Grade the Cavaliers 2019 Draft

sailfish said:

I hear what you’re saying, but there are two schools of thought to that. The Cavaliers passed up Damian Lillard for Dion Waiters in the 2012 draft because they already had Kyrie Irving and thought Waiters would be a better fit beside Kyrie. While Lillard has turned into a star in Portland, Waiters his floundered and is on his third NBA team.

The Cavs are early enough in this rebuild that they shouldn’t get too hung up on fit.

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The Cavs drafted Dion because they were worried about the fit with Lillard? Where did you read that?

That would be idiotic because Dion was also a ball dominant combo guard that didn’t pass. Not comparable.

jking948 said:

The Cavs drafted Dion because they were worried about the fit with Lillard? Where did you read that?

That would be idiotic because Dion was also a ball dominant combo guard that didn’t pass. Not comparable.

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I just heard someone talking about it yesterday. I’m not sure who it was. Maybe Chris Fedor?

He said Lillard was the top player on the Cavaliers’ draft board at the time. They passed him up for Waiters because they feared Lillard wouldn’t be able to play with Kyrie and they wouldn’t be a good fit together. Of course, the irony of it all was that Kyrie and Waiters weren’t a good fit and they ended up trading waiters, as a result.

jking948 said:

Kevin O'Connor's article at The Ringer is a big reason why I am "meh" about the Cavs' draft. Yes, they drafted three high upside guys, but unlike the Hawks, Grizzlies, and Pelicans, Altman and co. seemed to really not care about fit. It looks like we're running around like a chicken with it's head cut off.

The Hawks Are Building a Team to Complement Trae Young

With the draft-night additions of De’Andre Hunter and Cam Reddish, Atlanta GM Travis Schlenk is assembling a core of pieces around the franchise’s all-rookie point guard

www.theringer.com

Again, I actually like all three players the team drafted. To me, they all have the potential to be all-stars or high-level role players. But the fit is so questionable that I wonder if they can actually reach that potential. I give the draft a B-.

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The Hawks had a player to build around. We didn't.

With all due respect to Sexton, he has not shown he's worth building around at this point.

jking948 said:

Kevin O'Connor's article at The Ringer is a big reason why I am "meh" about the Cavs' draft. Yes, they drafted three high upside guys, but unlike the Hawks, Grizzlies, and Pelicans, Altman and co. seemed to really not care about fit. It looks like we're running around like a chicken with it's head cut off.

Again, I actually like all three players the team drafted. To me, they all have the potential to be all-stars or high-level role players. But the fit is so questionable that I wonder if they can actually reach that potential. I give the draft a B-.

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I think Koby did what he needed to do in the draft with this roster. I think Zion and Trae Young are more potential stars than Sexton is. I think the chips fell in the way that it just favored the Hawks. If they didn't get Reddish at #10 I don't think this draft looks that good for the Hawks.

As for the Pelicans, I think Griff had all the momentum going into draft day then I don't think he made the right decision to trade the #4 pick. He had the chance to pick a potential star pairing with Zion at #4 and decided to put role players around him. Hayes is raw and without knowing what exactly Zion will be in the NBA, I didn't think it made sense to draft someone that Zion might actually play the same position with some of the time. Non shooting bigs just doesn't seem to have much trade value in today's game. If Hayes and Zion don't work they won't get anywhere close to the #8 pick back.

Not sure if the #17 pick was on the table for JRs contract. That might have really changed the draft if Koby pulled the trigger on that and didn't let the Hawks get it.

Some people have problems with Garland because of fit with Sexton. But things will work itself out. First, because Garland will be way better than Sexton. I'm not saying Sexton is bad. Just Garland has way more potential as a PG.

Plus, here's a history lesson:
In 1986, the Cavs drafted PG Mark Price.
In 1987 the Cavs drafted PG Kevin Johnson. BPA
Both became NBA All-stars.
The Cavs eventually traded Kevin Johnson to Phoenix for Larry Nance.
Larry Nance has his number hanging in The Q, err, The Rocket.
Kevin Johnson eventually went on to become Mayor of Sacramento, Ca.
Larry Nance eventually became father to Larry Nance, Jr.
You could say Kevin Johnson is still paying dividends for the Cavs today!

I read so many negative things about Collin Sexton on here and, quite frankly, I just don’t get it?! I don’t like Sexton any less as a player because the Cavaliers drafted Darius Garland. This doesn’t have to be a ‘one or the other’ scenario.

Sexton showed tremendous growth this year as a player. While he may not be the playmaker & distributor that many of us prefer in a point guard, he is still developing and you will not find anyone that works harder than him. Sexton, with his work ethic, is a culture driver and I hope he’s a Cavalier for a long, long time.

Now that we have Garland, people seem so anxious to run Sexton out of town and that’s a shame. That kid deserves better...

sailfish said:

I just heard someone talking about it yesterday. I’m not sure who it was. Maybe Chris Fedor?

He said Lillard was the top player on the Cavaliers’ draft board at the time. They passed him up for Waiters because they feared Lillard wouldn’t be able to play with Kyrie and they wouldn’t be a good fit together. Of course, the irony of it all was that Kyrie and Waiters weren’t a good fit and they ended up trading waiters, as a result.

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This has been something that has been said for years by pretty much every Cavs beat writer and national writers that has good Cavs inside knowledge.

I actually think even after the draft that year it came out that they like Lillard alot but questioned his fit next to Kyrie and thought it was alittle too high to take him at #4.

Dion Waiters was marketed by his agent and his people as a SG. I think he was miscast and he would have been better developed by another team if they brought him in as a PG. When Dion was asked to run the offense and make plays for other he did a good job. That only usually happened when Kyrie was hurt.

I always thought if the roles were flipped or Dion and Kyrie were never assigned the titles of SG and PG they may have worked out alot better. They needed to be combo guards who shared the ball and were both good on and off the ball.

sailfish said:

I hear what you’re saying, but there are two schools of thought to that. The Cavaliers passed up Damian Lillard for Dion Waiters in the 2012 draft because they already had Kyrie Irving and thought Waiters would be a better fit beside Kyrie.

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Cavs said Waiters would fit next to Kyrie when they drafted him, but he never looked like a natural fit next to Kyrie to me. It always seemed clear that they were going to have to change their games to fit and it never happened. Cavs are saying Garland & Sexton can work together. While they could work together, it doesn’t seem super realistic to expect them to fit in the real world.

Douglar said:

Cavs said Waiters would fit next to Kyrie when they drafted him, but he never looked like a natural fit next to Kyrie to me. It always seemed clear that they were going to have to change their games to fit and it never happened. Cavs are saying Garland & Sexton can work together. While they could work together, it doesn’t seem super realistic to expect them to fit in the real world.

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To be fair, those two guys turned out to have some of the most fucked up egos I've ever seen. I'm mostly sure it was their personalities that were never going to mesh

Shit, I actually don't know if kyrie's personality will mesh with anyone at this point

Douglar said:

Cavs said Waiters would fit next to Kyrie when they drafted him, but he never looked like a natural fit next to Kyrie to me. It always seemed clear that they were going to have to change their games to fit and it never happened. Cavs are saying Garland & Sexton can work together. While they could work together, it doesn’t seem super realistic to expect them to fit in the real world.

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One thing that is never brought up with the Dion and Kyrie pairing was Grant was allergic to wing players. If we had decent wing depth, Dion and Kyrie wouldn't of been forced to play together as much. They used alot of 3 guard lineups with Delly and Jarrett Jack.

For Garland and Sexton to be successful, Koby will have to load up on versatile wings. Wings that can play 2-4 on offense and guard 1-4 on defense.

Y'all need to throw fit out of the window. We are so early in the rebuild that who gives a shit about fit, we're not making the playoffs in the next 2 years at least, we can always trade Sexton of course, our offense and coach won't devalue Sexton neither.

Year 2 of rebuild, you simply gotta go BPA. Garland was your BPA. When Garland is 25-26, you're going to watch him be one of the best at his position.

sailfish said:

I read so many negative things about Collin Sexton on here and, quite frankly, I just don’t get it?! I don’t like Sexton any less as a player because the Cavaliers drafted Darius Garland. This doesn’t have to be a ‘one or the other’ scenario.

Sexton showed tremendous growth this year as a player. While he may not be the playmaker & distributor that many of us prefer in a point guard, he is still developing and you will not find anyone that works harder than him. Sexton, with his work ethic, is a culture driver and I hope he’s a Cavalier for a long, long time.

Now that we have Garland, people seem so anxious to run Sexton out of town and that’s a shame. That kid deserves better...

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Sexton's fine. I don't think anyone is really down on him as a scorer at this point. He can put the ball in the basket and do so relatively efficiently already as a 20 year old. There's real tangible value in that.

If you want to call this next part a slight, so be it, but the reality is Sexton has pretty obvious limitations as a passer and defender to the point where the odds of him being a starter on a good team are already relatively slim. Essentially, he's a 6'2" SG who can't defend anyone. Even if he becomes a dynamic scoring threat (which is legitimately possible), he still might be a 6th man.

Tonedef75 said:

I gave it an A- mainly because in Garland I feel we drafted a quicker Paul Pierce with insane handles, in Winder we drafted a Paul Pierce clone, and with KPJ we acquired a young, raw Paul Pierce. The only reason I didn’t give it an A+ is because we didn’t hire Paul Pierce as an assistant coach.

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You don't post much, but that is the post of the week, hilarious. Only Paul Pierce could make a post that hilarious and dead on. Are you Paul Pierce?

Douglar said:

Cavs said Waiters would fit next to Kyrie when they drafted him, but he never looked like a natural fit next to Kyrie to me. It always seemed clear that they were going to have to change their games to fit and it never happened. Cavs are saying Garland & Sexton can work together. While they could work together, it doesn’t seem super realistic to expect them to fit in the real world.

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It is probably worth noting that attitude was probably a part of the reason Kyrie and Dion didn't work together. Kyrie is a total prick, and Dion didn't seem particularly interested in improving on his weaknesses or altering his game to fit better next to Kyrie. Obviously we didn't know it at the time, but it's pretty obvious that Kyrie is just a cancerous player and teams are finally starting to take notice.

I don't see that being as much of a problem for Sexton, as he's not a character concern guy. The main question will be if their size and lack of defensive prowess will be what ultimately dooms the pairing. I do think Sexton can become a better defender, as he's definitely athletic enough. He'll probably never be great, but if he can just push it to average that would go a long way. Having an actual coaching staff may help in that regard as well.

At any rate, I don't yet consider Sexton to be a player you build around. Maybe he becomes that, maybe not, but until you get that guy to build around you might as well take shots at finding him in the draft, fit be damned. Maybe Garland is that guy, or maybe Porter gets his shit together and becomes it. Regardless, I don't think it's fair to compare the Hawks and Cavs right now, as the Hawks are a few years further into a rebuild and have seemingly found their guy.

jking948 said:

Kevin O'Connor's article at The Ringer is a big reason why I am "meh" about the Cavs' draft. Yes, they drafted three high upside guys, but unlike the Hawks, Grizzlies, and Pelicans, Altman and co. seemed to really not care about fit. It looks like we're running around like a chicken with it's head cut off.

Again, I actually like all three players the team drafted. To me, they all have the potential to be all-stars or high-level role players. But the fit is so questionable that I wonder if they can actually reach that potential. I give the draft a B-.

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I see your point. That said, I don't know that building around Collin Sexton is advisable (and I say that as somebody who really likes him). This isn't the same as the Hawks building around Trae, or the Grizzlies building around Ja/JJJ, or the Pelicans building around Zion. (All of whom, unlike Sexton, were top-five picks.)

I suspect that the long-term backcourt fit (assuming everything breaks properly, which it almost never does) would be a starting backcourt of Garland and KPJ, with Sexton as a 30-MPG bench scorer. From that point of view, the fit seems a lot more apparent.