When the festivities are done in Charlotte this weekend, and the NBA schedule resumes next week, the Cleveland Cavaliers will still have two dozen games to play.
What can we anticipate seeing over the last couple of months?
First, the organization realizes the new draft lottery system in which the bottom three teams pretty much the same odds to get the first pick in late June’s draft.
The wine and gold have the third worst mark, ahead of only the Knicks and Suns, both of whom have won one less game than the Cavs. Cleveland has a two game lead (?) over Chicago to hold spot #3.
With Atlanta having the fifth worst record at 19 wins, we believe it is safe to say the three worst records in the league will come from New York, Phoenix, Cleveland, and Chicago.
Larry Drew’s squad is already done against Chicago, helping their cause by losing three out of four against the Bulls, and the first game after the break has the Cavs playing the Suns at Quicken Loans Arena.
A week later, Cleveland travels to New York to take on the other team they have a better record than. And on April 1st, the wine and gold kick off a west coast trip in the Valley of the Sun.
One key factor for the Cavaliers is they are getting healthy, and it also appears GM Koby Altman picked up a couple of hungry players at the trading deadline.
Kevin Love is back, and has played two games in the last week. A glimpse into how the club will approach his return may have been revealed this past week.
Love played well in the first half of the win over New York on Monday and said he planned to play in the Wednesday contest at The Q against Brooklyn. However, it was then announced early that day that Love would not play.
Our guess is the team will claim to be very conservative with Love’s toe injury giving him plenty of rest over the last 24 games.
And don’t forget Tristan Thompson is said to be ready to return as well. The training staff will be very careful to not give Thompson too much of a workload the remainder of the season.
Besides giving those injuries more time to heal, the Cavs have to be wanting to see more of Marquese Chriss, acquired from Houston.
In four games with Cleveland, Chriss has averaged 14 points and six rebounds, while shooting 53.7% from the floor. Now, we realize his 56.3% mark from three point range is unsustainable, but as of right now, you have to sign him as a restricted free agent this off-season.
We have said this before, he’s just 21 years old and 6’10”. You simply cannot discard that kind of size and skill.
You also need to see more of Ante Zizic, another big man in an organization that has ignored size for years. The 6’11” Croatian scored 12.6 points and grabbed 8.2 rebounds per game in January, playing 25.5 minutes a night.
Zizic just turned 22 on January 4th.
If the Cavs get one of the top three choices in the draft, undoubtedly that player will become the centerpiece of what will hopefully be the next Cleveland team to make the post-season.
But both of those big guys could be big contributors as well, and the organization has to find out what they have in Chriss and Zizic.
That’s something to watch in these last 24 games.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 