DJ speaks

There was an interesting story from Mary Schmitt Boyer in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer involving DJ's lack of playing time.

DJ on the difficulty of watching his team struggle while sitting on the bench:

"Hard is not the word," he said. "I don't think there's a word for it that can explain the feelings you go through knowing that you're capable of being positive and helping the team win in any way, shape or form and at this point in time, my name's not being called. It's three years in a row for me, and every time I've been called upon, hopefully I've been able to be positive towards the team winning."

"I think that's been the frustrating part about it is that over the course of three years the consistency of the opportunity hasn't fully been there," said Jones, who did ask to be traded earlier this season. "I just have to be ready when called up and hopefully I can be positive with the team.

"That's what it's about at the end of the day. It's about the team winning and being successful. It's not about Damon Jones. It's not about any one individual. Collectively as a group we have to find a way to get to a level in five games to where we feel good about our chances of doing what we did last season."

Mike Brown on not playing DJ:

"I'm not just looking at a guy making shots," Brown said. "I'm looking at matchups and defensively and rebounding-wise and some of the little things that may not show up on a field-goal percentage stat sheet. I know Damon has hit shots for us in the past when his number is called. That's not anything that I think about: that Damon has hit big shots for us so he doesn't necessarily have to be in the rotation to be effective. He'll be there when I feel it's the right thing."

*update* One of my esteemed colleagues (the great Maximus) over at RealCavsFans just pointed out the following eye-popping information that further backs our claims that DJ needs to be on the court, especially in crunch time:

• Damon's oncourt/offcourt net is +4.9....2nd best on the Cavs.
• Damon's +/- on the season is +71...2nd best on the team.
• Damon's +/- per 48mins of clutch time is +43....that's 1st in the NBA.

source: http://www.82games.com/CSORT4.HTM

Will we see this swagger on the court again this season?