Cleveland Cavaliers: 3 things the team desperately needs going forward

1. Shooters

There’s no way around it, the NBA is a shooter’s league now. The 3-point shot has revolutionized basketball and it’s impossible to be relevant without a team stacked with lethal shooters.

Sadly, no one on the Cleveland Cavaliers roster can be considered deadly from deep. No active player on the roster is shooting above 40 percent from the 3-point line and Kevin Love stands as the only one to connect on more than two deep balls a game.

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For league ranks, the Cavaliers sit in the bottom 10 for 3-pointers made and 3-point percentage. As a unit, the Cavs connect on an ugly 34.6 percent of their deep attempts.

Players such as Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, Kevin Porter Jr. and Cedi Osman have had hot streaks from deep but have yet to find any consistency. This shouldn’t be too alarming as Osman is the only one of the group above the age of 21. Inconsistency and youth go hand-in-hand.

Even so, the Cavaliers will need to solve their shooting woes before fixing anything else. Without consistent 3-point shooting, it’s more difficult for the rest of the offense to run smoothly. This impacts every player on the court and limits the options of even the best playmakers.

Furthermore, a reliable offense can sometimes be the best defense. The Cavaliers would be able to overcome some of their defensive woes if they were able to score at a higher rate from behind the arc. The lack of a dominant big man wouldn’t hurt as much if the Cavs were knocking down 3-pointers at the other end.

The 2020 NBA Draft doesn’t seem to be too stacked with shooters. It would be more beneficial for the franchise to target upcoming free agents such as Brandon Ingram, Evan Fournier and Bobby Portis.

Fixing this mess of a franchise won’t be easy but filling the lineup with sharpshooters should help quite a bit.