How good was this team?

[Ohioplayer00]

You hope a Harden like fallout happens and we swoop in. No way we sign a guy and no way we draft a superstar where we are drafting. We don’t even have the pieces to get a Zion if he does request out of NO. We are kinda in Portland Trailblazer territory but without the luxury of having a bonafide superstar. It sucks

If your scouting department knows/does it job/homework you CAN find a superstar in 13-17 range of the draft (ie Gannis, the Joker, Seikam are prime examples)
Problem is our scouting leaves a lot to be desired in that area. Who was the last “diamond in the rough”…..13 pick or lower that we hit a home run on?

 

[stick]

You hope a Harden like fallout happens and we swoop in. No way we sign a guy and no way we draft a superstar where we are drafting. We don’t even have the pieces to get a Zion if he does request out of NO. We are kinda in Portland Trailblazer territory but without the luxury of having a bonafide superstar. It sucks

Never say never
Giannis - 15th pick
Kawhi - 15th pick
Tiny Gallon - 47th pick
----
Klay "Top 75 Striver" - 11th pick
Bam Adebayo - 14th pick
Devin Booker - 13th pick
Paul George - 10th pick
---
Zach LaVine - 13th pick
Mikal Bridges - 10th pick
Donovan Mitchell - 13th pick
Haliburton - 12th pick
MPJ - 14th pick
---
Sengun - 16th pick
Earl Clark - 14th pick

Among others in the last 15 years...

There's FOR SURE players in the 10-16 range that don't pan out, but... This range can absolutely have some difference making players. Giannis and arguably Kawhi are the main two from that range in the last 15 years or so that attained the superstar level in my opinion (with the caveat being: that tier is subjective), so it's rare but not unheard of. The situation with the current Cavs is not as established as the Spurs were or dire like the Bucks (though the 2012 Bucks finished with 38 wins, their team was poised for a youth movement and prime for a rebuild).

Draft class wise? Has a lot of potential (I am bias and just recently starting diving in though! Take that opinion with a grain of salt), I suspect multiple players in the 10-20 range to be on similar tiers to the above players. This class could be as good (sheer volume of impact players...) as 2011 or 2018.

Wanna add for current Cavs, in my opinion...
Evan Mobley can be a superstar, as in top 3-5 player in the entire league for multiple years.
DG is foundational. His potential is extreme and his floor is very high.

There's some good/very good young players filling out the roster elsewhere.

Cavs are in better position now than Portland has been since 1984 when they could've drafted MJ.

 

[B Mac]

You hope a Harden like fallout happens and we swoop in. No way we sign a guy and no way we draft a superstar where we are drafting. We don’t even have the pieces to get a Zion if he does request out of NO. We are kinda in Portland Trailblazer territory but without the luxury of having a bonafide superstar. It sucks

Luka was the dream. With his ties to the Cleveland community, a rocky relationship with his coach and some in the front office, and the lack of talent they surrounded him with, he was 100% the guy I have been keeping my eye on. The absolute perfect fit between Darius and Evan, and would easily become the best trio in the league.

You offer anything and everything aside from Garland and Mobley if he possibly comes available. Allen, Lauri, Okoro, expirings, picks, take on bad contracts, etc.. all on the table.

Unfortunately, with the coaching change and trading off Porzingis, they look to have patched things up. Still, you never know in the NBA.

 

[KilgoreTrout]

I think we were better earlier in the year, when we had Ricky, and when Mobley had more gas in the tank. Once Ricky went down, the bench went from being a strength to a weakness, and the lack of a sophisticated offense hurt Mobley and put too much weight on Garland’s shoulders. It’s a real question as to whether any of that will change next year. Sexton coming back and Mobley developing would help, but the Sexton/Garland backcourt still isn’t viable, and the Markk/Love in lieu of a real 3 isn’t a long-term solution, either.

 

[Cavatt]

Luka was the dream. With his ties to the Cleveland community, a rocky relationship with his coach and some in the front office, and the lack of talent they surrounded him with, he was 100% the guy I have been keeping my eye on. The absolute perfect fit between Darius and Evan, and would easily become the best trio in the league.

You offer anything and everything aside from Garland and Mobley if he possibly comes available. Allen, Lauri, Okoro, expirings, picks, take on bad contracts, etc.. all on the table.

Unfortunately, with the coaching change and trading off Porzingis, they look to have patched things up. Still, you never know in the NBA.

I wonder if we had gotten Luka if we would have gotten anyone else? Would you rather have Luka over Garland, Mobely Allen?

 

[KilgoreTrout]

Luka was the dream. With his ties to the Cleveland community, a rocky relationship with his coach and some in the front office, and the lack of talent they surrounded him with, he was 100% the guy I have been keeping my eye on. The absolute perfect fit between Darius and Evan, and would easily become the best trio in the league.

You offer anything and everything aside from Garland and Mobley if he possibly comes available. Allen, Lauri, Okoro, expirings, picks, take on bad contracts, etc.. all on the table.

Unfortunately, with the coaching change and trading off Porzingis, they look to have patched things up. Still, you never know in the NBA.

Luka has ties to Cleveland?

 

[B Mac]

Luka has ties to Cleveland?

Cleveland has the most Slovenians residing in the city of any place in the world outside of Slovenia.

Approximately 80-100 thousand citizens in Cleveland are of Slovenian heritage.

 

[CavsKermit]

The team was very good with Rubio, and pretty good without him, but the difference between playing .600 ball (against the tougher part of the schedule), and winning at a .544 percentage (against the easier part of your schedule) is wider than it appears. If you're beating good teams on a consistent basis, you can win in the postseason.

I feel like there wasn't an appreciation of what was lost when Rubio went down in terms of there being no way to realistically replace what he did in-season. That lead folks to assume we were a LeVert trade away from making a deep run in the playoffs, when clearly we were not. Fit, and different skill sets, matter more than points on a stat sheet.

Allen going down as well was the blow we couldn't absorb. We probably hold the sixth seed if he stays healthy and give a first round team a scare.

 

[Heat Check]

The team was very good with Rubio, and pretty good without him, but the difference between playing .600 ball (against the tougher part of the schedule), and winning at a .544 percentage (against the easier part of your schedule) is wider than it appears. If you're beating good teams on a consistent basis, you can win in the postseason.

I feel like there wasn't an appreciation of what was lost when Rubio went down in terms of there being no way to realistically replace what he did in-season. That lead folks to assume we were a LeVert trade away from making a deep run in the playoffs, when clearly we were not. Fit, and different skill sets, matter more than points on a stat sheet.

Allen going down as well was the blow we couldn't absorb. We probably hold the sixth seed if he stays healthy and give a first round team a scare.

Allen was a big blow, but again, IMO, people are really overestimating Rubio's influence. He's become something of a talisman by now – a symbol for the time when were were beating "good" teams (many of which were without their best players).

We have no way of knowing if Rubio would've made any difference in the 2nd half of the season, when it all started crumbling. Personally, I don't think so. While I've always been a fan of Ricky, he was having a "meh" season statistically, and particularly scoring-wise, he was outright awful. Making 38% of his 2pt shots, many of which were layups? Come on, man. He was also putting up shots at a career high clip for some reason, often acting like the second (or even the first) option out there.

That's not to say that the LeVert trade wasn't a mistake, though. His acquisition essentially made a bad situation worse.

 

[CavsKermit]

Allen was a big blow, but again, IMO, people are really overestimating Rubio's influence. He's become something of a talisman by now – a symbol for the time when were were beating "good" teams (many of which were without their best players).

We have no way of knowing if Rubio would've made any difference in the 2nd half of the season, when it all started crumbling. Personally, I don't think so. While I've always been a fan of Ricky, he was having a "meh" season statistically, and particularly scoring-wise, he was outright awful. Making 38% of his 2pt shots, many of which were layups? Come on, man.

That's not to say that the LeVert trade wasn't a mistake, though. His acquisition essentially made a bad situation worse.

Rubio was very good at seeing the entire floor and using all the players at his disposal. When he was out there with the starters, he had Lauri and Garland to help space the floor, which worked because he actually passed it to them when they were open. It was a problem for opposing defenses and not one that 4 defenders in the paint or blitzing Garland could fix. This is before you get into him playing with two seven footers who had offensive games and he's basically a maestro in that regard.

Rubio's been the big man whisper his entire career which is why where ever he plays, the big men have some the best seasons of their careers: Love, Gobert, Ayton, KAT, and then last year, here with Allen. Making a timely and on target pass ought not be a rare skill in a professional basketball league, but in the NBA, where the league is filled with it undersized SGs masquerading as PGs, it most certainly is.

Big men who eat are happy and play hard. Big men who eat worry and distract defenses. As good as Garland is, Rubio is better at entry passes in that he's not overly reliant on lobs.

He made a significant difference on the offensive end of the court.

*that 38% is deceptive because he almost always caused the opposing big to help off of Allen or Mobley who promptly stuffed the ball in the hoop off the offensive rebound.

 

[Lee]

Never say never
Giannis - 15th pick
Kawhi - 15th pick
Tiny Gallon - 47th pick
----
Klay "Top 75 Striver" - 11th pick
Bam Adebayo - 14th pick
Devin Booker - 13th pick
Paul George - 10th pick
---
Zach LaVine - 13th pick
Mikal Bridges - 10th pick
Donovan Mitchell - 13th pick
Haliburton - 12th pick
MPJ - 14th pick
---
Sengun - 16th pick
Earl Clark - 14th pick

Among others in the last 15 years...

There's FOR SURE players in the 10-16 range that don't pan out, but... This range can absolutely have some difference making players. Giannis and arguably Kawhi are the main two from that range in the last 15 years or so that attained the superstar level in my opinion (with the caveat being: that tier is subjective), so it's rare but not unheard of. The situation with the current Cavs is not as established as the Spurs were or dire like the Bucks (though the 2012 Bucks finished with 38 wins, their team was poised for a youth movement and prime for a rebuild).

Draft class wise? Has a lot of potential (I am bias and just recently starting diving in though! Take that opinion with a grain of salt), I suspect multiple players in the 10-20 range to be on similar tiers to the above players. This class could be as good (sheer volume of impact players...) as 2011 or 2018.

Wanna add for current Cavs, in my opinion...
Evan Mobley can be a superstar, as in top 3-5 player in the entire league for multiple years.
DG is foundational. His potential is extreme and his floor is very high.

There's some good/very good young players filling out the roster elsewhere.

Cavs are in better position now than Portland has been since 1984 when they could've drafted MJ.

Miles Bridges would be perfect for the Cavs, is his twin available at 14 in this draft? ( i mean obviously Giannis but he is a once in a lifetime, lol)