I feel like there are a lot of posts about making incremental adjustments or trades with Donovan Mitchell. Yet, it seems clear that the Cavs just won’t be title contenders unless they have a top 10-20 player, if not more than one. Don is really on the outside of top 20. I think the ringer’s [rankings](https://nbarankings.theringer.com/the-offer-sheet) are a good representation. I don’t know how you get a player like this unless we’re willing to trade some of the core or somehow entice someone enough to come here. With this, it just makes sense why we’re not good enough yet and need something outside the norm to happen.
by lukelivesfree
9 Comments
whats missing is a competent coach that will hack a shaq a center off the floor thats outrebounding your bigs during a playoff series
whats missing is a coach that will open up the rotation to include a yound sharp shooter and a rookie point guard that has helped us to a record of 14-7 every time he plays
whats missing is a coach that will use basic analytics to come up with a defensive scheme that takes advantage of the fact that you have two of the best defensive bigs in the league instead of whatever the fuck we try to get away with every night on the defensive end.
We have everything we need and at full strength we can hang with anyone in the league. We just need a decent coach to put it all together.
MIA, IND, HOU, ORL are not better teams than we are, they simply have better coaching. coach Bud to cleveland so we can see what this team is truly capable of.
What’s missing is experience. We have a lot of young guys and it’s extremely rare for a team as young as the Cavs to win a title. In a couple years if things progress as they are then the Cavs should be title contenders. These things take time, you almost never come out of rebuild and immediately become a contender
Don was 6th in mvp voting last year.
Personally I think the NBA talent pool is deep enough that you can realistically win a championship with multiple top twenty talents. Obviously there will always be an edge in basketball to the teams that are lucky enough to have the best guy, but it’s not like you can just give up if you don’t have them.
What’s needed is for Mobley and DG to move into the top twenty. Might be trending toward “unlikely to happen” at this point, but it’s certainly not a non-zero chance that it could happen. Also Mitchell’s ranking is at an all time low given our shellacking in the playoffs last year. If we win a playoff series and he plays well in it, he’ll magically be a borderline top ten guy again.
Yeah that ringer ranking is trash. Don is definitely top 20, they are just way too high on some unproven guys.
Time and experience is the path forward. We got a group of talented and motivated men who all seem to have love for eachother and their coach. A team with that is strong and will persevere.
1. Dominate 6’6″ plus player who controls the other team’s allocation of resources based on their dominate play.
2. High skilled secondary player who eats when deferred to.
3. Physically dominate inside defender/scorer.
What’s missing?
1. Frontcourt depth – Wade, Thompson, and Jones are not it. Crazy to say it but I would look at getting the Bulls to part with Andre Drummond. He’s kind of awful, and not enough people mention how many of his rebounds are his own misses, but that Knicks series last year showed us our bigs can’t play 48 minutes against big space eating centers. If not Drummond, a big man who can take up space in the paint like he does. Not sure what we’d give up.
2. Pace – 24th in NBA. Makes no sense that a team this young cannot play at a faster pace. I believe we can continue to play high level defense even if we open up the floor a bit.
3. Health is the biggest one. Seasons kind of getting derailed by injuries so far. There have not been many games with our intended starting lineup.
I think these things would help us get to the second round a beyond, but being an actual championship contender would require one of Garland or Mitchell being moved for a more compatible star
Pace health time and experience will do it. Shit Allen is only 25.