Cavs Still Looking For “3 and D” Guys, Especially With Length

The NBA trade deadline is rapidly approaching, and rumors surfaced last week that once again the Cleveland Cavaliers are looking for “3 and D” guys, wing players who can shoot and can defend.

They have until February 8th to make a deal, and hopefully the players they are interested in have some length. The Cavs signed Max Strus (6’5″) and Georges Niang (6’7″) during the off-season, but they haven’t provided the shooting we are sure the organization was hoping for.

Strus topped out at 41% in 2021-22 but shot 35% last season and that figure has dropped to 33.7% in 2023-24. Niang came into the year as a 40% shooter from beyond the arc for his career, but this year has converted on just 36.5% of his attempts.

Dean Wade has some size on the wing when he plays there, and is a solid defender, but is wildly inconsistent. He took 10+ shots in back-to-back games at the end of December against the Pelicans and Bulls (7 of 11, 6 for 8 from three vs. NO; 4 for 12, 3 for 10 from three vs. CHI), but went seven straight games where he took less than five shots.

He was 3 for 15 from three in that span.

Outside of Wade, the other two new players aren’t exactly defensive stoppers. Both try, which is something, but are limited due to height in Strus’ case, he’s probably better cast as a guard, or quickness (Niang).

Add in the need for height, which we have talked about for the last two seasons. Outside of Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, Cleveland has only two players over 6’10”. One is rookie Emoni Bates, who is very raw, and Damian Jones, who rarely gets off the bench.

Wade and Tristan Thompson, who is limited to playing in the post offensively, are 6’9″ and the only player 6’8″ is another player who doesn’t get much action in Isaiah Mobley.

FYI, the Cavs did sign 6’11” Pete Nance to a 10-day contract. Nance is averaging 15.5 points and 7.8 boards per game for the Charge. He, of course, is the son of Larry Nance and the brother of Larry Nance Jr., both of whom played for Cleveland.

We will see how much, if any, playing time Nance will get.

What Cleveland could really use is a wing in the 6’7″ to 6’9″ range who can shoot. The Pistons just traded for Danilo Gallinari, and we can’t imagine they intend to keep him. He is 6’10” and a career 38.1% shooter from the three-point line. He had knee surgery a year ago, but has played in 26 games this season.

We have always liked 33-year-old Gordon Hayward, who is rumored to be on the block in Charlotte. He’s started 25 games with the Hornets this year, scoring 14.5 points, grabbing 4.7 rebounds, and dishing out 4.6 assists. He’s a basketball player.

We understand neither of these players are strong defenders, but we think they could help the wine and gold.

Last season, the Cavs were over matched physically by the New York Knicks in the opening round of the playoffs. They still haven’t addressed that in our view. If they played New York again this season, we don’t see the result being any different.

We understand you can’t make your roster to beat the Knicks, you might not ever play them. But Koby Altman emphasized shooting the three ball in the off-season, and the Cavaliers are actually worse at it than they were a year ago.

They have three weeks to improve their current roster.

Our Likes And Dislikes So Far For The Cavs

After a bit of a slow start, the Cleveland Cavaliers have reeled off four victories in their last five games and in five of the last seven. They have now played 15 games and we feel that’s enough contests to see some trends, both good and bad.

First, the good.

Winning Despite Injuries. As we said, we are only 15 games into the 2023-24 season and only three Cavaliers have played every game: Evan Mobley, Max Strus, and Georges Niang. Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, and Jarrett Allen each missed five games, and Caris LeVert and missed three.

Those guys are four of the top six players on the roster, and the Cavs are 8-7 anyway. That is absolutely a good thing.

Max Strus. We weren’t as enthused as many about the signing of Strus because of his size and his defense, but he’s provided another playmaker, which wasn’t thought to be a big part of his game.

He is averaging a career high 3.9 assists per contest, almost two more than his previous season high. The same for his rebounding, where he is at 5.6 per game, his career high set last year was 3.2. Add in 37.7% shooting from three-point land, and he’s been better than expected so far.

The Rookie. We know many people thought the Cavs got a steal in second round pick Emoni Bates, but we thought he was very raw. The real story so far is undrafted free agent Craig Porter Jr.

Because of injuries, Porter has played in 10 games, averaging 8.0 points and 2.9 assists per night. He’s fearless driving to the basket and looks like he can be a contributor this season. It will be interesting to see how defenses approach him as he gets more playing time.

Now, the not so good

Turnovers. This isn’t a team wide problem; the wine and gold are 17th in the league in this department. It has been an issue for Darius Garland though. Garland cut down last year going from 3.6 per contest in his third year to 2.9 last season.

This year, he’s up to 4.5 compared to six assists, also down from 8.6 and 7.8 in the previous two seasons. He penetrates and is either stripped by a defender or throws a difficult pass to connect on far too often. A possession without a shot attempt is lost opportunity to score.

Make the basic play, and not the one that gets you on highlight reels.

Criticism of Mobley. We know everyone wants the third-year pro to develop into Kevin Garnett in his prime, but really, Mobley isn’t going to score more unless he gets more shots, and that is a challenge with two scoring guards in Mitchell and Garland.

The big man from USC has increased his shooting percentage (55.4% to 56.7%), rebounding (9.0 to 10.5), assists (2.8 to 3.1), and blocks (1.5 to 1.6) from a year ago.

So, he can’t shoot threes. Big deal, at least he knows he’s not a good three-point shooter hoisting them anyway. He’s only 22 and still getting better. Maybe get him more touches.

Free Agent Disappointments. After the big splashes of signing Strus and Niang, who is slowly hitting his shooting stride, Koby Altman signed two players we thought could help in Ty Jerome and Damian Jones.

The duo has combined to play 54 minutes to date. Jerome has had a severe ankle sprain, which is unfortunate, but on the other hand, the most games he’s appeared in a season is 48. Hopefully, he can contribute soon.

Jones has appeared in just nine games, making all three of his shots and grabbing seven rebounds. Obviously, J. B. Bickerstaff has no confidence in him, because the Cavs could use another serviceable big man in the rotation.

The biggest issue for the Cavaliers has been the injuries. That said, it’s more important to have everyone healthy in April and May.

Helping Mobley And Questioning The Cavs’ Pace

It’s still early in the NBA season for sure. Common wisdom says the season doesn’t really begin until the Christmas Day games are played. We aren’t worried about the Cleveland Cavaliers at this point, but we do wonder about some things.

As pretty much every coach does, J.B. Bickerstaff said he wanted the Cavs to play with more pace this season. They were last in that category a year ago and they have moved up to 11th in 2023-24.

However, that increased pace has come with a price. The wine and gold led the NBA in defensive efficiency last season and have dropped to 11th this season. To be fair, the Cavaliers have played the league’s best offense in Indiana twice and have also played high octane Oklahoma City twice.

We understand Koby Altman wanted to improve the three point shooting this season, signing Max Strus and Georges Niang. However, can the Cavs play a style that spreads the floor while still playing their defensive anchors, Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley.

Many teams have shifted to an offense with one man inside and the other four players spread out around the perimeter. With Allen and Mobley, the Cavs cannot do that.

That’s okay. It’s not necessary to play like everyone else. There are many ways to win in the NBA.

The key in our opinion is Mobley. We have heard fans and media alike complain the third-year player has not taken “the leap”. To date, he is averaging 16.1 points per game, down a bit from the 16.2 a year ago. His rebounding, assists, and blocks are all up.

Our response when we are asked about the big man is usually what are the Cavs doing to help him put up better numbers. We feel a more productive Mobley makes the wine and gold a better team.

Bickerstaff and his staff have to make it a point to get Mobley involved in the offense more, and the easiest way to do that is to get him the ball at the high post, where with his height and court vision, he can be effective. Think about him as sort of a Nikola Jokic type, without the dribbling up the court.

From there, he could play the high/low game that has been effective with Jarrett Allen on the blocks, attack the basket, or if a double team comes, he can find the open man. The underrated part of Mobley’s game is his passing in our opinion.

What is needed though is some sacrifice from Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell to get Mobley some touches at the elbow. For Mitchell, he can pass the ball and then get it back off a cut.

That would require more of a half court approach, and that would mean slowing the pace a bit, which is turn probably helps the defense. Again, it’s early and with the injuries that cost Allen and Garland time in the season’s first two weeks, perhaps Cleveland just needs to find a rhythm.

On the other hand, maybe it’s just a matter of getting done with this trip and having a stretch of seven of eight games at home. However, it does appear quickening the pace has hurt the Cavs’ defense.

It’s a season of adjustments, and maybe Bickerstaff has to pull back on the throttle a bit to find the team’s comfort zone.

Is The Cavs’ Weakness What They Think It Is?

There is a lot of optimism about the Cleveland Cavaliers heading into the 2023-24 NBA season. After all, in the last three seasons, the Cavs have gone from 22 wins to 44 and then 51 in the last three seasons.

They are coming off a playoff season but were manhandled by the Knicks in the first round losing in five games. The organization said all year that was the goal and they reached it.

However, we don’t like that messaging. In our experience, when you set a modest goal and reach it, there is a tendency to let up. President of basketball operations Koby Altman seems to embrace the “one step at a time” mentality that permeates throughout the league.

Instead, we think the franchise should keep pushing the envelope.

The Cavs added a lot of shooting in the off-season, probably overpaying for it. Right now, they are making Max Strus a starter, despite him starting just 49 games over the last two seasons with Miami. And Strus’ three-point shooting percentage dropped from 41% in 2021-22 to 35% in 2022-23.

Shooting is why the Cavs believe they lost to the Knicks. We believe they are wrong, they lost because they were not physical enough. The wine and gold shot 45% from the floor in the series, New York shot 42%.

From long distance, Cleveland shot 32.7% while the Knicks made 28.2%.

Altman seems to be like the new NBA fans who look at only one thing in watching games these days: Shooting. The reality is there is so much more to basketball, like defense, passing, rebounding.

The one sport where size matters is basketball and the Cavs’ organization has seemed to go away from that since they jumped from 22 victories to 44 in 2021-22 using a front line of three guys over 6’11”: Lauri Markkanen, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen.

And that doesn’t mean we didn’t like the trade for Donovan Mitchell.

This is something to watch as the season goes on, is there a difference of opinion in how to win between the front office and J.B. Bickerstaff?

Bickerstaff likes size and since he took over as head coach has emphasized defense. Besides Allen and Mobley, there is little size on the Cavaliers. They signed Damian Jones to be a backup at center and power forward, so hopefully he can provide quality minutes.

Tristan Thompson was also signed, but based on what we saw in the preseason, we aren’t really optimistic he can be a rotation player. He is simply too limited on the offensive end.

And they need rim protectors because they really don’t have strong defenders on the perimeter, let alone not much size. Darius Garland and Mitchell are listed at 6’1″ and Strus is 6’5″.

Bickerstaff, like every other NBA coach, has said he wants to play faster this season. But if this causes the team to give up defense and thus lose games, we will bet the Cavs will go back to playing the way they were successful.

Again, being successful in a half-court game requires size, and that’s where the team is lacking.

It will be interesting to see how the beginning of the season plays out.

Like To See Improvements In These Areas For Cavs

The Cleveland Cavaliers start the regular season next Wednesday when they travel to Brooklyn to take on the Nets before coming home for the home opener a week from tomorrow against Oklahoma City.

So finally, we can start evaluating players against true competition. We know fans want to get excited about players, especially young ones, in exhibition play, but they are probably getting time against guys who will be in the G League much of the 2023-24 campaign.

Still, there are some things we are anxious to see from the wine and gold when the season starts in earnest next week.

First, we would like to see Darius Garland be stronger with the basketball. Garland is a very good player, no question, with one All Star berth in his young career. His three point shooting reached a career high last season at 41%.

However, we would like him to cut down on turnovers, especially when he drives to the basket. Too often, Garland gets into the paint and loses control of the basketball. It was particularly noticeable in the playoffs last season.

If he can be stronger and maintain possession inside, imagine how many more free throws he would get. And he knocks down 86.3% of his shots at the line.

Because today’s game is obsessed with three-point shooting, everyone wants Evan Mobley to be able to make shots from beyond the arc. We want him to be a threat in the mid-range game. It would open up his game greatly.

Last season, Mobley made just 35.2% of his shots from 10 to 16 feet, and only 40.1% from three to ten feet. By comparison, his frontcourt partner, Jarrett Allen, knocked down 47% from 10 to 16 feet and 51% from three to ten feet.

If Mobley can knock down those types of shots on a regular basis, he will increase his scoring and also open up driving lanes not only for himself, but for his teammates. He doesn’t need to make threes, but he needs to be more effective away from the basket.

We would also like to see J.B. Bickerstaff develop a legitimate third big man, and we mean rim protector for when Mobley and/or Allen are on the bench or if they have to miss any time during the regular season.

Koby Altman signed 6’11” Damian Jones who played in 41 games with the Lakers and Jazz a year ago, averaging 3.5 points and 2 rebounds per game. He had 21 blocked shots in his limited opportunities.

The last two seasons, if the starting big men couldn’t play, Bickerstaff didn’t have a real alternative. Two years, it was 32-year-old Ed Davis, who was really brought in for leadership more than anything else. And when Jarrett Allen got hurt late in the season, they signed 7’2″ Moses Brown, but didn’t hold on to him.

Last year, it was Robin Lopez, who lacked the mobility to guard anyone away from the basket.

So, let’s see what Jones can do. Hopefully, he can be a suitable backup for Mobley and Allen. Yes, we know Tristan Thompson was signed as well, but we put him in the Davis and Lopez category.

We know Dean Wade is solid defensively and he is 6’9″, but we don’t think he is a deterrent around the basket for other teams.

The Cavaliers are a good team for sure, but improvements in these areas could make them a legitimate contender in the Eastern Conference. We will start finding out next week.

Cavs Start Camp. Did They Address What They Needed?

Training camp has started for the Cleveland Cavaliers and they will open their season in less than three weeks.

The Cavs finished 51-31 last season, good for 4th place in the Eastern Conference, but were eliminated and kind of bludgeoned by the New York Knicks in five games in the first round of the playoffs, their first appearance in the post-season since 2017-18.

Cleveland needed more outside shooting and more size and to our eyes they addressed one of those needs. They ranked 24th in the league in three-point attempts and were 12th in shooting percentage on those shots.

In the free agent market, they signed two players who can help in that regard, Max Strus and Georges Niang.

Strus is a career 37.1% shooter from distance but did drop from 41% in 2021-22 to 35% last season. Niang is a 40.3% three-point maker during his seven-year career in the NBA, and has knocked down that percentage in each of the last five seasons.

On the size issue, we still have questions. Strus is the likely starter at small forward, meaning the Cavs will again likely be smaller than their opponents at point guard, #2 guard and small forward.

And Strus is not regarded as a good defender, and that’s where Cleveland has hung their hat on under coach J. B. Bickerstaff.

In today’s NBA, guys who are 6’5″ like Strus are guards more often than not.

Niang is 6’7″ and can play both forward spots, so we really think he can make an impact, especially when he is playing the #3 spot.

Up front, Koby Altman added 6’11” free agent Damian Jones, who was with the Lakers and Jazz last season, but played just 41 games. In fact, he has only played more than 50 games in a season twice, ’21-’22 with Sacramento and in ’19-’20 with the Hawks.

Can he be the primary back up for Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley? That’s a major question.

Altman added his usual veteran big man before camp started, bringing in old friend Tristan Thompson, who played just 30 games in the NBA last season. He’s 6’9″ and was a solid interior defender and rebounder, but he’s not a rim protector.

Hopefully, Thompson can be more than the leader/mentor than the guys Altman brought in the past two seasons in Ed Davis and Robin Lopez, neither of whom could be on the court for meaningful minutes.

We also thought the Cavs’ bench was very short last season, not in size, but in capable players. Caris LeVert is back and will assume the sixth man role, but moving Isaac Okoro to the bench along with Niang and (fingers crossed), Jones, should make Cleveland deeper.

We hope Ty Jerome can be a useful combo guard, but he’s another player who has never appeared in more than 50 games in an NBA season. He has some size (6’5″) and can shoot and pass.

So for us, the Cavs still need to be bigger physically. They should be helped by the maturation of Evan Mobley and to a lesser extent, Darius Garland. We would like to see Mobley move up to be an 18 PPG/10 RPG/2 blocks player, and be more consistent from outside on his shot.

And he doesn’t need to make threes, having a reliable 15 foot jumper would suffice.

Let’s face it, if the Cavs don’t draw the Knicks in the first round, they probably get to the second round. It was that bad of a match up.

Still, we need to see further progress from the Cavs, both on the floor and on the bench, meaning Bickerstaff, this season. That would seem to insure another home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

Cavs Revamping Their Bench? That’s Good

While we were not enamored by the sign and trade move made by the Cleveland Cavaliers over the weekend to get Max Strus, we didn’t have a problem with a couple of moves late Saturday.

The Cavs signed combo guard Ty Jerome and center Damian Jones to bolster the team’s bench, and after all, that was a weakness for the wine and gold a year ago.

Jerome is a 6’5″ backcourt player who can play the point and the #2 spot, and no doubt Cleveland can use some size at guard. The only issue for him is can he play 82 games. The most he has ever played is 48 with Oklahoma City in 2021-22.

The former Virginia standout can shoot, 38.9% from three and perhaps more importantly, 92.7% from the free throw line. He was also a starter on Virginia’s national championship team.

We think Ricky Rubio will be better the second year coming off knee surgery, but will Jerome get more minutes once the season starts? Or will Rubio be used in another trade.

As for Jones, this may sound a bit snarky, but we like this because he’s a legitimate NBA big man and he’s not over 30 years old. In the last couple of years, Cleveland has tried veterans like Ed Davis and Robin Lopez to back up Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, and neither has anything left.

Jones (6’11”) is 28 and played 41 games with the Lakers and Jazz last season. He scored 3.5 points and grabbed 3.0 boards in 11 minutes per game. He’s decent and serviceable, but we would still like to see Altman grab yet another backup at power forward and center.

We seriously doubt Koby Altman and Mike Gansey are done putting together this roster, but we do have to laugh at those including rookie Emoni Bates in the team’s depth chart. Bates is going to play in the G-League this season, working to get stronger and his overall game.

He may get a shot here and there if injuries hit the Cavs, but he was the 49th pick, not the 9th pick. We would say neither Altman, Gansey, nor coach J.B. Bickerstaff is counting on anything from Bates this season.

One player we are not seeing on depth charts is a draft pick from 2022, 6’7″ Luke Travers, who played in the Australian National League the past four years. Travers averaged 9.8 points, 5.6 rebounds, and three assists last season. He might be the kind of complete, all-around player (with some size) that Cleveland needs.

He will play in the NBA Summer League along with another ’22 draft pick, 7’1″ Khalifa Diop. who played in Liga Endesa last season, averaging 8 points and 5 boards per contest. We want to see how he will fare against the draft picks and second year guys in Las Vegas.

We have said the Cavs needed to add size and scoring for this season, but they also needed to redo their bench, which they received little production from, especially after they benched Kevin Love.

Getting Georges Niang, Jerome, and Jones should help, but we have a suspicion they some of the players who made up the reserve unit a year ago, won’t be back. And we have no issue with that.

Big Summer Ahead For Cavs

The NBA season ended on Monday night, meaning the draft, free agency, and trade season is upon basketball fans around the country.

That means we will see if Cavs’ president of basketball operations was serious when he said the wine and gold were not going to make big changes this summer.

There is some truth that Denver was patient throughout the past few seasons and reaped the benefit by winning the title, and the Nuggets have indeed built around Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, two players drafted by the team.

The counterpoint to that is the newly crowned champs are built traditionally. Yes, they have one of the best players in the world in the two-time MVP, but they have size in the backcourt, Murray is 6’4 and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is 6’5″.

As we have written many times since the Cavs were eliminated by the Knicks, Cleveland has a very small roster, with only Evan Mobley bigger than most players who play his position. And to be fair, Jarrett Allen is the height of most NBA starting centers.

So standing pat is kind of banking on every going the same way for the Cavs in the 2023-24 campaign. And can that way work in the playoffs?

Help isn’t going to come in the draft, so the Cavaliers have to rely on free agency and the trade market in order to improve. The question is do they have the resources to make the improvements needed to compete in the playoffs next year?

Sure, you can trade players like Cedi Osman, Isaac Okoro, or Lamar Stevens, but what is that going to get you? They don’t have enough room under the salary cap to go out and get a big-time free agent. Most teams in the league don’t.

Now, if Altman and GM Mike Gansey really think the Cavs just played a team that was a bad matchup in the first round, and they just need to run it back, okay. There is merit to that. Let’s say, Cleveland would’ve played the Nets in the first round, they likely advance to the conference semifinals.

Many people have speculated that Allen is the most likely to go, but the Cavs are already devoid of big men. Most of these people have the belief that either your power forward or center must be able to shoot threes to win in today’s NBA.

Our counter to that is yes, it does open up the floor, but it doesn’t have to be beyond the arc. If Allen and Mobley can be respectable from 15 feet, that would be very helpful.

And if other teams think the same way as Cleveland, then what kind of return would the Cavaliers get for Allen?

We still think it will be difficult, not impossible to win with a pair of small guards getting big minutes. We said this when Collin Sexton and Darius Garland were the starters, and raised the point when Donovan Mitchell was acquired.

You can’t move a guy like Mobley who has size, is a great defender, being able to guard on the perimeter as well as the post. He’s exactly the kind of versatile player needed in today’s game.

So that means another revamp of the backcourt.

Does the front office have the stomach for that? Two years ago, the Cavs experimented with three seven footers on the front line. Last year, they were a small team. Do they see if they can get to the conference finals with a second year of this group?

We’d like to see the experimental phase end. Even in today’s NBA, size wins. That’s Altman’s challenge this summer.

Cavs Need More Than Tinkering To Advance Next Year.

In watching the NBA playoffs, we continuously think about the Cavaliers’ first round defeat in five games at the hands of the New York Knicks. We think about it because the Eastern Conference’s 8th seed, the Miami Heat, advanced to the NBA Finals

We also think watching the Heat and this is a huge off-season for the Cavs’ organization, and the heat should be turned up on the seats of both Koby Altman and J.B. Bickerstaff.

In reading wrap ups about the series, it seems the scapegoats for fans and some media are Donovan Mitchell and Jarrett Allen.

Mitchell takes blame because he is the star player, and when many national analysts look at a team’s failure, they perceive the problem as the best player simply didn’t play well enough.

Allen takes blame because Cleveland was hammered on the boards, and since he’s the center, it’s his fault. We aren’t saying he’s blameless, but part of the problem was the Cavs’ defensive philosophy. Allen was in help mode and was caught out of position.

Our feeling is the coaching staff did little to help either player. The Knicks were trapping Mitchell and Darius Garland to force them to give up the ball, but it seems the coaches never came up with a counter.

Why not move Mitchell off the ball and have him run off screens to get open and get the ball where he can just shoot it with a good look? As of Allen and Mobley, it doesn’t seem like the wine and gold run anything for either offensively. Therefore, teams don’t really need to guard them to take away anything.

As for Altman, he gets a lot of praise for getting Mitchell and drafting Mobley. While we can debate the price for the former, it doesn’t take a special basketball mind to go after a multiple time all-star player. It takes guts to give up what is needed, but it’s not like he found a diamond in the rough.

He did take a chance on Mobley in some regards, as we didn’t think he would have made an impact so quickly because of his slight build. But there is no questioning his talent.

NFL general managers make their reputation on finding gems in the later rounds of the draft, the 4th, 5th, and 6th rounds. To us, NBA GMs make their bones finding solid players to make up the bench.

Right now, we would say Altman has not done a good job in that regard, and let’s face it, he whiffed on the Isaac Okoro pick at #5, despite what the organization continues to tell you.

Of the 58 players in that draft who played in the NBA, Okoro ranks 51st in VORP (Value Over Replacement Player). Among the players the Cavaliers could have selected are Tyrese Haliburton, who made the all-star team this season, Onyeka Okongwu, who was selected with the very next pick (9.9 PPG, 7.2 RPG this year), and the player we wanted, Obi Toppin, a 6’9″ player who can play on the wing.

Because of injuries, Dylan Windler simply hasn’t contributed, and when he has played, he’s made just 32.2% of his threes, belying his reputation as a shooter.

And the bench just isn’t there. The front office has decided to sign veteran big men the last two years who simply can’t play anymore (Ed Davis and Robin Lopez). They’ve put an immense amount of trust in Dean Wade, who we feel would be at the bottom of most team’s rosters.

He signed Sam Merrill after the trading deadline, apparently to add shooting, but Merrill has been hanging around the NBA for three years and has played in 11 games since his rookie year.

Despite Altman’s comments about staying the course this off-season, if the Cavaliers want to contend for a spot in at least the Eastern Conference finals, they have to bolster the roster from spots #8 through #10, and get much better at small forward.

Doesn’t sound like tinkering, does it?

Clock Is Ticking Right Now For Altman

Sometimes when you set a goal, once you reached it you are satisfied, and the will to push further just isn’t there. That’s the way we feel about the Cleveland Cavaliers this past season.

After last season’s failure to advance in the “play in” tournament, the organization said they wanted to get to a best of seven series, which they did by finishing fourth in the Eastern Conference. And that’s why a lot of the message coming out of the team was that it was a successful season.

They attained their goal.

Of course, that’s what happens when you set too low of a standard. No, the Cavs weren’t going to win the NBA title this season, but the front office and coaching staff should set a standard of going as far as they can in a given year.

And if that was the goal, is that why Koby Altman and Mike Gansey did nothing at the deadline? After all, there was no one out there who would have put Cleveland in the NBA Finals.

We know what Altman said in his press conference after the wine and gold was eliminated by the Knicks in five games, no sweeping changes. Again, we hope this is just front office speak.

When Altman took a big swing and got Donovan Mitchell, the expectations for the Cavaliers changed. And they changed again when the team won 51 games and got home court advantage in the first round.

The front office didn’t adapt.

We have already addressed the lack of size on this basketball team. They are pretty much smaller at every position except for Evan Mobley at power forward and Jarrett Allen is pretty much a league average center.

The Cavs also need shooting, consistent shooting. When New York double teamed Mitchell and Darius Garland, beyond Caris LeVert, the Cavaliers had no one who could make the Knicks pay for the double team.

No matter how much the Cavs’ influencers tell you, opposing teams love when Isaac Okoro shoots three pointers. He is open for a reason. Mobley shot just 22% from distance this season, but perhaps more troubling was he shot just 36.2% from 10-16 feet.

If he became a decent three-point shooter, that would be great, but if you doubled the guards and they could get it to Mobley at the foul line and he could knock it down, that would be a great help as well.

Allen hits 51% from that distance, but rarely shoots from there.

LeVert is needed because beyond Mitchell and Garland, he is the only player on the team among the players getting big minutes who can create their own shot. That trio along with Ricky Rubio are the only players who were assisted on less than half of their made shots.

As a contrast, the Miami Heat, now in the conference finals have five such players.

If you are going to have Mitchell and Garland being your principal scorers, you have to build a team with shooters surrounding them. That opens up the floor come playoff team, when opponents start game-planning against you.

Mitchell has two more years on his current deal and then has a player option for 2025-26. That gives management two seasons to figure out a way to get this team deep into the playoffs, meaning getting to the Eastern Conference finals.

No more setting modest goals, they are on the clock right now.

So, running it back with the current group cannot be the plan, nor can the goal be to win a playoff series in 2023-24. They have to be in contending mode this summer.

Without a lot of assets, Altman and Gansey have to be creative in building a roster than can compete with the Milwaukees, Bostons, Philadelphias, and yes, New York and Miami.

That clock starts ticking the minute the NBA Finals end.