The Point Four-ward: Fantasy Versus Reality

Four points I’m thinking about the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) Well, the bloom is officially off the rose. The Cavaliers have lost. All the tiny cracks and fissures Cavs fans have seen in their team over the first four preseason games finally busted open full and wide in the team’s 108-102 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Friday. The turnovers. The consistently inconsistent implementation of David Blatt’s new offense. The porous defense. The less-than-fully-active roster. All of those were on full display and, in the end, the result was predictably not in the Cavaliers’ favor.

Now (he says for about the millionth time), most of this is just preseason stuff. Coach Blatt is clearly choosing to have his club ready to begin the season physically, even if that means making sacrifices in cohesion that result in all of the above. Friday was Kevin Love’s and Shawn Marion’s turns to sit, meaning Blatt hasn’t had his full roster to play with in-game since the Cavs’ preseason opening win against Maccabi Tel Aviv.

On this team’s mighty pre-season to-do list, installing Blatt’s offense is probably the most pressing thing to have near-fully in place by the end of the preseason and that seems to have largely been accomplished. Even though the offense still sputters sometimes — or, in the case of Friday’s game against the Mavs, it faces a situation (the Mavs’ zone) that the Cavs are not yet comfortable facing — it’s clear that players like LeBron James and Love (not to mention players 10-16 in the Cavs rotation) understand the offense enough to overcome early-season kinks.

So many of the team’s struggles stem from not just learning each other and the new offensive and defensive systems, but also learning how to keep those systems going when different pieces are on the court. Without Love to rev the engine of the Cavs’ transition game with his outlet passes, Kyrie Irving fell into his familiar habit of walking the ball up the court. With Irving, Love and James all missing at least one game this week, Dion Waiters saw fit to attempt himself a mess of shots. While everyone was drooling over the Cavs refashioned starting five in the pre-season opener, the reality that has emerged since that game is that this team still has a ways to develop as a team that can play well at less than full strength.

2.) Following the team’s loss to the Mavs, Blatt pointed to the team’s 20 turnovers as one of the main reasons why. For the preseason, the Cavs are averaging 16 turnovers per game, led by James who has coughed the ball up 14 times himself (good for 3.5 per). Last season, the Philadelphia 76ers led the league in most turnovers per game with 16.4. So, right now, the Cavs are giving the ball away at the same clip as a team who actually shied away from employing actual, healthy NBA players. Preseason or not, that’s not an encouraging sign.

But it is largely explainable. First off, the Cavs are a team featuring several gifted passers who are all learning a new offense that encourages making the extra pass. Many of James’s turnovers, as well as those made by his teammates, come from trying to pass too much, trying to zip the perfect pass through too tight a hole or targeting too concrete of waiting hands. This usually results in the ball being snatched up by a waiting defender or skipping off its intended Cav, but many of these passes are excusable in the preseason as they are the result of players figuring out exactly what they can get away with — what exactly all their options are — in this new offense. Some are also the result of James, at present, knowing the system better than the other Cavs on the court.

Add to that the fact that Irving missed three games this week with a sprained ankle and that turns James into the Cavs primary distributor (save for the game against the Bucks where James rested as well). It simply makes him more turnover prone at this point of getting ready for the season. Hopefully, Love feels better after his game off and Blatt can have a full roster to play with for the first time in two weeks.

3.) This time last week, people (myself very much included) couldn’t praise Waiters enough. He was playing more efficiently and, even if he tended to stop the ball on offense occasionally, it was stoppage that, according to his coach (at least publicly), wasn’t all bad. Waiters is a scorer, Blatt said, following the game against the Pacers. Scorers sometimes break the flow of the offense.

Well, that was before the last two games where Waiters shot a combined 8-29 from the field. Suddenly, the old criticisms of Waiters came roaring back.

Yes, Waiters is leading the team in shot attempts (13.6) through the preseason, but he has also been the only Cavs scoring option to play in every preseason game. What that means is that Waiters hasn’t yet really had to adjust how he “fits” into an offense that revolves around three other star players and he won’t until those three other star players are on the court with him consistently. For every preseason game (again, save the one against Tel Aviv), Waiters has seen some combination of Irving, Love and James out and has felt (I’d say correctly so) that he would have to up his game to make up for their absence. The fact of the matter is that Waiters is going to see so many better looking shots within this offense than he was used to seeing last season when he averaged 14.2 shots per game. Right now, he might be feasting a little — and, heck, Waiters might just be a tad streaky — but talk to me when he goes 3-15 in a game where Irving, Love and James are all options as well. That hasn’t happened yet.

(It will happen. I’m certain of it. Just wait to talk to me about it until then.)

4.) Finally, as part of our ongoing commitment here at Cavs: the Blog to making this upcoming NBA season truly one for the ages, I’m pleased to announce Cavs: The Fantasy League, wherein you, the readers, will get to find out just which members of the CtB writing staff actually knows a damn lick about basketball and which ones are just skating by on their good looks. Cavs: The Fantasy League will feature teams led by each of the CtB writers with the stipulation that each team needs to have at least one Cavalier on its roster. We’ll also provide fantasy podcasts and content throughout the season just in case there is not enough actual basketball to be discussed this year.

ALSO, as a little wrinkle and in order to fill out the league to a good size, we writers would like to challenge a few of you readers to take up arms and join us in Cavs: The Fantasy League.

So, drumroll, please…

Cavs: The Fantasy League challenges readers VESUS, EVIL GENIUS, RODNEY MAC, and COLS to match your fantasy basketball wits against our own.

My personal email address is in my bio. Drop me a line and let me know if you’re in. Details will be forthcoming.