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Does Mo Williams Make Cavs East's Best? - August 14th, 2008

By Jordan Walters
WagerWeb.com Contributing Writer

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Cleveland superstar LeBron James has been clamoring for a true No. 2 scoring option on the Cavs since he arrived on the NBA scene, and it appears the team finally has gotten him one.

The Cavs received Milwaukee point guard Mo Williams in a six-player, three-team trade on Wednesday. In exchange for Williams, the Bucks receive Damon Jones from Cleveland along with guard Luke Ridnour and forward Adrian Griffin from Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City gets Desmond Mason from Milwaukee and former No. 1 pick Joe Smith from Cleveland.

The real winners in this deal are the Cavs, as the other two clubs saw this as a salary dump (Williams will be in the second year of a six-year, $51.5 million contract.). James led the NBA by averaging 30 points per game last year but again was basically a one-man show in the playoffs.

During LeBron’s career in Cleveland, the highest scoring average maintained by a fellow Cavalier belonged to Zydrunas Ilgauskas back in 2004-05 when he averaged 16.9 points per game. Last season, Ilgauskas was again the second-leading scorer on the team, averaging 14.1 points per game.

Williams has averaged 17.2 per game last season and 17.3 in 2006-07. Last season, he was hampered by illness, an abdominal strain and ligament damage in his right thumb (his shooting hand), yet still shot a career-high 48 percent from the field. And it’s not like he won’t pass the ball, as he averaged a career-high 6.3 assists last season and 6.1 per game in 2006-07. He averaged 26 points and nine assists in four games against Cleveland last season and is an 85 percent career free-throw shooter.

"Mo has the ability to space the floor. He's shown himself to be a good shooter," Cavaliers general manager Danny Ferry said. "I like him. He's a competitive player that can make big shots and one of those guys that is capable of rising to important times and obviously we want to be playing in those times."

 

Cleveland has been looking for a good point guard since trading away Andre Miller in 2002 and has seen 15 players start there in the six years since.

"I think that watching from afar with LeBron, he handles the ball a lot,' said Williams, who said he was completely healthy after having surgery on his right thumb after last season. "I think that I can take a load off of him handling the ball at times. He's a guy who sets his teammates up a lot. I think I can relieve him from that. That will help him as far as be a little fresher at the end of the season, not the end of games, but as far as the end of the season as far as the playoffs are concerned.”

Are the Cavs better than the Celtics right now? No, but an injury to one of Boston’s Big Three could vault this Cleveland team back to the top of the East.

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