Cavs Make A Big Swing, Now How Does It Work?

We always thought the Cleveland Cavaliers would get involved when Donovan Mitchell was traded, but not in a million years did we think the Cavs would be the team getting the three-time All-Star.

First, kudos to Koby Altman and Mike Gansey for swinging for the fences and getting a player that is one of the top 20 players in the league, and they didn’t have to surrender either Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen, or Evan Mobley.

However, the proof will be when the wine and gold take the court in the regular season.

Going into the off-season, we felt the Cavaliers needed to shore up the small forward spot (#3) and get more outside shooting.

After this deal, those needs are still there, and we also didn’t like the small backcourt when it was manned by Garland and Collin Sexton, who was sent the Jazz in this trade. Guess what, Mitchell is only 6’1″, so Cleveland is still small at guard.

Ochai Agbaji was supposed to help with the shooting, and he was also sent west in this transaction, and Lauri Markkanen was part of the unique trio of seven footers J.B. Bickerstaff started last season and was a problem for opposing teams.

He’s gone too.

Mitchell is a dynamic scorer, averaging 23.9 points per game in his career, but our question with him (and we aren’t going to hide it now) has always been can he be the best player on a title contending team? We don’t think he is.

However, that could be a moot point because soon, maybe this year, Mobley will be the wine and gold’s best player, and by the way, we also said that a year ago when people were debating about Garland, Sexton, or Allen.

Last season, Mitchell averaged 20.5 shots per game, and Cleveland’s leader was Garland at 17.3. No doubt, this is the most talented team Mitchell has played with. With Utah, the Jazz’ second best player (or best early in Mitchell’s career) was Rudy Gobert, a great defensive player but not someone defenses focused on.

The third best player was Joe Ingles, who we really like as a player, or Mike Conley or Bojan Bogdanovich. In Cleveland, we will play with two All-Stars from last year in Garland and Allen, and Mobley.

If the Cavs’ trio from last year keep improving, and they should they are all very young, especially Garland and Mobley, Bickerstaff would seem to have a quartet of very good players to build around.

So hopefully, Mitchell comes in with a “just want to win” attitude and isn’t hung up on number of shots he gets or points he scores.

Again, we don’t know that he thinks that way either.

Who replaces Markkanen as a starter? We would try Caris LeVert or Cedi Osman there, because he’s a better offensive threat and taller than Isaac Okoro.

That assumes Altman and Gansey are done making moves this off-season, and we know they are always looking to improve the roster.

If LeVert starts, the bench would be made up of Kevin Love, Okoro, Osman, and we would guess Lamar Stevens and Dean Wade.

Not a lot of shooting in that group except for Love, and really Okoro and Stevens are very similar players.

We have seen speculation that Okoro could start, but maybe Stevens is a better choice unless Okoro makes a big leap offensively. At the end of last season, other teams stopped guarding the second-year player out of Auburn, and that causes problems for the offense.

Again, perhaps another move is coming.

Give the Cavs tremendous credit for going out and getting perhaps the best player on the market this off-season. Should bring a lot of excitement to Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse this winter.

It’s Not Fair, But We See Both Sides Of Cavs, Sexton Situation

It seems the Cavaliers and Collin Sexton are in for an awkward 2022-23 season. Sexton is a restricted free agent and reportedly would like a multiyear deal, but the two sides are far apart in terms of the money.

Sexton is said to want around $18-20 million per year, while the Cavs have offered a reported $13 million per season, presumably to stay under the luxury tax level for another year.

This is one of those situations where both sides are justified in their positions, and the best thing would be for Sexton to take the one year qualifying offer of $8.6 million for next season.

From the wine and gold’s standpoint, Sexton has been a productive player, albeit on real bad teams. He did average 24.3 points and 4.4 assists for Cleveland in 2020-21, but the team went 22-50 that year.

Last year, the Cavs got to the play in tournament and a chance to make an actual best-of-seven series, but Sexton missed most of the campaign with a knee injury, playing in just 11 games.

So, it depends how people view Sexton coming into his fifth year in the league. Is he a budding all-star, a player coming off an injury, or a guy who has demonstrated the ability to put up big numbers on a bad team?

As for Sexton, we are sure he would like a long term deal from the Cavaliers or any other NBA team, but right now, he doesn’t seem to be drawing any interest from around the league.

It could be because most teams are up against the salary cap right now, so the money simply isn’t there to sign a free agent from another team. Or it could be that Sexton is an strange fit, a 6’2″ off guard, who might be best served coming off the bench.

As we said before, we can see both sides on this one. Sexton has shown he can put up numbers in the NBA, but at this point, there doesn’t seem to be a market for him. On the other hand, for the Cavs, he probably was their best player heading into last season, but things change, and right now, he might be their fourth or fifth best player.

Timing is everything, and for Sexton, getting hurt and the Cavaliers having their best season since the departure of LeBron James (and the arrival of Sexton) is unfortunate for the player.

Things may loosen up on the sign-and-trade market once the situations are resolved with Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and Donovan Mitchell too. The Cavs and Sexton might even be involved to make things work under the salary cap.

Some things in life aren’t fair, but the best option for Collin Sexton might be to play under the qualifying offer this season, show everyone around the league what kind of player he can be, and see what his value is around the NBA.

And if the Cavaliers make the playoffs in 2022-23 and Sexton is a key contributor to that effort, he can and will make Koby Altman dig deep into his pockets to keep him around. If Sexton still wants to be around at that point.

It Doesn’t Hurt If Cavs Win Some Games.

The Cleveland Cavaliers won their fifth game of the season the other night, and as is the case with most wins for the wine and gold (or whatever color they are wearing), a certain part of the fan base gets disenchanted.

They are interested in getting better odds for the NBA Draft Lottery, so they are the tanking crowd. Their idea is the only way to get better is to get the best player available in the draft, meaning get the first pick.

This flies in the face of reality though. It assumes that teams which are in the lottery eventually become playoff contenders, and it also assumes the best player in the draft each year is the first overall pick.

You have to learn to play winning basketball. And you learn it by winning. You can accumulate a bunch of talent and throw it together and until the group starts winning, they won’t know how to win.

And that means getting some veterans who do know and having that information passed along to the younger players. It’s why the Cavs still have players like Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson, and Matthew Dellavedova. Part of their job is teaching the young guys.

Look at the Atlanta Hawks, a very young team that won 29 games a year ago. To be fair, they lost John Collins to suspension, but they still have Trae Young and a good rookie in De’Andre Hunter and they sit at 4-12.

You also have annual lottery participants in Sacramento, a franchise that hasn’t been over the .500 mark since 2005-06. They did get to 39 wins last season, and currently sit at 7-8 this year.

As for the best player being the first overall pick? That’s becoming a myth too. While it is too early to evaluate the players picked this summer, the best player picked a year ago was not Deandre Ayton, the first pick, but rather the third choice in Luka Doncic, who is probably one of the top five players in the league right now.

If you measure by VORP (Value Over Replacement Player), here are the results from the past three drafts.

In the 2017 draft, you can make a strong case that the three best players are Donovan Mitchell (13th), Bam Adebayo (14th), and Jayson Tatum (3rd). Markelle Fultz and Lonzo Ball went first and second that season.

Ben Simmons might be the best player from the 2016 draft, belying his first overall selection, but the next best players from that year are Pascal Siakam, picked 27th overall by Toronto. Malcolm Brogdan is next, and he was a second round pick (36th) and won Rookie of the Year honors.

Karl-Anthony Towns was the prize of the ’15 selection process, and is the best player, but the next three best are Myles Turner (11th), Montrezl Harrell (32nd) and Larry Nance Jr. (27th).

Look, we don’t want the Cavs to lose their first round pick in 2020, which they will if they aren’t in the top 10 of next year’s draft. However, it’s a good sign for the franchise if this already pretty young team can put together some victories.

By the trading deadline, one of the veterans will likely be moved so the team won’t be as good as the season winds down, so they can keep the draft pick organically.

But you don’t want Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, Kevin Porter Jr. and eventually Dylan Windler to have the only lesson they learn with this team is losing. They need to experience some victories and how you earn them.

John Beilein talks a lot about culture. Gaining victories is part of reaffirming a good culture within a team.

Will A Rookie Help the ’18-’19 Cavs?

The Cleveland Cavaliers are heading to the NBA playoffs, but some fans are obsessed with the draft pick which the Cavs acquired in the Kyrie Irving trade.

That pick, of course, originally belonged to the Brooklyn Nets, who fans of the wine and gold have been following all season long.

We even heard some fans saying that LeBron James should sit out Sunday’s game against Dallas because a Mavericks victory could help the Nets sink in the standings, thus giving the Cavs a better chance to obtain the first pick in the NBA draft.

The most attractive thing about the pick, which currently sits in the 7th position if the season ended today, giving Cleveland a 4.3% chance at the first overall selection and a 15% opportunity to pick in the top three, is what it is worth to other teams.

We say that because of today’s nature of the draft, which because of the “one and done” rule, means many of the lottery picks are based on potential, not the ability to help a good NBA team right now.

Note that we said a good NBA team, meaning one that makes the playoffs. Let’s examine last June’s draft, for example.

Of the rookies getting more than 20 minutes of playing time per game, only four are doing so on teams that will probably make the post-season. That quartet would be Jayson Tatum (Boston), Donovan Mitchell (Utah), Bam Adebayo (Miami), and OG Anunoby (Toronto).

Of those four, only Tatum was picked in the top ten. Granted, most good teams don’t get an opportunity to pick in the top ten, however, think about it. None of the rookies taken in the top ten have been impactful enough to lift their teams out of the lottery.

Looking at the year before, the only player who was a rotation players with a playoff teams was Jaylen Brown (3rd overall pick with Boston).

Now in their second year, Ben Simmons (Philadelphia-1st overall), Jamal Murray (Denver-7th pick), Jakob Poeltl (Toronto 9th), and Thon Maker (Milwaukee-10th) are contributing to playoff teams, but the other players who were selected in the top of the draft are still on bad teams.

Going back to 2015, first overall pick Karl-Anthony Towns will likely help Minnesota make the playoffs, but the rest of the players picked in the top ten are still on also-rans.

Beyond that group, Myles Turner Kelly Oubre, and Terry Rozier and solid contributors on playoff squads.

So, looking at the players projected to be selected in the top ten in the 2018 draft, how many could get significant playing time on the Cavs next fall, if James remains with the team?

Certainly Arizona’s DeAndre Ayton and Duke’s Marvin Bagley would be rotation players, but they are projected to go with the first two selections.

Most of the other players thought to be top ten picks probably don’t have NBA ready bodies.

Other players we think could play right away are Collin Sexton, a freshman point guard out of Alabama, Duke C Wendell Carter, and Villanova swingman Mikel Bridges, who is a junior, not a one year college player.

This isn’t to say the other top selections won’t be solid NBA players in time, or that they won’t put up good numbers for bad teams.

The point is there aren’t many players ready to come into the league and be solid contributors for a team with aspirations of making a deep playoff run, and history shows this is the norm.

So, the best plan for GM Koby Altman is a draft day trade to bring in a young veteran who will fit in and be able to help now. We aren’t talking about a guy who is on the wrong side of 30, but a player in his mid-20’s who might be heading toward the free agent market, like Kevin Love was when the Cavs traded for him.

That’s the best bet for the Cavaliers, not someone who played just one year of college basketball.