Cleveland Cavaliers Blog

A 22 year old 2/3 with no demonstrated handle, passing skills, and without out of this world measurables with the 14th pick is a mistake. Simply it is an organizational mistake.  Definitionally anyone who becomes a superstar after the top 10 has been overlooked, they were missing some piece or had some red flag or grew 3 inches after being drafted.  This leads some commenters to make absurd claims like 'its unpredictable' or 'anyone can become that star'.  Hard to predict, and unpredictable are different things, hard to select, and hard to select against are different things.   Selecting against: If you can't pick the guy out who will become the next Giannis, Kawhi, Butler or Jokic you can still improve your odds dramatically by dropping players who won't become those guys.   'We aren't drafting for superstars'- then you have made an organizational mistake.  A functional value proposition failure that you need to correct.  How many late lotte...

  I’m just going to say upfront that I don’t like this move, I didn’t like it a month ago when it was rumored, I didn’t like people who were Levert fans two years ago, I do no like him when he drives, I do not like him when he dives, I do not like his 3pt shot, I do not like his decisions when he gets hot, I do not like Caris Levert, because that guy always seems to be hurt.   Let’s start out with some non obvious outcomes.  The Cavs, despite starting up to 3 7 footers and having a great rebounder off the bench in Love, are a poor defensive rebounding team.  Not awful, 20th in the league in Drb%, but it is the worst portion of their defense.  This is mostly a result of their style of defense- their bigs are often switched onto perimeter players pulling them away from the hoop and then their rotations often lead to a scramble to close out on a 3pt shooter.  The high activity of their bigs (even Love regularly lumbers out to contest a 3) means their guar...

  The last few weeks have been rough emotionally for Cavs fans, big wins against stripped bare teams followed by the our guard rotation collapsing in a very short span.  With Rubio out for the year two of the Cavs top three guards are done for the season and the Cavs three game losing streak which was broken last night started when Darius Garland entered the protocols.   Beneath the surface though there are the stirrings of a forbidden passion, both wondrous and fragile, that we risk shattering even with the merest whisper of acknowledgement.  I have been hurt before, I know the inevitable and I don’t care because Fuck you and your cynacism.  Fuck you and your qualifiers, fuck all that shit because mother fucking Kevin Love is back.   Fuck you.  Not ‘he’s found his role as a mentor, high IQ guy off the bench’.   Fuck you again.  Not ‘He should be a starter, but you know, injuries’ Fuck you once more.  Not ‘He looks like Al...

  Replacing NBA production with G-Leaguers is never going to be smooth, you absolutely have to give up something in the process. So what do these new guys bring and what are they lacking? Luke Kornet:   Actual NBA skill: Shot blocking.  Jarrett Allen blocks 2.5 shots per 100 for his career against 2.8 fouls.  Luke Kornet has blocked 2.8 against 3.4 in his 2,000 NBA minutes.  As a gangly 7 footer he does a decent job of maintaining position and contesting without fouling.   Limiting factor keeping him out of the NBA:  Rebounding.  His 15% Dreb% is woefully inadequate for a 7 ft center in the NBA, well behind (average positional rebounder) Lauri Markkanen’s 22%, and Lauri has spent most of his career at the 4, not the 5.  This extends to his time in the G-League where he only managed a 19% Dreb rate.   Potential NBA skill:  Stretch Big.  On 400+ 3pt attempts he is shooting a hair under 33% in the NBA.  This is...

  Three weeks ago I wouldn’t have bothered with a Rockets preview, it would have been too short ‘Rockets stink, if the Cavs show up they win’.  Winners of 8 out of 10 since then, including against Brooklyn, Chicago and Charlotte they deserve more attention than that.  The big shift that everyone and their mother has noted is that the wins started on day one without Jalen Green and have continued to an extent (3-2) without KPJ.  So is Jalen Green that bad?  Has he been holding back an otherwise talented squad?   Sort off.  The Rocket’s +/- skyrockets to +7.8 in 1400 possessions without Jalen Green on the court and is still a solid +3.9 per 100 over almost 1000 possessions without either Green or Porter, but there is a ton of unsustain in this group.  First the games which Green has missed dominate these mins and those games include matchups against OKC (2x), Orlando and NOP, and 7 of the 10 have been at home, and they traveled twice (to OKC an...

  Looking back:  After the previous win over Miami I wrote this ‘The 8- man rotation of Darius, Rubio, Okoro, Cedi, Lauri, Love, Mobley and Allen has played 500 possessions together and is +13.3 in that stretch (all stats here per Cleaningtheglass.com).’ That rotation is now almost 1000 possessions together and is at +13.  Also ‘The opposition is going to be fairly weak for these possessions because of how injuries have fallen but that is a dominant number, and their 9 man rotations with Windler, Stevens or Wade are +14.8,  +11.7, +6.2, in 592, 592 and 821 possessions respectively’ Those 9 man rotations are +13.8 (1090, Windler), +12.7 (1140, Stevens), +8.3 (1330, Wade).  Or any of those +8.9 (1690).  So over increasingly large samples we have results that are screaming top 4 seed as long as the Cavs aren’t missing 2 or more crucial rotation pieces, and top 2 seed if they are only missing Sexton.  Functionally the only thing that the Cavs are missing t...

Note: The numbers here were from before the SAC game, but they didn't shift in any meaningful way. I have a rough draft of a post about how the Cavs should approach the future.  I put some thoughts down more than a month ago and it is currently entirely wrong and won’t be relevant unless they start struggling at least a little.   The Cavs are off the development curve right now.  Their strength of schedule adjusted +/- is the best in the East at 4.41.  Part of being at the top of the East right now is the general struggles (including missed time) for Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Brooklyn, but a net rating of +4.4 would give an expected win total for a full season of over 50, in the 51-53 range.  That on its own should be enough to start some internal discussions of ‘can we make a big move, what would it look like, what would it cost?’.  Where the rubber really meets the road is their 8 man* rotation that they have been running.  For some context ...