Cavs’ Injuries Open Up Opportunity For McRae

The Cleveland Cavaliers are having players dropping like flies in the past week, and the best thing about that is that it is happening now, instead of March or April, right before the playoffs start.

Already playing one man short because of the Mo Williams situation, the wine and gold played the last two games without Kevin Love, who will be back (hopefully) on Friday, and then Chris Andersen blew out his ACL in practice.

Then they lost JR Smith to a broken thumb during Tuesday overtime victory in Milwaukee, and Smith will be out about 4-6 weeks, so he should be back around the beginning of February.

We have maintained since the beginning of training camp that the opening night roster would not be the same as the players who will take the floor for the first playoff game in April.

Mostly because we couldn’t see Tyronn Lue going into the post-season with a rookie back up point guard or using Iman Shumpert as Kyrie Irving’s replacement for about 12 minutes per night.

Teams trying to repeat as champions can’t use rookies in key roles.

The bright side of these injuries is it will give some players who haven’t been getting a lot of time on the floor an opportunity to either contribute or show Lue and GM David Griffin they can’t be counted on for the playoffs.

Mike Dunleavy has had a slow start to the regular season, perhaps trying to fit in to his new teammates. With the injuries, he has started to get more playing time, and is starting to knock down shots. He’s hit 46% of his three point shots over the last five games.

Dunleavy’s spot on the roster probably wasn’t in question, but it is good to see him getting more comfortable in the wine and gold.

The biggest opportunity with the players being out is in front of Jordan McRae, who seems to have played his way into Lue’s doghouse.

We had high hopes for McRae coming into training camp as a possible replacement in the rotation for Matthew Dellavedova. Our bet is that Lue wants McRae to play like the rest of the team, that is to say move the ball on offense and play solid defense.

McRae came into a close game against Memphis (Cavs were down by five) last week. He immediately shot the first three times he touched the ball, and within a couple of minutes, the Grizzlies’ lead shot up to 12.

Not the impression you want to make when you finally get some playing time.

McRae shoots the ball the same number of times as Dunleavy per game, and with a lot less minutes.

The young man would be better off putting a little more DeAndre Liggins into his game. Liggins has gained time and passed McRae in Lue’s eyes because of his ability to defend.

We understand that McRae is a scorer, that’s how he got to the NBA from the D-League. But in the NBA, playing time is distributed based on being able to defend. And that’s what McRae needs to show the coaching staff.

If McRae doesn’t impress the staff, he could be released with contracts become guaranteed or moved with either Andersen’s or Williams’ contract for a piece the Cavs need.

The opportunity is there for Jordan McRae, it’s up to him what he does with it.

Adding Experience To Bench Should Help Cavs.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are still the NBA World Champions, but they didn’t stand pat this off-season.

Nor should they have. GM David Griffin made some subtle changes to the roster, and all of them look to be solid moves, except for the lack of a backup point guard, and our guess by the time the playoffs roll around, that will be addressed as well.

Obviously, the starting five was untouched (assuming JR Smith is signed soon), so once again the wine and gold will be led by LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love, with Tristan Thompson providing defense and rebounding, and Smith stretching the floor and also providing better defense than you would think.

Griffin added two veterans to the bench in G/F Mike Dunleavy (36) and C Chris Andersen (38). While many people always think get younger, adding these two vets to the bench to go with Richard Jefferson (36), who was a major contributor last year, is a great move.

Think about it. The problem for older players is maintaining production over 25-30 minutes per game and over an 82 game season.

These players don’t need to do this for the Cavs.

All Tyronn Lue needs from any of this trio is to provide no more than 10 minutes per game of solid basketball, and based on their past, it should be no problem for them to do just that.

You can add another older player, Channing Frye (33), to that mix as well. And we all saw the impact he made in the post-season a year ago.

Older players are great coming off the bench because a coach has a reasonable idea what he is going to get from those guys. Inexperienced players can be up or down. They could give the team a big lift or be down right awful.

Which is why Lue probably doesn’t want to rely on rookie Kay Felder as Irving’s back up.

And all of the veterans, outside of Andersen, can shoot the rock, and the Cavs management loves to surround James with guys that can knock down shots from behind the three point line and Dunleavy is certainly capable of that, making 38% for his career.

The only thing we would like to see if another big man make the regular season roster.

Right now, you have Thompson and Love as the starting center and power forward, with Frye and Andersen backing up. Frye is better than you think defensively, and “Birdman” is definitely a banger.

There would seem to be an opening for another C/PF, and the candidates would be 6’10” Eric Moreland, 6’9″ Cory Jefferson, both third year pros, and 6’9″ Jonathan Holmes, a first year player out of Texas.

One of those guys could take over the Sasha Kaun role of last year.

We are also anxious to see how G Jordan McRae will perform in the exhibition games. McRae can definitely score, as he showed in the regular season finale last season, but can he do the other things, like move the ball and play defense.

He will need to do those things to get minutes once the games start for real. It is our contention that it was McRae’s presence that convinced the team to part with Matthew Dellavedova this summer.

And we are also curious to see how winning a title enhances the games of Irving and Love. Our bet is their confidence will be out of this world because they are champions and their games will take a quantum leap.

For the first time in 52 years, a Cleveland team will be defending a title. We think this group is up to the task.

Cavs Get Older, But Better

It is incumbent for a champion to not stand pat, and the Cleveland Cavaliers are no exception.

Even though they delivered the first championship for the Cleveland area in 52 years, there is no question every other team in the NBA is now gunning for them, especially the squad they defeated in the NBA Finals, the Golden State Warriors.

They signed one of the league’s top five players (probably top three) is Kevin Durant, to go with a unit that won an NBA record 73 games this past season.

We all know by now the wine and gold lost two players in free agency, Timofey Mozgov going to the Lakers, and Matthew Dellavedova to Milwaukee in a sign and trade scenario for a trade exemption.

Using that trade exemption and preying on the Bulls need to shed salary to sign Dwyane Wade, GM David Griffin picked up another veteran shooter for the bench in Mike Dunleavy.

Soon to be 36 years old, the 6’9″ former third overall pick is a career 38% shooter from behind the arc, but he’s been improving with age, making 40% of his shots from distance since turning 30.

To be sure, the Cleveland bench has a lot of age on it, adding Dunleavy to Richard Jefferson (36), Mo Williams (33), and Channing Frye (33). But if you limit these guys to 15-20 minutes per night, they can be highly effective for Tyronn Lue.

It appears the bench will get another veteran soon, as Lue intimated the organization is talking to another of LeBron James’ former Miami teammates in big man Chris Andersen, who just turned 38.

He’s a guy who doesn’t need to score, just wanting to play defense and rebound. He grabbed 4.5 per game in 18 minutes with Memphis last season.

As we have said before, we also expect Jordan McRae to be a rotation player for 2016-17 too, getting many of Dellavedova’s minutes.

Rookie Kay Felder has shown in the summer league that he has some ability, but when you are the defending champs (that sounds awesome, no?), it will be difficult for Felder to see minutes in Cleveland.

More likely, he will be getting a lot of minutes for the Canton Charge.

We would like to see the Cavs somehow get another younger player to help out next season. We like Terrence Jones, who played with Houston last season.

Jones will start the season at 24 years old and is 6’9″. He averaged 12 points per game in his second year in the league, but saw his minutes drop a year ago.

The league is putting a premium on guys from 6’7″ to 6’9″ who can play out on the floor, and Jones fits that bill.

He is a free agent, and might be worth a look for the Cavaliers.

Of course, the most important signatures that Griffin needs to get on paper are James and JR Smith, who are both free agents. It has been reported that Smith is close to a deal, and James has already told the world he will be back to defend the title.

The Cleveland Cavaliers appear to be better than they were the night they won their first NBA Championship, and we doubt Griffin is finished trying to improve the team, because he is always looking.

To be sure, he will be creative in getting this done.