Catching up with Cavaliers

   I haven't been writing about the Cavaliers much of late, although I watched each of their losses on the West Coast swing, and other than the loss to Phoenix in the first game of the trip, the defeats weren't close and most of the team wasn't playing well.

But, the worst part was the lack of fight shown in these games, minus the loss to the Suns.

I didn't write about these games about there wasn't much to write about poor play and large defeats, but while the Cavaliers losing streak hasn't eliminated them from playoff contention (only three games behind the eighth seed) despite their eight-game losing streak, they appear to be a team that may have already seen the highlights of their season.

The team isn't playing the type of defense that they played earlier in the season and some of playing defense come down to the "want to" and a team that doesn't have many pure shooters is beginning to have problems shooting the ball.

And after J.B. Bickerstaff had to speak with Andre Drummond about his effort and recent dull performances, the team announced that in a joint decision between the team and Drummond that Drummond would not play until a trade could be made.

While this will undoubtedly drive down any type of return from an interested buyer for Drummond, the team is in a position of having Drummond's attitude infect the young players that could be part of the program.

It's more than fair to see the difference in Drummond's performance since the arrival of Jarrett Allen and he hasn't exactly been overly active.

Some have surmised that Drummond's stats are soft stats as his movement for rebounds rather than gather them through positioning and allowing others to pick up some rebounds that Drummond would otherwise grab, can be a detriment to a team's total rebounds.

They could be right, but I didn't see Drummond's effort decrease until the arrival of Allen.

While I can understand Drummond not being thrilled with his replacement arriving before the end of the season, he had to know that the team was going to do something before his free agency, and it was unreasonable to allow that to affect his play.

The Cavaliers front office didn't spend much to acquire Andre Drummond and it doesn't appear that they are going to get very much in return, if anything, for him either.

However, chances such as those like the trade for Andre Drummond need to be taken to by teams like Cleveland and I can't blame them much for trying.