Cavs Season Preview 5 on 5

This offseason was no match for the summertime dopamine dream of 2014, but it’s been a healthy harvest in its own right. The fears of Kevin Love leaving were for naught, and anxiety of Tristan Thompson signing the qualifying offer then bolting next summer grow by the week. The injured have healed, and the weary have rested. If the Cavs were “all in” last offseason, they are pot-committed this year. Cleveland’s championship drought has been extended another season, but they are widely favored to win the title this campaign. Will we be in jubilation watching confetti rain on our Cavs’ final game of the season, or will we go on a Jameson bender to blackout the bad memories (it doesn’t work btw).

Additions: Maurice Williams (Hornets), Richard Jefferson (Mavericks), Sasha Kaun (CSKA Moscow), Austin Daye (Hawks), Sir’Dominic Pointer (draft), LeBron James (re-signed), Kevin Love (re-signed), Iman Shumpert (re-signed), J.R. Smith (re-signed), Matthew Dellavedova (re-signed)

Subtractions: Kendrick Perkins (Pelicans), Shawn Marion (glue factory), Brendan Haywood (the Xanadu Mark Cuban bought for him), Mike Miller (Anyone who will take him)

[Editor’s Note: These questions were asked and answered prior to yesterday’s unfortunate injury news on Iman Shumpert…]

1. What Cavs player will have the most growth this season?

EvilGenius: That guy who they traded for last year… who quickly re-signed a multi-year deal with the Cavs this summer… you know, the one with the shoulder issue… no, not Kevin Love (even though I believe he will have a much better year in year two of his Cavalier tenure now that he looks to be on the same page with LBJ, and has inked his long-term deal). The Cav that has the biggest growth potential this season is one Iman Asante Shumpert, and not just in the hair department…

While he’s already established himself as a defensive force on the perimeter for the Cavs, chasing around and shutting down the likes of Isaiah Thomas, Jimmy Butler, Kyle Korver and Klay Thompson in the ‘Offs (as Shump likes to call them) last year, the real strides he should make in 2015-16 should be on the offensive side of the ball. Yes, his numbers last year weren’t all that eye-catching, but Shump was having a pretty good start to the year with the Knicks before separating his shoulder in December, starting 24 games and averaging 9.3 ppg, 3.3 rpg and 3.8 apg. He even had a nine game stretch in November where he averaged 15.5/5/5 prior to the injury that kept him off the court for nearly six weeks of the season.

Between his shoulder and the fact that he was coming off the bench once he was healthy (which wasn’t supposed to be the plan, but the play of one J.R. Swish kept him there until the post-season), it’s not hard to see why Shump’s stat sheets weren’t all that filled. But, once he took over for a suspended J.R. in the Chicago series, he stepped up big, especially from three point range in the first two games going 8-17 from downtown. Unfortunately, Iman suffered a groin injury that would hamper him throughout the rest of the playoffs, but he was still able to contribute defensively and from beyond the arc again in the series against Atlanta (going 9-18 in the final three games). His injuries finally caught up to him in the Finals, but there have been enough flashes of talent from Shump to make me a believer that he’ll be able to get to another level this year if he can stay healthy. But don’t just take my word for it… listen to the King.

As LeBron said during the playoff series against the Hawks, Iman “will be on the all-defensive team in this league really soon.” It’s not the first time LBJ has touted Shump and the player he thinks he can become…

“(Shumpert) is a young guy who can form himself into what Jimmy Butler was a few years ago, just a guy who goes out there and you put him on the best offensive player, and he’s going to try to contain him the best way he can. I kind of see him as Jimmy Butler at some point for our team.”

— LeBron James

The comparisons to Butler go back to 2013, before Jimmy really grew exponentially in the absence of Derrick Rose. I don’t know if Iman can be Shump-tastic enough to rise to Butler’s level, but if he gets within shouting distance… look the heck out.

Mike: I would have said Kyrie Irving, as I feel his efficiency and all-around play would have likely improved this season even if his scoring average dropped a bit. It would not have shocked me to see Irving’s shooting percentages and assist totals improve as he continued to learn how to most effectively play alongside LeBron James and the rest of his fellow Cavaliers. I’d also expected his defense to continue to improve as he made the leap from train wreck to simply below average on that end of the floor last year.

But with Irving’s injury, it may take him awhile just to get back to where he was last season. Because of that, the player that will show the most growth this season will be Kevin Love. It’s not so much that Love will rise to a level as a player that he has never been to before, rather, improved health and a clearer, more comfortable role will allow Love to flourish with the Cavaliers in a way that he never did last season. Love’s improved play with two days rest last season is well-documented, and I could see him averaging something around 20 points and 10 rebounds per game this season and becoming a sort of co-second scoring option alongside Irving.

Ben: The Cavs don’t feature many young players on a sharp learning curve. The few young guys the Cavaliers do employ are either destined for mediocrity (Joe Harris) or have already established a consistent level of play (Tristan). For me, that only leaves Kevin Love. The GQ model has shown off his varying skill-sets at different points of his career. Early career rebounding prowess evolved to elbow majesty in his time in Minnesota. We all know Kevin displayed only a small percentage of his real strengths in his first year in Cleveland. Love’s comparatively few weaknesses (ya know, defense, putting your hands in the air like you just don’t care, etc.) were highlighted before the acquisition of Mozzilla.

That’s behind him now. This will be the first season of Kevin Love’s career that is really only about basketball. His contract his set. He doesn’t have Kaaaaahhhnnn, giving him shortchanged deals. He won’t have the media asking him where he will sign after the season. Love knows his place. Sure, the pressure of being a championship contender will be intense, but after all that Kevin has dealt with in the last few seasons it will seem a cake walk. His clarity off the floor will manifest itself into a completely balanced game on the court. I expect a huge season.

Cory: If Tristan Thompson signs the qualifying offer, it had better be him, for his own sake. At this point he’s an elite offensive rebounder, and great pick and roll defender—That’s about it. He’s going to need significant growth across the board offensively to justify anyone giving him a max contract.

David: The Cavs locked up Iman Shumpert this summer with a four year deal worth $40 million. During Shump’s 2012-2013 season with the Knicks, the last season the Knicks made the playoffs, he shot 40% from beyond the arc. That team spread the floor and used Carmelo Anthony in the high post to draw double teams. Iman took advantage of all the open shots. As the Cavs’ chemistry and offense develops this season, Shump will start hitting more deep balls. I don’t expect him to shoot 33% from downtown two years in a row. Iman may even rip off some heat check segments. Remember game six against the Bulls? Shumpert got clotheslined by Nikola Mirotic then scored eight of the next 13 Cavalier points effortlessly. And, don’t forget that he will be a defensive bulldog with a flat top who can poke and prod guards the entire length of the floor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT6Nqcs0rIM

2. The Cavs stumbled out of the gate last season to an untuned 5-5 start. How will the first 10 games play out this year?

EvilGenius: After a tough back-to-back on the road to start the season against the Bulls and Grizz respectively, the Cavs have one more early mental test (at least for LBJ) in their home opener against the Heat. After that, it gets kind of ridiculously easy for a while. They likely don’t play another guaranteed playoff team until Game 10 at Milwaukee. In between the tough start and a trip to the land of beer and cheese, they play the Sam Hinkie All-Stars (Sixers) twice, the Phil Jackson non-Triangle learners (Knicks) twice, the Pacers and the Jazz (both in Cleveland). And, despite the expected limited early season minutes for Kyrie, KLove and AV, there’s no reason to expect anything resembling last season’s mediocre start. After a strange off-season prior to last year, LeBron sounded like a man on a mission this summer. Old friend Mo Gotti and newcomers RJ and Sasha K should help off-set the easing in of the previously injured. I’ll say they’re sitting pretty at 8-2 after 10 games…

Mike: I’m going to go with a record of about 7-3. None of these last five teams in the stretch even definite playoff teams—the Bucks in particular could disappoint this season—but it’s possible the Cavaliers drop one or two games against the first three teams and one or more over the next seven games. Kyrie Irving seems likely to miss these first ten games, and the drop off from Irving to Mo Williams will probably cost the Cavaliers a few games here and there.

Ben: I would be absolutely shocked if the Cavs begin any worse than 7-3. Four games against the Sixers and Knicks guarantee a good start. They won’t necessarily win all four of those games, but having them on the schedule makes the more difficult games easier. The Grizz and the Bucks are the toughest games on the slate. I’m excited to see how the Grizz incorporate Brandan Wright’s roll game into their offense. He is a perfect addition to that squad. I can imagine some crafty double pick and roll sets with Conley, Gasol and Wright. The Big Spaniard is going to have a field day shooting wide open elbow jumpers or tossing precise ping pang passes and big to big alley-oops. It will be a nice early test for the Cavs’ team D.

Cory: I’ll go with a Cols-ian 9-1 record in the first 10 games. They’ll get beat up by the bruising Grizzlies front line, but the fit problems from last year are gone. The chemistry is there and the pieces compliment one another.

David: The Cavs will trip over the leftover casts, crutches, and stitches every one had from the summer and is trying to get rid of to get back on the floor. Mozgov, Irving, Love, and Andy are returning from injuries this year. Those guys will take a second to get their mojo back. I also expect the team will, once again, try to install Blatt’s motion offense, which might look a little sloppy early on. I’m predicting Cleveland starts out 6-4, despite playing the Sixers and Knicks four times in the first ten games.

3. What’s your greatest cause for concern about the roster?

EvilGenius: There really aren’t any glaring holes on this team, so the greatest cause for concern is injury. As the Cavs proved last year, they came within two games of a championship with a team that was fairly decimated by injury. An even slightly healthier squad probably gets it done… and a fully healthy squad wins it going away. They brought everyone back (yes, even TT will be back for at least one more year), and they added on. They notched a backup PG who can run the offense, pass and hit threes with some regularity, a veteran backup at SF who should be able to spell LBJ better than The Matrix did, and a well-seasoned fourth/fifth big who should be more versatile than Angry Smurf was. Not to mention, they are running Joker-style “tryouts” for the 15th and final roster spot with a bunch of young, athletic guys.

The only other thing that could be a concern or a distraction beyond injury, would be if the TT situation festers and sows dissent into the fabric of the team. A phenomenon I do not expect to occur…

Mike: Age and injuries. LeBron James turns 31 on December 30 and seemed mortal in the first half of last season. James Jones turns 35 on Sunday. New additions Mo Williams and Richard Jefferson are 32 and 35 years old, respectively. Some level of a decline almost has to be expected from each of them. On the injury front, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, Timofey Mozgov, and Anderson Varejao have all had surgery since the last time they played. Iman Shumpert battled injuries throughout the playoffs and really has done so throughout his career. Like any other team, the Cavaliers will need all of their players healthy and playing well come playoff time, but they may have more concerns in this department than any of the other true title contenders.

Ben: Youth and length on the wing. Smith and Shumpert provide some nice bounce at the three in small ball lineups, but I would prefer they get the majority of their minutes in the backcourt. Smith is a nice mismatch at the two with his size, but at the three, he loses a bit of that advantage. Richard Jefferson should provide his customarily sound floor game and corner shooting, but he lost his brakes a few seasons ago. The Cavs need to find a wing that can fly in the open floor. C’mon DJ Stephens! We are rooting for you!

Cory: Agents love money the way publicists love ranch dressing. I’ve only conducted a small sample size, but I suspect that publicists would wash their hair with that salad topper, if not for the fear that parsley and dill would fall from their capelli like green dandruff snowflakes. I get that Rich Paul is just doing his job, but holding the Cavs hostage now makes me want to ***blog edit.***

David: Last year’s playoffs are still on my mind. This roster needs to make it out of the regular season uninjured and energized. Blatt should rest every one on this team more and be more cognizant of the fact that the East is weak. The Cavs are driving a Ferrari, and the rest of the East is stuck driving a Prius. The race to the playoffs is laughably unfair.

4. Will they use the Brendan Haywood trade exemption, and if so, who do you want them to cash it in for?

EvilGenius: Outside of significant injury, or some sort of surprise malcontent situation occurring on another team that the Cavs can take advantage of, I just don’t see them using this particular asset until next summer. Beyond just having their health mostly intact for the playoff run, I’m not sure I could come up with something they’d desperately need at the moment (aside from a good accountant). This could certainly change as the trade deadline approaches, but for now I don’t believe they’ll use it.

Mike: This goes back to my previous answer. If the Cavaliers stay healthy, then they probably have no real need to use the Haywood exemption this season and may save it until next summer. That being said, it’s hard to see everyone staying healthy given the injury history of some of the players on this team, and the Cavs could use the Haywood exemption to fill a hole if a player is lost for the season. Depending on the position of need, players such as Marvin Williams, Chris Kaman, Randy Foye, Gerald Henderson, and—please no— J.J. Hickson are the kinds of veterans that will likely be available and affordable for contenders to acquire at the trade deadline.

Ben: I literally have no idea. A lot of it will depend on how the TT contract plays out. I’m certainly not the cap wizard on our fine site, but I would assume the Cavs will save it unless a very intriguing deal comes up during the season. Having it in the back pocket in case a major cog gets injured seems the logical choice.

Cory: It’s not that unlikely they use one of their trade exemptions in season if a pair of prerequisites are hit. If Thompson signs the qualifying offer, and Varejao goes down early and they receive an injury exemption for Andy, they could use the Haywood exemption. We’ll know the first part to that formula by October 1st. The second, will be a nightly worry. It’s tough to gauge a target this early, because most GMs are still in the honeymoon phase with the masterpiece they’ve built until the loses pile up. The Nets dealing Wayne Ellington for the Mike Miller trade exemption seems possible.

David: GM LeBron will force Dan Gilbert and management to use the trade exemption if some obvious hole on the floor develops during the season. Right now, the team should look at heat check guys and younger backup small forwards with high upside. Jae Crowder of the Celtics interests me quite a bit. He can defend, cut, and work off the ball as a forward. Boston has him locked up with a five year deal worth $35 million. The Cavs could fit him in with the Brendan Haywood exemption, and Boston might have to move him at some point if they need cap space to chase a disgruntled star this season.

5. If they don’t win the title, will the 2015-16 season be remembered as a failure?

EvilGenius: Depends on who you ask. I imagine that LeBron and Dan Gilbert would probably see it as a failure. Most of the rest of the young core of the Cavs probably wouldn’t though. Fans would likely be split down the middle on the issue. But failure is a tricky label. Would anyone consider last season a failure? The Cavs succeeded in putting together the best team in the Eastern Conference. They succeeded in overcoming early travails to pull together and go further in the post-season than any Cavalier team in history. They succeeded in winning 14 of the 16 games required to capture a championship. The only thing they failed to do was bring home the trophy. The reason why the ’08, ’09 and ’10 seasons felt like failures were because the team not only didn’t progress further than they did in ’07 when they got swept by the Spurs in the Finals, but didn’t even get that far again. If any of those teams had gotten back to the Finals and say lost in six or seven games to the Lakers or Spurs, it wouldn’t have been nearly as painful.

So, it really depends on the final outcome of the season. I, for one, do believe they will finally win it all this year. But, if for some reason they don’t, as long as they get back to the Finals and compete, I won’t consider the season a failure (but it would certainly put an enormous amount of pressure to win the following year). No, it’s only a failure in my book if they fall short of the Finals. They are head and shoulders the best team in the East, and there’s no excuse (beyond a major injury to LeBron) for them not to represent their Conference in the Finals. Once they get there, however, the road gets much tougher just given the quality of the Western Conference.

Mike: No. I’m not a fan of the “championship or bust” mentality. Some people take for granted that besides being great, a team has to be tremendously lucky to win a title. Whether it’s the health the Warriors had last season combined with the injuries to their opponents, or a crazy rebound that eventually found its way to Ray Allen for the Heat in 2013, there’s not denying that luck is a significant part of winning a championship in the NBA. The Cavs obviously had horrible luck with injuries in last year’s playoffs, and you would assume that their luck should only improve, but that’s far from certain.

I also look at the Cleveland Indians of the mid and late nineties as an example of how a close-but-no-cigar Cavaliers team and era would be remembered. Like the current Cavs, the Indians went into each season with as good of a chance as anyone to win a title, but never quite got the job done. Now, twenty years later, few people dwell on how those teams never won a championship. Instead, those teams are remembered for how much fun they were and how the fans loved those players. You could say the same of the Bernie Kosar Browns, the Cavaliers of Mark Price and Brad Daugherty, and even the Cavs teams of LeBron’s first go-around. These teams will be remembered and appreciated whether or not they win a title.

Ben: Absolutely yes. With this squad constructed as it is, there are no moral victories or “building for the future” good vibes. This team is full of players at or near their primes. LeBron is getting palpably older every day. The front court depth they have in 2015-2016 could be severely diminished the following season. The expanding cap will soon alter the rosters around the NBA making the future difficult to predict.

The Cavs very likely would have won the title last year with a healthier roster. The post trade/bowling trip Cavaliers were a destructive force at full strength. There is no Eastern Conference team that has any reasonable chance of beating a healthy Cavaliers squad. I don’t want to hear about the Bulls. They are overrated every year. The Heat would be scary if Wade were five years younger. The Bucks aren’t ready yet. The Hawks have the same backcourt shooting issues. If the Cavs make it back to the Finals, LeBron cannot lose again, especially to the Spurs or the Doc/Pierce combo. He needs this title. Dan Gilbert needs it for his pocketbook. And for the love of basketball, Cleveland fans need it. To finally cheer without reservation; to not await for that proverbial shoe to drop! It would be a cheer that no Clevelander has felt in two generations. A cheer of pure joy. We need this.

Cory: The 2015-16 Cavaliers team will be the best Cleveland sports team from today until President Trump leads us into a nuclear holocaust in 2018.  I have little faith in the Indians, and no hope whatsoever that the Browns will ever match the amount of talent we’ll see from this Cavs squad.  The Cavs most likely will never have a generational star like James again, and this could be the last year of LeBron’s apex prime. He’s flanked by the most talented roster he’s ever played with, Miami sabbatical included. Their shoes are broken in. There’s no more learning to play with one another. Whatever generic term an unpaid marketing intern comes up for promotional playoff  tee-shirts that will be on eBay a week later (Assuming they reuse “all for one”), that will be the battle cry. Unless half of the roster gets leprosy and their fingers fall off, I can’t see any of the mid-carders in the East taking them out. If they fall in The Finals, the window could close very fast. If LeBron’s career was an autobiography that he’s been consciously writing for thirteen years (it is), we’d be well past the photos section in the middle. This is the year. If they don’t win the title, the Cleveland failure montage will add a new chapter.

David: No. Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving are both looking to bounce back this year after serious injuries. That gives the Cavs a free pass for the season. At least that’s what I will be thinking if they don’t win the Championship this year. And, the West is stacked. I can’t name a team in the East that’s on the Cavs’ level, but in the West there are at least six teams that could beat the King’s Men: the Grizzlies, Warriors, Thunder, Rockets, Spurs and Clippers. As always in Cleveland sports, next year is when there will be true title expectations. The team will have played together for a full year, hopefully be healthy, and have truly bonded during two playoff runs.

Bonus Question: What’s your prediction for the outcome of the Cavs’ season?

EvilGenius: 62-20, Win the Championship… FINALLY!

Mike: 59-23, NBA Champs

Ben: 64-18, Best record in NBA, Championship

Cory: 65-17, Defeat the Clippers in six games in Finals

David: 55-27, Win the Finals in four games

Nate: 68-14, Champs

Tom: 58-24, Lose in Finals