The Larry Hughes injury has so far been used to explain away just about anything that has or might go wrong with the Cavaliers. The truth is, as I pointed out when Hughes was healthy, that Larry was not quite playing at the level he was getting credit for. His being injured, however, has definitely called our collective attention to a major team weakness: depth.

I thought this was interesting. Here is a ranking of the top "second fiddles" (that is, guys who are the second-best player on their own team) in the NBA right now, according to Player Efficiency Rating:

1. Zydrunas Ilgauskas, CLE   22.4
2. Steve Nash, PHO           22.2
3. Tony Parker, SAS          21.8
4. Ray Allen, SEA            21.7
5. Jason Kidd, NJN           20.5
6. Mehmet Okur, UTA          20.4

Now here's the ranking of the top "third fiddles" in the NBA, by PER:

1. Drew Gooden, CLE          20.7
2. Rasheed Wallace, DET      19.3
3. Richard Jefferson, NJN    18.8
4. Jason Terry, DAL          18.4
5. Charlie Villanueva, TOR   17.4
6. Brad Miller, SAC          17.3

Of course, for completeness' sake, and because I am contractually obligated to mention LeBron in every post, we oughtn't forget the top "first fiddles":

1. Kobe Bryant, LAL          29.1
2. LeBron James, CLE         29.0
3. Dirk Nowitzki, DAL        28.2
4. Dwyane Wade, MIA          28.1
5. Elton Brand, LAC          27.4
6. Allen Iverson, PHI        27.3

By the way, LeBron held the top spot until, I believe, yesterday. All this is to say that the Cavs have an unbelievable top 3--in fact, the best threesome currently on any one NBA team (so far this season). Zydrunas is ranked 17th overall in PER among qualifying players, and Drew is ranked 28th. After that, however, the drop-off is severe. Larry Hughes, ranked 99th overall, has a PER of 14.8 (which is below league average) and is the NBA's 13th-best "fourth fiddle" (not a horrible ranking, but consider the head-start he got thanks to his superfiddling teammates). With Hughes out, the next best qualifying PERs on the Cavs belong to Donyell Marshall, at 14.3, and Alan Henderson, at 13.8. Both forwards. In fact, without Larry Hughes, the best guard on the team, by PER, ranks 193rd in the entire NBA--it's Damon Jones at 9.3, which is horrible.

Of course, an incredible top 3 is more than enough to get the Cavs into the playoffs and beyond, so I'm not complaining. It's simply that a lack of depth is keeping the Cavs from being quite possibly the best team in the league (and I say that in all seriousness). I don't know which is worse: the fact that (in Hughes' absence) two starters have PERs in single digits, or that players with PERs like 0.3 (Newble) and 2.3 (Wilks) are actually getting regular minutes, albeit in limited roles.

Just for a laugh, here are the worst PERs in the NBA among players with at least 25 minutes played. Even with that restriction, I would be willing to bet that all but one of these are the victims of small sample sizes:

                       PER  minutes
Louis Williams, PHI   -5.2     31
Linton Johnson, NJN   -1.2     27
Michael Doleac, MIA   -0.3     69
Dale Davis, DET        0.2     46
Ira Newble, CLE        0.3    224

Get well soon, Larry.