had the advantage of being in the surprise role too. Nobody had to game-plan against him until the Spurs came along in the Finals. Guys like him who can spot up with LeBron on the floor can become better players. In Gibson's case, he was smart and he took advantage of lazy close-outs by making open shots, and if close-outs were poor, then he got to the middle of the paint. But it was something to see an unknown rookie like Gibson getting calls in the playoffs like he was Tony Parker. I can't remember a rookie like him to get the benefit of so many trips to the free throw line. A lot of people were talking about that ...

Donyell Marshall played a lot of important minutes. But if guys like him, Gooden and especially Damon Jones aren't playing minutes, they can be hotheads -- Jones especially because he makes sure everybody hears what he's thinking all of the time ...

I like the potential of Cedric Simmons, but there must have been some reason the Hornets were so quick to give up on him after a year ...

Their defense is successful because they have good ball pressure. They're loading up the paint, putting guys inside and forcing you to beat them from outside. They take away the penetrating lanes, and if one guy gets beat, then there's usually somebody else behind him. That's one big thing Mike Brown has accomplished. He got them to maybe not gamble as much, but to be patient and force opponents into mistakes ...

As a defender, LeBron is not going to get in foul trouble; he's going to make sure he stays on the floor. You can still take advantage of him, but he's a smart guy with length and he has reflexes. He can hold you off and go get the ball. You can't go at him and say he's not going to guard. He'll get things done because of his physical presence. But I question whether he'll be like Kobe Bryant, who can be a really good defender when he chooses to be. I don't see LeBron acting as if he wants to be the most dominant player on both ends of the floor. The way he plays, he gives the impression that he would prefer to be a more athletic version of Magic Johnson as opposed to Michael Jordan, who wanted to be the best player at both ends ...

The reason they've done well in the playoffs the last two years is because they've defended, they've taken care of the ball, they have a good passing center and they have a great player who gets to the line and finishes at the ends of close games ...

But what happens if they take a step back and struggle during the regular season? It might be a revealing year to see how they react to tough times.