Are Cavs Overrating Their Roster?

For many years after Andrew Berry took over as Browns’ GM, people were noting that he didn’t cut any of the players he drafted. Part of that was when he got the job, the Browns weren’t very good, but it is understandable that if you draft a player, you see the reasons you chose him.

Therefore, you give them the benefit of the doubt.

On the other hand, we have been around coaches who love players from afar, and if and when they get them on their team, all they see are the warts.

So, we understand that Koby Altman has a certain fondness for the players he has brought into the Cavaliers’ organization. But we also think it’s fair to ask if he can evaluate them without bias.

In Kenny Atkinson’s introductory press conference, the new coach referred to coaching “four all-stars”. We bristled at that.

First, only three of the current Cavaliers have made an all-star team: Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, and Jarrett Allen. Despite the organization’s wishes for Evan Mobley, who Altman picked with the third overall pick, he has not made one.

And while technically, Garland and Allen have made the team, they made it once, and they made it during the 2021-22 season, which will be three seasons ago when the new season starts.

Garland was comparable to his all-star season the following year, but last year, injuries caused his numbers to drop. And you know how we feel about starting two smaller guards and how it affects things defensively.

Allen was an injury add on in 2022 but was in the discussion to make it to the mid-season classic last year when he averaged a career high in points at 16.5 per game.

Mitchell is an all-star, making the team five times. It may be semantics, but Garland and Allen are players who made an all-star team, we would not consider them perennials.

The elephant in the room is Mobley. We know everyone is high on him, but it is fair to point out his progress has been slow. He averaged 15 points and 8.3 rebounds as a rookie, and although his shooting has improved from 50.8% as a first-year player to 58% last season, his scoring went from 15.0 to 16.2 to 15.7.

Granted, some of that is due to his role (or lack of one) in the offense. The player taken right after him, Scottie Barnes averaged 15.3 a game in his rookie season and 19.9 last year.

What if Mobley is just a real good player, an excellent defender, but not quite an all-star level player?

It wouldn’t mean writing him off, if he can score 18 points, grab 10 rebounds, block a couple of shots in addition to playing excellent defense, that’s something any coach can work with. But it’s not what many expected after his first year.

The Eastern Conference got better since the playoffs ended. Philadelphia signed Paul George. The Knicks swung a trade for Mikal Bridges. Indiana gained valuable playoff experience.

The Cavs need to get better and although we like Kenny Atkinson, we don’t think that’s enough. The off-season has just begun, but hopefully Altman can be truthful with himself about the roster he has built.

That’s a trait the best executives have.

Cavs Hire Kenny Atkinson. Our Thoughts

The Cleveland Cavaliers have a new head coach, hiring Golden State assistant Kenny Atkinson to replace J.B. Bickerstaff. We also say we cannot judge a coaching hire until the person actually coaches games, but we like the hire.

Atkinson first got our attention when the Cavs acquired the Nets’ first round pick in the Kyrie Irving deal. The Nets were coming off a 20-62 season under Atkinson in 2016-17, so the Nets’ pick looked to have potential to have a very good chance to finish high in the lottery.

This was a Nets’ team led by DeMarre Carroll, Allen Crabbe, Spencer Dinwiddie. And yes, Caris LeVert and Jarrett Allen were on that squad as well. Brooklyn finished 12th in the Eastern Conference at 28-54 and as we all know by now, Cleveland got the 8th pick in the draft, not the top five selection that was hoped for.

The following season, he guided the Nets to the playoffs with a 42-40 record, losing in a five-game series to Philadelphia, who were led by Joel Embiid, Jimmy Butler, and Ben Simmons (ironically, new Laker coach J.J. Redick was also on the Sixers’ roster).

Brooklyn stole game one on the road behind D’Angelo Russell’s 26 points and LeVert chipped in with 23.

The following season, the Nets and Atkinson parted ways during the truncated pandemic season after he guided Brooklyn to a 28-34 record. Jacque Vaughn finished the year 7-3 and was swept in the first round of the playoffs by Toronto.

We went through this history because from afar Atkinson always seemed to get the most out of his roster, a good trait for any coach.

Atkinson was offered the Charlotte head coaching position following the 2022 season, and he took it, but then had second thoughts and settled for an assistants’ job with Golden State. Based on the mess the Hornets’ organization is, we thought he took the Warriors’ job as the heir apparent to Steve Kerr. Obviously, Kerr is still there.

There have been attempts on other sites to quantify Atkinson’s coaching style and philosophy, but we will not attempt that. The essence of coaching is looking at the talent at hand and getting the most out of the players. So, we will trust that his coaching philosophy with the Cavs will be based on having players do what they do best.

We also like that Atkinson has been a head coach before and then went and worked with another organization, especially a successful one like Golden State (like it or not, they are successful). Good coaches also learn and absorb things by working with players and also observation.

Many successful people learn from doing a job and as they do it more, they get better at doing it.

The new coach likes ball movement on offense, and we would hope he isn’t as dependent on the pick and roll as Bickerstaff was. As far as anything else goes, we will wait until we see the results.

And hopefully, the front office has discussions with Atkinson and what kind of team he wants, and is not saying here’s the roster, win with it. As we have been saying, the Cavs’ problem wasn’t just the coach. The make-up of the roster isn’t that of other contending teams.

We guess we will know more about the next edition of the Cavs in a few weeks.

Cavs Running It Back? Bad Idea

With the NBA Finals soon to be over, the NBA crazy time will start very quickly. The draft will occur at the end of the month, followed by the free agency period where trades will occur.

In his post-season press conference, Cavs’ president of basketball operations Koby Altman made comments alluding to the wine and gold’s “Core 4”, and his desire to keep them together.

After all, his supporters will say, the Cavaliers have made progress in each of the last three seasons, going from making the “play-in” tournament and losing to getting into a seven game series to winning a first-round match up.

While all that is true, it can also be true to realize that might be the ceiling for this group. And really, isn’t that what Altman is paid to determine.

The first thing for Altman to decide is who will be the new head coach. It seems like it is down to three candidates: James Borrego, Kenny Atkinson, and Chris Quinn. We would have no issue with either of them.

Our only issue with Quinn would be he is the first lieutenant to Erik Spoelstra, the league’s best coach. Sometimes, these guys try to be their mentor, and since they aren’t that guy, it doesn’t work.

The people who think staying the course with the Cavs led by Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen, usually are thinking about it from (surprise!) the offensive end of the floor. However, we say it all the time, basketball isn’t just about scoring points.

Our feeling continues to be Cleveland cannot continue with the small backcourt because Mitchell and Garland do not complement each other, but also because it is not effective from a defensive standpoint. So many contending teams have size at the guard position, and the Cavaliers don’t.

That puts them at a disadvantage.

The other thing that bothers us is the constant talk of having to move Jarrett Allen. We get it, “you can’t win with two non-shooting bigs”, that’s the argument, correct? But what we find difficult to fathom is how you get better by trading your second-best player, and that’s what Allen was this past season.

He averaged 16.5 points and 10.5 boards per night, shooting 63.4% from the floor. If you could trade Allen for a player who has a chance at being your best player, then yes, you can trade him. We doubt that would be the case.

And yesterday, it was reported that Mitchell doesn’t want Allen moved, and that will have weight within the organization.

As for Mobley’s “dominant” series vs. Boston in the second round, need we remind everyone he didn’t do this against Joel Embiid, Bam Adebayo, or even Kristaps Porzingis, he did it against 37-year-old Al Horford, a solid pro, but not a player who should be giving a player like Mobley fits.

Also, trading Allen (or Mobley for that matter) would be removing one of the few players with size on the roster. We understand a big man would come back in any deal, but that player likely wouldn’t be as skilled.

And Cleveland needs to add size, not get smaller. That’s for sure.

If Altman can add a slew of wings in the 6’7″ to 6’9″ range and add another big man to back up Allen and Mobley without giving up one of his core players, then great. We just don’t think that’s possible.

You’re A Candidate, You’re A Candidate…Cavs Coaching Search

By now, perhaps you too have received a request by the Cleveland Cavaliers to interview for their head coaching job. The Cavs have at least five or six candidates to date that they have received permission to interview.

That seems like a lot, particularly because when you made the decision to fire J. B. Bickerstaff, you would think they had at least one or two people in mind to take the job. That doesn’t seem the case.

We also wonder if there are so many candidates because they are looking for someone whose idea for the team is the same as Koby Altman’s, and that may be difficult to find.

We would think most coaches would look at the Cavaliers’ roster and say it will be very difficult to win in the playoffs with two small guards, two solid big men, and a bunch of undersized wings.

Our personal position is we would like someone with previous NBA head coaching experience. On the other hand, we don’t want a retread either. We consider the latter to be someone who has moved around the league from team to team, like a Doc Rivers or a Nate McMillan.

But someone who has had one job deserves a second chance. Isn’t everyone better the second time they do something? We have mentioned previously that we like Kenny Atkinson, who went 118-190 in four seasons with Brooklyn, and took them to the playoffs in one season.

James Borrego seems to be a solid candidate as well, after an interim gig with Orlando in 2014-15, he guided Charlotte for four seasons, the last one resulting in a 43-39 record, which you would think they would initiate statue building instead of getting a pink slip.

One of the candidates mentioned is troubling to us, and that would be Johnnie Bryant, reportedly someone with a close relationship with Donovan Mitchell. In our opinion, that would be a colossal mistake.

What happens if the Cavs aren’t winning with Bryant at the helm? Is the organization stuck with him because Mitchell likes him?

Bryant has no track record of being a head coach in the NBA. Could he lay the hammer down on Mitchell if need be? That’s a tough one because Mitchell would be the guy who got him the gig.

It also puts Mitchell in an imposing position within the organization, and frankly, he’s an excellent player, top 20 at least in the league right now, but he hasn’t earned that kind of gravitas.

It has been reported that Mitchell didn’t like the talk that he wanted Bickerstaff out, so does he want the pressure of being the guy who hired the next coach too?

If we were a candidate for the job, we would want to remake the roster to what currently works in the NBA, which means adding size, and we would want to know if the front office is amenable to doing that.

Especially if you are someone who didn’t play in the league and is hoping for a second chance to sit in the first chair. There aren’t many coaches who get a third chance without great success prior (see Mike Budenholzer).

Hopefully, this is Altman doing a thorough job in canvasing rather that an exercise in seeing who agrees with him.

We use this comment a lot in the world of sports: “The wise man knows what he doesn’t know”. We hope that doesn’t apply here.