by Austin Peters
Before the season began, we all dubbed Cleveland the favorite to win the Eastern Conference and possibly dethrone the Spurs as champions of the league. We all did it. There wasn't any of us that didn't think they were going to be awesome.
How could you not think they were going to destroy the league? LeBron decided to come home in a glorious, prodigal son fashion. He was to come and join Kyrie Irving, resurrecting the mess that he had left behind him when he went to Miami. On top of that, they decided to trade their future for an elite power forward in Kevin Love. The new "Big 3" in Cleveland was seemingly more talented than the old "Big 3" in Miami. With LeBron's buddies joining him to add depth to this Cavs team, it all seemed like a fairy tale story for the city of Cleveland.
Then there was the opening night loss at home to the Knicks, bringing flashbacks of the "Rome wasn't built in a day" line LeBron gave to the world when Miami lost their opener in 2010. The season has been a rollercoaster since. The Cavs started 1-3 followed by four straight wins. Following that up was four straight losses right before their big eight game win streak that brought them to 13-7. Since then, they are 6-10, just two games over .500, sitting at 19-17. They've lost seven of their last nine and have had suffered blow out losses at home to Atlanta, Milwaukee, Dallas, and Detroit.
Thursday night's home loss to Houston was the perfect snap shot as to how this season has been going for the once hopeful Cleveland fan base. With their star player, LeBron, sitting out because of various injuries, Cleveland had to face a very good Rockets team. Kyrie Irving exploded for 38 points, doing everything he could during the 41 minutes he played. It still wasn't enough, as the anemic Cavs bench was outscored 37-13 by the Rockets bench. Love wasn't enough to help, shooting a poor 7-19 from the field and 0-3 from three. No LeBron, no Anderson Varejao (who is out for the season), no newly acquired Iman Shumpert. Just Kyrie doing fancy dribble moves, working his butt off while everybody else watches.
Things don't look so great on the court, and the even worse news is that things look even gloomier in the future. After yesterday's trade for Timofey Mozgov, they are essentially capped out for the next couple seasons, assuming they keep their star core together. They have to hope they can turn it around this season, otherwise the future is just as unsettling as the stuff happening now.
The Basketball Side
As I noted above, right now the Cavaliers are 19-17 and are sitting at fifth place in an abysmal Eastern Conference. They aren't going to be in jeopardy of missing the playoffs if they keep hovering around the .500 mark because we saw teams get in the playoffs last year with losing records in the East. They'll still eventually have to play against the new upstart teams like Toronto, Washington, or Atlanta, as well as the Bulls, who are on fire as of late.
As much as everyone likes to point out how much of a train wreck this team is on offense, they still rank in the top ten in offensive efficiency, a statistic that calculates the amount of points a team scores per 100 possessions. Even though they have ball dominant guys like LeBron, Kyrie, Dion Waiters before he got traded, and Kevin Love, they're still top ten in assist rate, a stat that shows how often a team's possession end in an assist. Their turnover rate is top ten as well, and they're in the top half of the league in true shooting and effective field goal percentage.
If you want to be a title contender, however, you can't just settle for being "top ten" or "top half" in the league in anything. You have to be the best or darn near close to it.
Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love haven't exactly been living up to their potential. Both have regressed in just about every statistical category. Irving's assist numbers have dropped quite a bit. His assists/40 minutes and assist rate have both dropped along with his assists per game. He ranks 29th in the league in assist opportunities for players who play more than 20 minutes pre game, and is barely in the top 100 in the league at assist opportunities per 48 minutes. You would've thought that these numbers would've gone up while playing next to LeBron and Kevin Love. Kyrie's usage rate is down, which could be part of the cause, but he is 44th in the league in PER, a stat he ranked 27th in last year.
A lot of Irving's struggles could come from the stagnant Cavs offense. Watching their game against Houston, I can't tell you how many times I watched a possession like this one below.
Kyrie dribbling around, with no one, not even the screener, moving to throw the defense off and give him an outlet to pass to. Just a bunch of fancy dribbles that go nowhere because he doesn't have anywhere to go or anyone to pass to.
It hasn't helped that Kevin Love has regressed this year as well. His usage has plummeted, which is understandable given his change in roles from Minnesota to Cleveland. This can definitely be the reason that his per game numbers aren't as high. But along with his usage, his PER has gone from third in the league last year to 53rd in the league this year. His turnover rate has increased and his shooting percentages have dropped from last season. He is clearly having a hard time adjusting to his new role on this Cavs' team.
Minnesota would run their offense through Love in the forms of high post catches and post ups. These two sets show the typical positions that Kevin Love would have the ball in the Timberwolves' offense.
In Cleveland, he is mainly being used in ball screen situations and spot ups, completely different things than post ups on the elbow or block. He has attempted more jump shots than any other type of shot by a significant margin. Another good indicator is that his free throw attempts have dropped nearly three attempts per game from the previous season. They like to use him a lot in pick and pop situations, which can obviously be a deadly weapon for the Cavs if Love shoots like he is capable of shooting. But with his percentages dropping, he is becoming less reliable in the ways that Cleveland believed he was going to be successful. The only red you see on Love's heat map this season is at the rim. Everything else is mediocre to ice cold (also notice how just about every shot is either at the rim or from three, not on the block or elbows like he was in Minnesota).
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| Kevin Love Heat Map 2014-15 |
Just for comparison, here is Love's heat map from the 13-14 season. There is a lot more red and a lot more areas of the court taken up.
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| Kevin Love Heat Map 2013-14 |
Cleveland was trying so hard in the Rockets game to get Love going early and often, from post ups, to elbow touches, everything. He was just 3-6 from the line, rare for someone as good of a shooter as he is.
The blame can't all be on these two guys, though. They are both young and adjusting to completely different roles than they are used too. Both have been the best players on terrible teams before and have to get used to playing with other superstars. It takes time, and we learned that with Miami in year one of their "Big 3" as well.
I've already written previously about LeBron's "chill mode" and how he needs to step it up. Playing with injuries and playing as many games and minutes as LeBron has over his career is definitely taxing. As much as we like to think that these athletes are superhuman, they struggle with the same daily aches and pains and issues that we all do. When you put your body through as rigorous of training and physical battling that LeBron has, your body is bound to wear down more so than someone else's.
With all that being said, after he gets back from his couple weeks of rest, he needs to be in tip top shape. No more "chill mode." This team needs him to be at his best
Defensively, this team is a hot mess, currently ranking 23rd in defensive efficiency. Zach Lowe from ESPN and Grantland has talked extensively about their defense before, how they've tried to recreate Miami's blitzing and trapping scheme with this Cavs team. They just simply don't have the personnel to do it. Kyrie isn't in the same stratosphere as guys like Chalmers and Norris Cole when it comes to defending on the ball, Love is a defensive liability guarding ball screens (as opposed to the best pick and roll defender in the league, Chris Bosh), and LeBron is playing in "chill mode" (sorry, this just frustrates me a lot).
Their opponent's field goal percentage at the rim is the second worst in the league, allowing teams to shoot just north of 56%. Adding Tomofey Mozgov will help a little in this area. Opponents are shooting nearly the same percentage at the rim against him as they are against DeAndre Jordan, a top five defensive player of the year candidate last year. He will help with their spacing too. Being a rim runner and roll guy in ball screens draws the attention of a third defender, freeing up someone else for an open shot. Hopefully this will help Cleveland's 18th ranked three point shooting team.
The Front Office
Within days of each other, the Cavaliers made two trades to fill in the holes for their team. The first, was shipping Dion Waiters away for a protected OKC first rounder, JR Smith, and Iman Shumpert. The second, was sending two first round picks to Denver for Timofey Mozgov.
You can take a look at the Cavaliers current salary cap sheet this year right here (source: basketball insiders). The notes for the salary cap situations and my calculations for all salary sheets are found here.
Trade number one was a decent trade overall. They gave away Dion Waiters (whom they seemingly had given up on) and non guaranteed deals to get a first round pick, a promising 3-and-D guy in Iman Shumpert, and a project in JR Smith. Not a bad haul for only sending off Dion Waiters.
Trade number two is more risky. Mozgov fills a need, but they mortgaged two of their final three tradable assets: the protected Memphis first round pick and the OKC pick they got in the Waiters trade. In the last six months, they have given up a total of 10 draft picks in trades. I've mentioned a couple times before on here that the cheapest way to build a contender is by getting guys on their rookie contracts, making draft picks extra valuable under the new CBA. They now have no first round picks in the immediate future. They had Miami's first round pick, but used it in the Kevin Love trade. Chicago owns their 2015 pick thanks to the Luol Deng trade that happened last year. The only real attractive, tradeable asset they have now is the Brendan Haywood contract; a contract that balloons to over $10 million of non guaranteed money next season. But even using that in a trade is going to bring in more salary added to that cap sheet.
Looking at the cap sheet for this year, you can see that they are already over the cap and tax for next season, which will go up even higher if they get to keep Love on the max contract that he wants. Varejao's extension hurts them, Kyrie's max rookie extension kicks in next year (and could be higher if he qualifies for the Rose Rule), and they have to deal with the tricky Restricted Free Agencies of Iman Shumpert and Tristan Thompson. Thompson and LeBron share an agent, so it's almost a guarantee that he will be back on the team. If he gets a deal close to what the market price will be for him (my guess is between $8-$10 million a year), it will add a hefty increase to their tax bill. It wouldn't shock the world if they let Shumpert sign elsewhere, but then that would leave them with a hole on the wing they won't be able to fill in free agency or the draft because they have room and no picks.
Unless they make a drastic, landscape altering trade involving one of their stars, they're stuck with the roster that they have for the long foreseeable future.
Bottom Line
There is hardly any more room to improve this roster. It is what it is. Cleveland is stuck with it for now and at least the next two seasons, and possibly even beyond that depending on what they decide for several of their free agents next summer.
On the bright side, there are times where you can tell that this team has the potential for greatness. All new teams have to go through growing pains. Factor in the fact that their coach is a first time head coach in the NBA, making it a slower learning curve for this team to be a contender.
They have nice pieces to work with. Shawn Marion, James Jones, and Mike Miller are all old, but you know come playoff time and in tough situations, they are guys you can trust to have out on the floor because they all have experience playing in big games. Matthew Dellavedova can knock down open shots, provide a second ball handler to give relief to Kyrie, and is good enough on defense to where you don't have to hide him. Joe Harris can be a sneaky good player for them. The way he is constantly moving on offense, always making the smart cut, kind of reminds me of Kyle Korver. Tristan Thompson is relentless on the boards, currently sitting at fourth in the entire league in offensive rebounds. Shumpert has 3-and-D potential and JR has his game where he goes off every once in a while. LeBron will be back in a week or so and Shumpert will get healthy eventually to come and add depth to the team.
They have all the tools to make this thing work. But just like LeBron said; "Rome wasn't built in a day." The problem is, if things don't turn around now, there is no way of getting out of the current situation they are in without leveraging what little title chance they have. Necessity is the mother of all invention, and if the Cavs become legit contenders, it will be because this roster needs to be.
They don't have any other choice.
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