Standing pat

A few takes on the Cavaliers standing pat at Thursday's trade deadline:

1. The 84-78 loss to the Bulls on Thursday night probably couldn't have come at a worse time for GM Danny Ferry. The Bad Cavs showed up, playing listless, disinterested basketball for long stretches and tossing up enough bricks to reconstruct a life-sized replica of the Pyramids of Giza on Public Square.

It's hard to stand on your conviction when your team goes out and lays an egg like that hours after you have pronounced them fit to go forward with what they have.

2. Having said that, I think Ferry realizes that this team needs a backcourt upgrade if they want to contend for a title.

Every report I read over the past several days said Ferry tried like crazy to land Mike Bibby, and the Kings wanted to move him, but all the puzzle pieces just wouldn't fit. At least not now.

As Brian Windhorst wrote Thursday in his blog, a Bibby trade might not be dead and buried. There is a strong possibility this might get revisited over the summer, which I am fine with, since we'll know at that point whether Bibby decides to opt out of his contract.

If nothing else, Ferry has sent a strong message of interest to both Bibby and the Kings.

3. Ferry didn't make a deal just to make a deal, which is good.

Too often, if the big deal falls through, the temptation for a GM is to grab a more attainable piece just to add something. (Jiri Welsch, anyone?)

But adding Brevin Knight, Marcus Banks or Juan Dixon might have done more harm than good. All Knight, Banks or Dixon would have done is add another average piece to an already muddled backcourt, taking minutes away from Dan Gibson.

If the Cavs were going to add a piece, they were going to make sure it was a major piece, a significant upgrade that was really going to impact the play of the team. Ferry was smart to draw the line in the sand at Bibby. There was no reason to make a move if it wasn't going to be an impact move.

4. There are worse things than standing pat with the second-best record in the conference.

Obviously, watching this team every day, us fans get caught up in everything that is wrong with the team, and forget that this is still a pretty good team that can beat just about any other team in the league when they put their minds to it.

Standing pat means that they don't lose Drew Gooden, and keep what might very well be the second-best frontcourt in the East intact.

The Cavs are one of the best offensive rebounding clubs in the NBA. There are two reasons for that: One, they are loaded with rim-clanging perimeter shooters. Two, they have Gooden, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Anderson Varejao to clean up the misses.

Trading for Bibby would have given the Cavs the point guard they need, but it would have thinned out the frontcourt and the bench. If the Cavs are going to continue to hoist missed shots from 20 feet, their only hope to win is to keep possessions alive with offensive boards.

Along with that, if you want to have a prayer of making Detroit sweat in a playoff series, you need size up front. Remember last spring's playoffs against Detroit, when the Cavs' rebounding got them back into the series from an 0-2 deficit.

Maybe the summer is a better time to revisit a Bibby trade. That way, if the Cavs are forced to part with Gooden, they'll have some time to reload the frontcourt.