The one aspect of rebuilding an NBA team that is most overlooked these days is the importance of surrounding the young core you're trying to develop with actual NBA players. 

Like, guys who can play for not only the Cleveland Cavaliers and Charlotte Bobcats but also actually crack the rotation on any other team in the Association. 

Marreese Speights, for example, is a big man who would earn minutes on any team in the league.

He might not be a starter for some teams, like he could be here next to Tristan Thompson moving forward, but he's going to be your third or fourth big man at worst. 

He earned minutes already behind the best tandem in the league with Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph in Memphis, and I think now we are seeing what Speights is capable of in an expanded role.

Hopefully that expanded role continues to be here in Cleveland heading into next season.

Following the Cavaliers' win over the Orlando Magic last night I caught up with Big Mo to talk about all that. 

I believe Speights is happy here being part of what the Cavaliers are building. I'm glad that all he's thinking and talking about right now is helping this team win and I hope he's afforded the opportunity to keep doing specifically that. 

It goes without saying, or typing, but the opportunity Speights gives this team to actually win an NBA game is so much more real then when the twin towers of Ryan Hollins and Semih Erden were trotted out there last season. 

The most important thing he's bringing right now, though—besides being a dude who's mad cool on Twitter with Cavs fans while averaging 15 points and seven rebounds in only 24 (!!!) minutes—is that he's helping Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson and Dion Waiters win basketball games.

At the end of the day, after all the cap space is counted, draft picks are stockpiled and advanced scouting metrics are calculated, these are the type of players who need to share a locker room with Kyrie Irving.

The ones who help Irving lead this Cavs team to wins.

The Cavaliers have won seven of their last 10 games for the first time since Byron Scott has arrived in Cleveland as of Saturday morning.

Drama continues tonight as the red-hot Denver Nuggets attempt to walk through the collective buzzsaw emerging from Quicken Loans Arena these days. 

On Wednesday night, the Cleveland Cavaliers destroyed the Charlotte Bobcats.

More important than simply beating the NBA's worst team, Dion Waiters, Tristan Thompson and Kyrie Irving combined  to score 58 points in the process.

Forty-nine games into the season, the Cavaliers' "Rising Stars" have now led Cleveland to a 6-4 record (!!!) over the last ten.

Following the most recent win, I caught up with Waiters to talk about how things feel for the rookie as the All-Star break approaches. 

Thompson, Waiters and Irving went for 17, 19 and 22 points respectively.

Maybe that's what next season might look like on a more regular basis.  Who knows.

While I don't want to get too carried away with beating the Bobcats, sans our boy Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, six wins in the last ten games is impressive for this group.

Especially when you consider the Cavs' second best player is rehabbing his way through blood clots, injuries and everything else as these youngsters start to find a collective groove.

Maybe the sky is still about to fall in a couple weeks, though, and this ten game run will be a distant memory before not too long.

Or, like Waiters said, maybe these guys are learning how to play collectively at the pace needed to win on the NBA level.

Because that's possible too.

On Saturday night, prior to the Cavaliers triumphant win over the NBA's most explosive offensive, I asked Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks to compare his Thunder team during Kevin Durant's second season to the Cleveland Cavaliers in year two of Kyrie Irving.

Our exchange on that is below.

The 'OKC Model' for rebuilding an NBA team has been mentioned ad nauseam over the last few years—especially here in Cleveland as it relates to the Cavs.

I have never believed this model is something that can be technically duplicated or followed. In my opinion, the OKC model is a rebuilding-through-the-draft-method that's worked for the Thunder specifically as a result of many unique factors.

In saying that, though, generally building through the draft could work for other NBA teams as well. The Thunder are the standard by which those rebuilds are measured, so I was interested to hear what Brooks had to say about Cleveland's progress while I had the chance to ask him.

On Thursday, I took a look back through the high school basketball archives for the Bleacher Report NBA team.

In doing so, I compiled a list of high school scouting reports for 13 of this season's All-Stars.

Included in that group is the pride of St. Patrick's High School in New Jersey—Kyrie Andrew Irving.

The excerpt on Irving from my B/R article on Thursday is below:

Later, in the afternoon—during a day dream where Tyler Zeller emphatically finishes off a half-court lob pass in the Rising Stars game from Dion Waiters only after Tristan Thompson checks out for a short breather—I began to wonder how exactly the high school scouting reports read for the rest of the Cavs' heading to Houston for All Star Weekend.

After googling, I found these reports if you're similarly curious, each via Scout.com.

In anticipation of the Cavaliers’ matchup with the sharp-shooting Golden State Warriors, I began to marvel about how efficiently Kyrie Irving shoots the basketball from three-point range.

If you haven't marveled about anything lately I suggest you do so. Really breaks up the day.

Anyway, Irving's 41 percent from three currently ranks 22nd in the NBA as of Tuesday.

Stephen Curry, meanwhile, comes to Cleveland ranked second behind only Kyle Korver at 45.2 percent.

This thought process quickly streamlined away from Curry, though, and into the following question that I then posed to myself:

How does Irving’s three-point shooting percentage, thus far in his career, compare with the great Cavaliers’ legend Mark Price by the time he was a second-year baller doing it big all over the NBA? 

Initially stumped by my own question, I turned to Basketball-Reference.com for answers.

Turns out, Price appeared in 67 games as a rookie for the Cleveland Cavaliers during the 1986-87 season.

In 18.2 minutes per game that year, Price converted 23 of 70 attempts from three-point range. In his second season, he then became a starter and played an average of 32.8 minutes.

The Rajon Rondo ACL injury was a major disappointment on Sunday. 

The NBA—especially its postseason—is a markedly better product with Rondo involved. When healthy, his unique skill-set has the ability to change the outcome of not only playoff games but also an entire series on a moment's notice.

Something we are certainly well aware of as Cavaliers' fans.

Kyrie Irving now has a chance to start in the 2013 NBA All-Star game as a result of the Rondo injury.

While the way he could inevitably earn that start is the worst sort of way, the truth is that Irving deserved that start anyway.

He is—without question—the best backcourt player in the Eastern Conference this season.

Not simply the East's best point guard.

In the post-decision era, Cavs fans have had to endure a lot of terrible weeks. Weeks where key players sustain injuries, losses mount, and the growing pains of rebuilding an entire franchise takes its toll.

I could go out on a limb and say this past week was the best in our new “Post-Decision” era and hopefully a sign of many more to come.

We started the week in relative obscurity, sitting on the sidelines as the league showcased itself for it’s Holiday viewers, but ended the week making all kinds of noise on and off the court.

As with any recent Cavaliers' success story, it begins with our soon-to-be-named Eastern Conference Player of the Week, Kyrie Irving.



Irving started by torching Rajon Rondo in the final minute on his way to 40. He iced a great comeback win against the Bucks with a few buckets. Then slayed an old dragon from 28 feet out at the buzzer in Toronto.

In the end, his team went 3-0 in three close games in large part because of his insane play in the clutch that was so good it somehow overshadows the fact that he averaged roughly 36 pts a night and shot 61 percent from the field in the process.

To put it another way, Irving scored 107 points on 67 shots. Yet, the biggest moment for himself and for the organization as a whole came on an off night.

The Cavaliers' newly acquired big man, Marreese Speights, made a lot of friends in Cleveland on Friday night.

In his Cavs debut, after arriving from Memphis earlier this week, Speights provided a combination of NBA-caliber size and athleticism that the Cavaliers have desperately lacked for the last three seasons.

More importantly, however, is that Speights took the floor—after only a couple hours of learning the Cavaliers' system—and played with passion.

His attitude and energy were both refreshing and contagious for a Cavs team who would've lost by 15 if he hadn't arrived.

Following the come-from-behind victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, I caught up with Mo Speights to talk about all that.
 

StepienRules: First experience in Cleveland, with these Cavs fans, what was it like out there with the crowd getting behind you guys late?

Marreese Speights: It felt good, it always feels good to have the crowd get behind you. This is a great organization, great city and I'm glad we got the win tonight. 

SR: What can Cavs fans expect from Mo Speights this year?

MS: I'm just going to go out there to play hard every night. Help my teammates, and just get wins, and try to do the best we can do to get some wins on our record.

SR: How excited are you about the type of minutes you're going to get here? Playing behind Gasol and Randolph in Memphis you were getting about 15 minutes a game, you're going to get a lot more than that now. What do you feel like you can do with those type of minutes?

I was old enough to remember how rare it actually is to employ an NBA All-Star in Cleveland.

Otherwise, maybe he would’ve been right.

Maybe I would have been spoiled by the last great All-Star to wear Cleveland across his chest.

I appreciated his brilliance then, though, just as much as I appreciate Kyrie Irving’s now. Irving’s inclusion on the 2013 All-Star team only reinforces the fact that the rest of world is now officially appreciating his greatness too.

As Irving prepares for his trip to Houston, the Cavaliers have now drafted two players in the last decade who have gone on to become All-Stars in their second season.

As much as that simple fact could genuinely appear like a trend to the under-20 crowd, it most certainly is not.

There have only been 15 Cavaliers selected as All-Stars since 1971. Irving now makes 16.

Unlike the selections of Tyrone Hill and Mo Williams, however, Irving will remain on the NBA’s midseason showcase for many years to come.

While I fully expected Irving to make the All-Star team this season, and even think he could’ve made it last year as a rookie, his official selection last night gave me pause from the monotony of losing.

It made me reflect on how quickly Irving has instilled a new hope within a franchise that has compiled a 50-140 record since the 2010-11 season began.

If you told me back then, that the Cavaliers would employ a 20-year-old All Star in three years, I’d have asked you simply to stop lying. There is no way I’d have ever believed that.

Those things don’t happen in general, and they certainly don’t happen in Cleveland. 

Only, as Irving becomes the seventh player in NBA history under 21-years old to be selected to an All-Star game, it’s happened in Cleveland now twice.

Where we go from here is anyone’s guess. Unlike 2010, though, I’m not ruling anything out anymore.

A lot of NBA was played on Monday.

Blessed as I was, I had the chance to sit out the storm and enjoy a day off courtesy of Dr. King and his impact on our country. At one point, my oldest boy asked if the Cavs were on.

“Not this year little man, but maybe soon.”

As he ran off, I caught myself remembering back to when the Cavs were the main event on day’s like the King Holiday.

Every year.

Every NBA showcase game they were there. As gone as they are now, I truly believe they’ll be back.

Maybe not to the same scale and probably not next year, but those days will arrive in time to shape into my five-year old’s version of our "Price and Daugherty Era."

The Cavs, and their fans, are swallowing the pain of doing this the right way. Dan Gilbert warned us.

On Tuesday, we had an escape from that monotony. The trade was exciting and Kyrie’s performance at home against the Celtics was even better.

By and large, however, “the process”, includes no shortcuts. The pain will return.

This team is being built through the draft, primarily, in a sustainable way. In the modern NBA, where Jon Leuer can be exchanged for much more than we'd ever imagine, sustainability does not come quick.

Organizations can only shoot for the big trophy in a few different ways, and we’ve clearly chosen the path of patience and prudence. By far the most disciplined and unpopular plan anyway.

On consistently selling the rebuild

You have to tell a fan base coming off two straight 60-plus win seasons that winning 50 of your next 190 games is the plan. Get young, get flexible, stockpile picks, and it’s inevitable that the rest of the NBA will make sure you’re losing.

Frankly, if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it masterfully. As far as phase one is concerned, anyway, the Cavaliers have.

The mood is still changing, though, as we approach the 2012-13 All-Star break. Patience is wearing thin, and to some degree, it's understandable. All of the frustrations of losing are taking its toll.

It’s the exact reason that rebuilding is horrible to go through as a fan and also the reason that teams like the Milwaukee Bucks and Toronto Raptors offer big contracts to Drew Gooden and Landry Fields to temporarily avoid such pain.

It’s also the reason the Orlando Magic, when the situation was screaming for a tear down, took back over $50 million dollars in cap space over the next three to four years for Arron Afflalo and Al Harrington in the Dwight Howard deal.

Mediocrity usually avoids apathy. Gilbert and Grant are choosing to roll the dice, and considering they’re boasting a .263 winning percentage for the last three years and are still middle of the pack in attendance, I think that call is correct.