Optimism for ‘21/22

 Warning:  This is an optimistic post, I’m not going to fill it with qualifiers.

Warning:  I will be implying positive things about Kevin Love.

Using Cleaning the Glass’ numbers (which drop garbage time) the Cavs got worse last season from ‘19/20 going from -7.8 to -8.7 per 100.  This seems really bad at first blush, their young guards were a year older and played better individually, they traded for Jarrett Allen- their expected long term C- and got 1,500 mins from him and they went into the season hoping that their FC rotation could keep them in playoff contention.  That didn’t happen but there are some good long term signs, lets run through some numbers and then discuss what they mean.

1.  Garland plus Sexton went from -10.1 to -6.5 together.

2. Garland plus Sexton plus Okoro was -3.9 together

3. Garland plus Sexton plus Love was -0.6 together (420 possessions)

4.  Garland, Sexton, Okoro plus at least one of Wade or Love was +4 (700 possessions).

Last season’s disaster was one of injuries, we can’t project the Cavs to have been a strong team but they were functional for their short stretches of health.  For example Nance and Drummond had a -1.2 rating together in 900 possessions, and that was with a lot of time with marginal NBA players like Dotson, Stevens and Exum.  I’m not going to delve into the Drummond numbers, but I do think a cursory look shows that the Cavs would likely have been a play-in team with reasonable health outcomes and no trade for Allen/Prince midseason.

The really encouraging aspect is the Garland, Sexton, Okoro trio being close to passable seeing as that is a very young group and Okoro was statistically a bad rookie.  Just having a guy playing hard, in a decent role for his skill set and defending was a plus to the young guards and those three figure to get a lot of time together this season.  Improvement from each of them is expected and just between them taking steps forward you could see close to a neutral rating but they shouldn’t have to be relying on just that.  

The young trio plus Love or Wade being solidly positive is very encouraging as the addition of Markkanen gives them three spacing bigs to work with.  It wouldn't take much beyond decent health for those three to have 2,000+ possessions with a stretch big on the floor.  If those lineups ended up +2 or better you are well on your way to a 35-40 win team.  

Then there us the guard upgrade that is Ricky Rubio and Kevin Pangos.  These aren't names that will strike fear into opposing fan bases but the displacement effect should be quite large.  These two, and Denzel Valentine will be filling minutes that had been absorbed by Dotson, Delly, Thomas, Exum and a few even worse players.  

Finally we have the Mobley selection which could go either way this season.  Rookies are typically significant negatives in the NBA, but Mobley shouldn’t have the issues that Okoro, Sexton and Garland had where they were being pushed into roles they clearly weren’t ready for due to a lack of talent and depth on those teams at those positions.  Until injuries strike there isn’t any need to push Mobley more than 20 mins a game unless he earns it, and on the upside long, high IQ defenders have a tendency to be neutral to pluses early in their careers.  His two best comps (Bosh, Garnett) both avoided being negatives at Mobley’s age and in Garnett’s case he was already a positive contributor.  Mobley won’t have to do that much anyway to be a net gain over Prince, Stevens, McGee, Hartenstein and the general flotsam that the Cavs were rolling out there to fill time last season.

In all the Cavs should be primed to make a 20-25 win leap over the next two seasons, and while injuries or a lack of development but if they avoid those two pitfalls they could be a play-in team as early as this season.