Cleveland Cavaliers: Examining The New Team
By Joshua Howe
After LeBron James made his announcement that he was returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers, no one in their right mind believed that the franchise wasn’t going to try and contend for a title this season. LeBron is now 30 years old, and as his recent injuries reiterate, Father Time is undefeated.
Time, then, is of the essence. With Cavs players dropping like flies left and right as of late, the organization decided to pull the trigger and make a couple deals with what they had.
The first was this:
- Cleveland Cavaliers receive
- J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, protected future first-round pick (from Thunder)
- Oklahoma City Thunder receive
- New York Knicks receive
- Alex Kirk, Louis Amundson, Lance Thomas, 2019 second-round pick (from Cavaliers)
And this was the second:
- Cleveland Cavaliers Receive
- Denver Nuggets Receive
- Two (2015 protected) first round picks
Those are some big moves. Despite the nail-biting and head shaking at the fact that the Cavs gave up two first-round picks in all the commotion, they did manage to fill two needs: they found themselves a 3&D guy and a new rim protector with Anderson Varejao out for the rest of the season.
So, here we are. A mostly brand new roster at the beginning of the season has rearranged itself yet again. With a hypothetically healthy squad, the team now looks like this:
Starting Five
- Kyrie Irving (PG)
- Iman Shumpert (SG)
- LeBron James (SF)
- Kevin Love (PF)
- Timofey Mozgov (C)
Bench
- J.R. Smith (SG)
- Matthew Dellavedova (PG)
- Tristan Thompson (PF)
- Shawn Marion (SF)
- Mike Miller (SG)
- James Jones (SF)
- Joe Harris (SG)
- Brendan Haywood (C)
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Of course, the team is not healthy and that must be taken into account.
Smith did play Wednesday (badly, mind you, after coming off of a recent injury), but Shumpert did not and could be out for a while yet. He is set to be reevaluated in about two weeks time.
Both Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving have been fighting through injuries to play for the Cavs, and it’s pretty clear that both could use a little time off, but for now they’re suiting up to try and keep things afloat.
LeBron James is, of course, still out with his ailments as well and we’ve already mentioned the blow of the Varejao injury. Not only did his physical injury hurt the Cavs, but the fact that they had just signed him to a sizable contract put them in, as Zach Lowe so eloquently called it, “cap hell.”
That’s why the Cavs had to give up those two first rounders for Mozgov. What else did they have? They were running low on assets before they even made the deal.
But now the deals are done and we must look towards the future. The main thing is, as always, that the Cavaliers shall need to be healthy to really do any sort of lasting damage in the playoffs. So, let’s assume they’re healthy for the rest of this article.
OK? Think happy thoughts. Good.
More than anything else, it’s perhaps Shumpert who is the most exciting prospect and the one capable of a potential let down. His skill set is exactly what the Cavaliers need: he can shoot threes and is a solid perimeter defender.
LeBron even went so far as to say that he thinks Shump could become their version of Jimmy Butler, who has been stellar for the Chicago Bulls this season. While that might be a bit of a stretch, the potential is there for Shump to become something at least close.
There’s something to be said about playing on a losing team though, especially one as bad as this season’s New York Knicks. If you ask Knickerbocker fans, they might tell you that Shumpert is a bit overrated on the defensive side of things. But as we’ve seen recently with Rajon Rondo, coming to a new, better team with higher expectations can improve levels of effort almost immediately.
In terms of stats, Shumpert hasn’t been too bad at all considering the rest of his career: (24 games played, started all): 9.3ppg, 3.4rpg, 3.3apg, 1.3spg, 40.9 FG%, 34.8 3FG%, 67.6 FT%, 26.0 minutes
Thankfully, Shumpert is also just 24 years old. Having another young piece in the mix (a guard especially) is something invaluable to Cleveland at the moment, who have looked old for large portions of the season.
Mozgov isn’t as young as Shump at 28, but he’s right smack dab in the middle of his prime, and that’s good enough.
Age aside, the Cavaliers brought in Mozgov for a single solitary purpose: defend the dang rim so that Love at least has something interesting to watch while he stands there and gapes.
And Timofey can do just that. In 25.7 minutes per game in Denver, he held opponents’ shooting at the rim to just 48.6 percent when he contested them. He also averaged 1.2 blocks per game, which no Cleveland big has even come close to this year.
And his season stats? Definitely serviceable: (35 games played, started all): 8.5ppg, 7.8rpg, 1.2bpg, 50.4 FG%, 73.3 FT%, 25.6 minutes
Now remember what I said about rough times in New York? They affected J.R. Smith more so than Shumpert. He’s been dismal this season, battling injuries just like his formerly orange and white jersey-ed pal.
There’s not much to say about him. He’ll be taking the place of Dion Waiters on the bench in a sixth man role. One thing to be happy about here is that Smith is used to being a sixth man (he won the award in 2012-13) and actually enjoys that position, while Waiters had constantly pined to be a starter.
In full honesty, so long as Smith refrains from untying people’s shoelaces while he’s in Cleveland, I’ll be a happy camper, because the first trade really wasn’t about or for him.
Ideally, all three of these new additions will provide that extra oomph that Cavs have been missing all season. The organization saw that the team was crumbling beneath injuries and internal issues, and decided it was time to do something.
It will be even more difficult for David Blatt now, since he has to try and find a way to implement his new players into the “system” on the fly. And by “system,” I really mean LeBron’s pick and roll game that he loves to play and has played for the first portion of this season.
So now we wait. Again. We wait for LeBron to return, for Kyrie and Love to slowly heal while playing, for Shump to return, and to see if Varejao will donate some of his hair to Blatt after the coach inevitably rips out what little of his own he has left as he tries to survive the upcoming Western road trip.
Welcome to the chaos, Mozgov, Smith and Shumpert.