While We’re Waiting… Indians upgrades, 1997, and Penn State game discussion
October 26, 2013Ohio State’s schedule a point of frustration
October 26, 2013The Cavaliers tip on Wednesday night in the Q. It’s finally here, and after the season ended last season, I couldn’t wait for this one to begin. After all, we killed the #TankStrong initiative when the Cavaliers walked off the floor in Charlotte on April 17th. Three big free agent signings and two first round draft picks later, and the Cavaliers are suddenly deep, still young, and remain flexible toward the future. Playoffs aren’t a pipe dream, and they should be a reachable and realistic goal this year. With that in mind, here’s five story-lines that I think are instrumental in determining whether the Cavs get there or not.
Who wins the battle for small forward minutes?
This is going to be very interesting, and I expect it to fluctuate all season long. Earl Clark, Alonzo Gee, C.J. Miles, and Sergey Karasev can all conceivably grab considerable minutes at this spot. With the opening night starter down to Clark and Gee, I think Brown will ultimately go with Earl Clark to start things off due to his size and familiarity with him from Los Angeles. The interesting thing is that whoever doesn’t hold down the starting three position could see their minutes evaporate. C.J. Miles has a desperately needed skillset on this team. He’s a very good three-pointer shooting weapon off the bench, and he’s not afraid to take shots when called on to do so. Because of this logjam, it could be really difficult for Karasev to gain consistent minutes. That’s why I think the Cavs may relent on their original statement that Sergey would primarily only play the small forward position and let him run some two guard, where you really only have Dion Waiters (and Jack or Irving when they’re on the floor together) demanding minutes there. Both Clark and Gee’s offensive game leave a lot to be desired, so I could Brown taking some time to assess who is the better all-around defender and eventually stick with them for big minutes and supplement them with C.J. and Sergey for offensive reasons.
What does the power forward position look like longterm?
The minute that the Cavaliers shocked pretty much everybody and took Anthony Bennett with the top selection in the draft, it put them in position to have to make a potentially tough decision down the road. Tristan Thompson made drastic strides last season, and if the preseason is any indication, he made even more this offseason. On both ends of the floor, I think Thompson has the potential to benefit the most from bringing Mike Brown back. I see him having a very similar role to what Varejao did in his early years, cleaning up garbage and getting a lot of open looks close the bucket. On defense, he’s shown improvement on showing on pick-and-rolls and I like the way he’s bodying his man up in the post.
What does all that mean for Bennett though? Mike Brown’s said that he won’t play the rookie at small forward this season. The Cavs will hopefully be giving most of the center minutes to Anderson Varejao and Andrew Bynum (with a few thrown in Tyler Zeller’s direction). With the way Thompson’s been playing, that may leave less than 20 minutes per night for Bennett. My guess is if the Cavaliers are competitive and Bennett continues to struggle with conditioning and foul trouble, that may be a non-issue for this season.
But after this season? The way I see it, it is a complete non-issue on offense, as the duo of Thompson and Bennett have completely different games and complement each other. Defensively, if Tristan bulks up a little bit and continues to grow in defensive ability under Brown, he could certainly steal some center minutes in small ball lineups that are becoming all the more common these days. The more likely scenario is that Bennett will either need to improve his handle, conditioning, and lateral quickness to play some minutes at small forward in the coming years or get tougher down low, turn some of that fat into muscle, really work on defense, and maybe steal those center minutes instead (remember, Chuck Hayes, Chris Bosh, and Kevin Garnett have been starting centers in this league). If he can’t, then the top pick may be trade bait in another year or two’s time. I hope the two can learn to coexist.
Will someone need to be traded due to a crunch in playing time?
On that note of trades, a lot of people believe one with this current roster as currently constructed is imminent. I don’t think that’s the case, but I do feel that Chris Grant and his front office will continue to be open to offers that improve their situation. The Cavs do have a surplus of big guys when they’re at full strength, and the small forward situation leaves a lot to be desired. I would say there is virtually no way they try to resolve the power forward logjam between Thompson and Bennett this season. Still, I could see Earl Clark, Alonzo Gee, Tyler Zeller, and yes, Anderson Varejao’s names come up in trade winds throughout the season if a team has a need. If things go south, it doesn’t make sense to hold onto all of those guys, but let’s hope that if the team is making a move, it’s for an upgrade to help this year.
Will the team stay healthy enough to compete?
Kyrie Irving, Anderson Varejao, and Andrew Bynum are properly identified as the biggest injuries risks on the team, but what about the others? We’ve seen a lot of little minor injuries result in missed preseason games for Jarrett Jack, Dion Waiters, C.J. Miles, and Sergey Karasev. Then, there’s the somewhat more serious injuries of Carrick Felix and Tyler Zeller. This team is much deeper than in the past, and realistically, they can sustain some injuries to players not named “Irving”. But, there’s a cumulative effect, and if any of the non-injury-prone players miss some considerable time, things could snowball. It does make me feel better that guys like Zeller, Henry Sims, and Matthew Dellavedova won’t get many minutes with the team at full strength, but it seems they are the type of players that can be counted on for decent production in limited minutes.
How much will Mike Brown’s assistants help?
The acquisition of Igor Kokoskov from the Phoenix Suns to be Brown’s top offensive assistant was praised at the time. Kokoskov has a nice track record of good offenses1, and really anything has got to be better than some of the offense the Cavs ran under Brown in his first tour of duty.
In the preseason so far, however, we’ve seen some really high turnover numbers (21 turnovers or more in 6 of the team’s 8 preseason games), and that includes with the first unit. The Cavaliers’ best quality on offense last season was not turning the ball over (13.0% TOV, good enough for 4th in the association), but as our own #JakeyStats pointed out, most of those low-turnover guys are long gone (Walton, Livingston, Ellington, Speights). With good passers in Irving, Waiters, and Varejao in the starting five, I think the Cavalier forwards are going to end up getting a lot of the wide open looks on the offense. We’ve seen it already with the Varejao-to-Thompson dump-offs under the bucket for dunks and countless Earl Clark and Alonzo Gee chuck-shots at the end of the shot clock. With quicker ball movement and more complicated offensive sets, the Cavaliers need to find a way to get Irving and Waiters more of those shots and get them to be a lower degree of difficulty.
(Photo: Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images)
- The 0ffensive rating when he joined Detroit as an assistant by season: 26th (’03), 18th (’04), 4th (’05), 6th (’06), and 6th (’07). In Phoenix, his team ranked 2nd, 1st, 9th, and 10th in offensive rating before abysmal numbers last year. [↩]
26 Comments
I think, especially with the recent pre-season starting backcourt of Irving and Jack, that those two and Waiters are going to see almost the entirety of the backcourt minutes. Karasev just turned 20 (today, actually), so he may still be a bit too raw to get important minutes yet. He’ll be around a while, and he’s got potential, but if we’re really going to make a run at the playoffs, I can see him being an odd man out.
I’m not sure what the trade could be to help upgrade this team. No team that is trying to rebuild/retool will give us much for Gee/Clark/Zeller, and I don’t believe any are expiring contracts. If we’re competing, it because Varejao is healthy, so we can’t afford to give him up. That leaves Thompson or Bennett. But who are you going to trade for? Seemingly you want a three, which I guess mean Deng. But it seems nuts to give up Thompson or Bennett to get half a season of Deng when you can just sign him next summer.
I’m not overly concerned with minutes between the 2/3 positions. Waiters will be backed up by Miles and Karasev. Clark will be backed up by Gee and Miles. I think that there are plenty of minutes to go around there. Gee can even play some defensive 2 guard in a pinch if it’s needed.
I think that leaves the play as moving Varejao for future assets and accepting your fate without him this season. As nice as it would be to max out the win total, this team is most likely first round fodder for the Heat. Get a piece more likely to be healthy and effective during Kyrie’s prime, or an asset you can trade for that guy.
The offense will take some time to gel, but I at least want to see defensive effort in the first few weeks. That could ease the O struggles and get this team off to a good start.
Very excited if the possibility of Bynum playing soon. Love watching skilled big men
I don’t think Varejao gets moved at all…if anyone gets moved, it’ll likely be Bynum. His health problems are far more repeatable and his contract is set to be a very nice expiring this year.
Wonder how his contract will work when it comes to matching salaries. I think he’s a candidate to move as an expiring, but, again the only SF I see really available is Deng, and he’s already an expiring. I guess we’re left buying another draft pick.
I guess you’re stuck holding onto Varejao, though I keep going back and forth on this. It will be very frustrating if we can’t win a playoff series before he becomes a FA and we get nothing that can help during Kyrie’s prime for him.
Caron Butler and Rudy Gay could be had as well. Gay is only an expiring if he elects free agency due to option clauses; and Butler is definitely an expiring. Gee, Miles, and Zeller should be enough to land Gay though.
Personally not a fan of Gay, and I’d expect him to pick up that option.
But, either way, that doesn’t work. Those three combine to make just $7M, and Gay makes $18M. Trade machine says you’ll need to trade away another $7M in salary.
I’m behind the 8ball on Cavs news, whens Bynum supposed to bre ready?
I don’t think Bynum is likely to be moved in any significant trade. He’s either going to be a steal or a waste. If he’s a steal, he’s staying here. If he’s a waste, he’ll go somewhere for something random.
I’d imagine Miles will grab some minutes at SG, don’t you think? He gives the Cavs valuable floor-spacing (assuming he can repeat his shooting from last season).
ABJ’s Jason Lloyd thinks he will play in the season opener. Even if he doesn’t, he’s not far from being ready.
Does the trade machine take into account the fact that the Cavaliers are under the cap?
Also, please not Gay. LOL He’s an inefficient volume scorer.
if true, then that is crazy. even 15-20min/game that early is way sooner than I thought when we signed him.
SF – ugh. as in ugly. would love to believe in Karasev, but I don’t and if I did it would likely be at SG.
PF – plenty of minutes for Bennett & Thompson and potentially deadly smallball lineup with both if they reach their potentials.
Playing time – never can have enough depth. unless someone is upgrading a starting position or giving a good 1st round pick, then I don’t see a reason to kill the depth we have obtained.
Health – even the “healthy” teams have issues, which is why you need depth and playing time isn’t an issue in the regular season. and, we haven’t been one of those healthy teams.
Assistants – hopefully a ton, but we won’t really know. I just want to see good basketball on both ends (actual plays run and sets that lead to other sets rather than the up-n-chuck offense that runs rampant through many teams — run the ball up and chuck the ball at the bucket).
I can tell you guys after watching him work with Potapenko out on the floor in Columbus for about 15 minutes, he looks like a guy that should be playing really, really soon. Vitaly didn’t take it easy on him, and he seemed to be moving side-to-side pretty well.
I wouldn’t say there’s “plenty” of minutes to go around at power forward for Bennett and Thompson if they don’t implement the small ball. If they’re bounded by 48 minutes, I’m going to say Tristan gets 28-30 of those and Bennett gets the rest.
No one is trading for Bynum. Not with his injury history and not with that contract.
Yeah I was pretty shocked. Lloyd had said this multiple times as if it’s something he is assuming will happen, which makes me think it’s based on fact since he seems to be the beat reporter who is most plugged into what the Cavs are doing.
I think Bennett could get even less than that. He’s going to be in foul trouble pretty often until he learns how not to foul while setting screens.
With Bynum, we’re up against the cap now.
That contract is perfect for trading. Like I said above, I’m not sure how it works for trading purposes, but he could be a $6 or $12M expiring deal. A team looking to shed future salary will jump at that.
I think he’ll play almost exclusively at the 3. Play matchups with him and Clark. I think he could look get plenty of good looks when he’s on the court with both Irving and Jack.
Yeah, I think he’s going to have an up and down year. Amaze us with his ability to fill it up quickly, but issues staying in shape, playing defense, and some little things will frustrate us.
Unless it is a team that is trying to get out of some long-term salary. His deal is essentially an expiring contract.
That I did not realize. Thank you!