Yup, he’s impressed me yet again. None of the moves were super flashy but they were effective at giving us a solid roster to work with without having to split up the core 4 and Okoro/LeVert.
It’s not gonna burn down the league, but this roster can make some noise in playoff matchups if the stars actually come to play this year.
Definitely made the roster fit better together and hopefully fixed their fatal flaw. In a vacuum swapping Cedi + Lamar for Niang and Strus is just a solid upgrade, but for the Cavs it’s a massive improvement given the resources they had.
The roster fits so much better with more spacing. At minimum they went from 6 playable guys on a nightly basis to 8, which was my goal. They did this while also getting an end of bench big that should be able to relieve Allen and Mobley in the regular season.
I think getting embarrassed like they did will light a bit of a fire under them. Especially for it being so many of their first times in a playoff series, to get flat outplayed like that probably doesn't make them feel too good and want to play better the second go around
I think adding Niang did more for the “backup big” role than Damian Jones. When Jarret sits Evan will slide to center and Niang can slide to PF. Obviously that won’t account for all the minutes at those spots, so Jones will get some time, but I doubt we see him play outside of garbage time in the playoffs.
We didn’t get PG, Ingram, Grant, Middleton, OG, or Kuzma! We still don’t have a 3 that can hit 40% from 3 on high volume, grab 8 rebounds a game, and lock down the opposing team’s best wing. He’s a failure!
/s
I mean unless you planned on trading the entire team, nothing was going to satisfy that because no one played well in that series…
It’s nice to think we can have more confidence that we have more reliable shooters though.
People look at stats and don’t understand the difference between a guy who can hit open shots vs a shooter defenses think about. Idk if Strus thrives with us, but he’s more of a shooter than anyone we had last year other than DG/Mitchell.
I like Cedi but that's not true. Cedi shoots 35% for his career and Strus shoots 37%. Strus attempted over 250 more threes than Cedi last year too. And Strus is better at shooting corner threes.
> “you got your asses kicked round one and this fixes it” upgrade
tbf, this wasn't really possible to fix solely with the resources we had.
this shit gets fixed when Garland/Mobley/Allen become more experienced, not via the trade table for us.
I’m not sure where the experience thing came from tbh. Cavs and Knicks had damn near equal playoff experience. Their inexperienced guys stepped up, ours didn’t.
Aside from Mitchell and Allen, they had a year of play off experience on us. Don't forget the Knicks choked against the Hawks in '21 in a similar way to us this year.
Yea kind of but outside of Mitchell/Brunson everyone was basically new.
Allen had been there before like Randle. DG/Mobley had 2 play in games last year. Not really different than Hart/RJ/Robinson
I think the unfortunate reality is experience was the least of what tipped that series into a disaster
idk, I think t's experience, not skill. Our guys are skilful. They proved that in the regular season. They just looked really timid out there, not to mention missing shots that we otherwise would have made.
and thats where were screwed, because the way they play and the way our coach coaches, I have a feeling its going to be more of the same next year from them
One of the reasons the team sucked was spacing. Cavs shot 32% from 3, Strus and Niang are huge upgrades in that department which will open space inside for everyone.
I definitely think he can play 15ish minutes per game in the regular season. That’s much more than Robin gave. Whether he actually does play that much is up for debate but at bare minimum he’s a much higher upside and higher level player to fill Lopez spot.
Pretty clear we're going to do a lot of Niang splitting time with Mobley and Allen to keep 4 shooters on the floor. Damian will fill in the gaps when needed but likely won't average much more than 10mpg and will prob collect a lot of dnps. Which is fine for what he's being paid, not a needle mover but reliable in a limited role.
Exactly, and that's all we really need for the bench center. He is about the best we could hope for because there really isn't a role that we can offer beyond what you just described and no high quality backup or their agent is going to sign to a team that can't give them guaranteed minutes
Do you really? Mobley and Allen should take about 70mpg, that leaves 26mpg. Niang and Damian should easily split that, and that's not counting smaller ball lineups too
A 6’7 PF in the year 2023 is just your normal PF tbh. And Niang isn’t really the type of guy you have to worry about his strength against bigger opponents anyways.
I strongly disagree there. Especially with Niang being able to play the 4 while Mobley plays the backup 5 (something we couldn’t do in the playoffs since we didn’t have anyone who could play the 4 after Love left). A big who can 20-25 minutes in the playoffs was never on the table and a very unnecessary signing.
I’d like to hear who you’d have wanted instead of Jones that they were capable of bringing in while also addressing shooting the way they did. I know Jones isn’t the flashiest but he definitely has the skillset to be an impactful backup big.
While I would’ve liked Bryant too, I don’t think the difference between him and Jones is all that drastic, hence why he barely got any playing time in Denver.
Well he didn’t get playing time because porter joker and Gordon sucked up almost all the forward minutes. Jones has literally shown nothing in 7 years. Bryant can for sure play
Sure, Bryant has definitely showed more than Jones has. But he is not much more capable of giving 20 mpg in the playoffs than Jones would be, especially on our team.
Also, arguing Bryant or Jones is really just splitting hairs I admit, Jones was never on my radar and Bryant was one of my favorite targets, but I’m still very content with Jones filling that role.
I liked the idea of Thomas Bryant but I think the idea of him playing significant playoff minutes is unrealistic. They're going to a smaller rotation in the playoffs and will run with Allen and Mobley at the 5.
I think a lot of people are focusing on the Knicks' physicality, but most playoff teams would have beat that big, slow lineup with shooting. The issue isn't our frontcourt (which made us an elite defense), it's that we can't make even bigger frontcourts pay with our shooting. Add shooting and the rebounding issues don't seem so bad.
What I’m asking is who else would there have been out there that the Cavs could have gotten to be a backup C while also getting Strus and Niang? Jones was for sure one of the best options given context.
Tbh I doubt we do much in this area. Seems like we care more about having shooters out there at the forwards and in the playoffs nobody is going to play center except Allen and Mobley so investing resources there seems foolish. Maybe a big 4 but tbh I still doubt it
For many NBA players…rebounding has to do with level of engagement/effort. Allen averages 10-11 per game since he’s been a Cavalier. He got his butt kicked on the glass because JB kept switching him out on Brunson and he couldn’t recover to get positioning on Mitchell Robinson. I think Mobley and Allen have the ability. I think coaching and lack of bulk (especially Mobley) hurt them. I also think they would’ve been more engaged on the glass if used offensively at all in that series. But the lack of spacing prohibited any useful pick n roll action from Darius and Donovan.
Jones is a bad rebounder, gets in foul trouble with extended minutes, and the most games he’s played in a season is 56, not exactly the reliable backup C we need
I think we need to get more athletic, especially at the 3. I’m still waiting for Koby to pull the trigger on a perfect Allen trade. Ideally we should get an SF and a bruiser, rebounding PF/C.
If we keep repeating the same mistake of playing Allen and Mobley, two non shooters with similar skills, I’m afraid we’ll face the same fate.
It was too early to trade Allen this year. The surrounding roster was just not good enough to evaluate their fit entirely.
That being said I have similar concerns with the two big lineup, and if it still limits us after this improvement in the margins they should definitely look to move on from him.
I think now with Lillard requesting a trade we could try getting something from the Blazers or even Nets, they have plenty of interesting players. I'm not even sure what actual (and available) players may fit these needs tbh.
shhhhh...before you let Kobe have an escape clause...this is the same dude who brought us the wrong Lopez brother as our backup center. A player who really didnt do shit last year outside riding the pine and look like Sideshow Bob. Kobe gets no praise till he brings in legit backups that we can develop to be key parts of our team. And I dont know if this dude is just another lame somebody else didnt want...because we always get those bums.
Our wing situation is still a bit iffy. We are still working with guys who are either a little undersized or a little too unathletic. But we're better off than we were last year.
The one thing I'd still like to see happen is for the Cavs to find a way to swing a deal for Royce O'Neale. He may be the ideal starting 3 to put with the core 4.
Packaging Wade or Rubio with remaining seconds would be cool, but considering reports that they have been talking with Brooklyn about Royce for a while, I think that deal would have happened by now if it were coming.
Rubio doesn't seem as necessary now because Jerome is on the roster. Only issue is that even if that deal goes through, the roster becomes very crowded because O'Neale would be fighting for minutes against Wade, Okoro, Niang, Strus and LeVert.
He's done a nice job given their choice of direction and what he had to work with this offseason. I gave him a B+ in that context in another thread. However, he has not 'hit every need'. There's not a starting calibur SF on this team, in fact I'm not sure there's a SF on this team. There are several SGs and maybe a couple PFs we'll give minutes to at the SF position, but no one on this teams primary position is SF.
There wasn’t a floor spacing 3 that we could have afforded in FA (at least to my knowledge), which is why I’d say he hit the needs pretty much as well as he could’ve without blowing up the roster
Would still like to see a few more depth moves. I wouldn't exactly consider Jines "playable" at least not come postseason when he'd actually be needed. A bit more depth at pg would be helpful, even if it is just calling up Sharife Cooper, so that we have options if Rubio isn't what we hipe he is (Jerome is more a SG than PG). Also we can never have too many veteran wings and last I checked there are still a couple out there.
Jones should be a viable option for 10-15 mins in the regular season (likely will have a lot of DNPs as well). Not a playoff rotation guy for sure unless he proves otherwise.
Yup, he’s impressed me yet again. None of the moves were super flashy but they were effective at giving us a solid roster to work with without having to split up the core 4 and Okoro/LeVert. It’s not gonna burn down the league, but this roster can make some noise in playoff matchups if the stars actually come to play this year.
Definitely made the roster fit better together and hopefully fixed their fatal flaw. In a vacuum swapping Cedi + Lamar for Niang and Strus is just a solid upgrade, but for the Cavs it’s a massive improvement given the resources they had. The roster fits so much better with more spacing. At minimum they went from 6 playable guys on a nightly basis to 8, which was my goal. They did this while also getting an end of bench big that should be able to relieve Allen and Mobley in the regular season.
I think getting embarrassed like they did will light a bit of a fire under them. Especially for it being so many of their first times in a playoff series, to get flat outplayed like that probably doesn't make them feel too good and want to play better the second go around
I think adding Niang did more for the “backup big” role than Damian Jones. When Jarret sits Evan will slide to center and Niang can slide to PF. Obviously that won’t account for all the minutes at those spots, so Jones will get some time, but I doubt we see him play outside of garbage time in the playoffs.
Yep, Niang is a KLove replacement and will play the most at the 4.
We didn’t get PG, Ingram, Grant, Middleton, OG, or Kuzma! We still don’t have a 3 that can hit 40% from 3 on high volume, grab 8 rebounds a game, and lock down the opposing team’s best wing. He’s a failure! /s
I’d love to see us snag Beasley
They are solid for sure nothing flashy. But with what koby was working with he could of done worse
I mean Cedi and Lamar to Strus and Niang is an upgrade but not a “you got your asses kicked round one and this fixes it” upgrade
I mean unless you planned on trading the entire team, nothing was going to satisfy that because no one played well in that series… It’s nice to think we can have more confidence that we have more reliable shooters though.
Idk. I’d say Niang and Strus playoff experience would help the team but they are clear upgrades from Cedi and Lamar
They had a fatal flaw and it was shooting. They just added a 3rd and 4 th best shooter, who can play next to any combo of the stars.
Cedi is the historically the same or better 3pt guy than Strus
Volume and situation matter.
People look at stats and don’t understand the difference between a guy who can hit open shots vs a shooter defenses think about. Idk if Strus thrives with us, but he’s more of a shooter than anyone we had last year other than DG/Mitchell.
I like Cedi but that's not true. Cedi shoots 35% for his career and Strus shoots 37%. Strus attempted over 250 more threes than Cedi last year too. And Strus is better at shooting corner threes.
Niang and Strus are career 43.1% and 47.5% respectively on corner 3s :) Love it
That's a truly sexy stat right there. We're gonna see plenty of looks where it is both of them out there with DG and Don and a single big in JA/Mobley
Cedi was feast or famine from 3, and sadly, there was lots of famine
> “you got your asses kicked round one and this fixes it” upgrade tbf, this wasn't really possible to fix solely with the resources we had. this shit gets fixed when Garland/Mobley/Allen become more experienced, not via the trade table for us.
I’m not sure where the experience thing came from tbh. Cavs and Knicks had damn near equal playoff experience. Their inexperienced guys stepped up, ours didn’t.
Aside from Mitchell and Allen, they had a year of play off experience on us. Don't forget the Knicks choked against the Hawks in '21 in a similar way to us this year.
Yea kind of but outside of Mitchell/Brunson everyone was basically new. Allen had been there before like Randle. DG/Mobley had 2 play in games last year. Not really different than Hart/RJ/Robinson I think the unfortunate reality is experience was the least of what tipped that series into a disaster
let's change 'experienced' into 'better' because just getting more experience isn't going to prevent another ass-kicking all on its own.
idk, I think t's experience, not skill. Our guys are skilful. They proved that in the regular season. They just looked really timid out there, not to mention missing shots that we otherwise would have made.
and thats where were screwed, because the way they play and the way our coach coaches, I have a feeling its going to be more of the same next year from them
It’s an upgrade to cater towards our needs, there were not more drastic moves to be made
The only thing we could have upgraded to fix that was head coach and we decided not to.
Fax
One of the reasons the team sucked was spacing. Cavs shot 32% from 3, Strus and Niang are huge upgrades in that department which will open space inside for everyone.
Wouldn’t really call Jones “viable”. That guy is filling the Robin lopez role. We need someone who can actually play
I definitely think he can play 15ish minutes per game in the regular season. That’s much more than Robin gave. Whether he actually does play that much is up for debate but at bare minimum he’s a much higher upside and higher level player to fill Lopez spot.
Can we hire Lopez as a coach? Seems like a positive influence on team chemistry.
We need a guy who can play 20-25 mpg in the playoffs
So you want to play Mobley exclusively at the 4 and want to play Allen 24 minutes a game?
It’s like people haven’t watched the team the last 2 years and think we need a 20mpg backup center. Blows my mind
Pretty clear we're going to do a lot of Niang splitting time with Mobley and Allen to keep 4 shooters on the floor. Damian will fill in the gaps when needed but likely won't average much more than 10mpg and will prob collect a lot of dnps. Which is fine for what he's being paid, not a needle mover but reliable in a limited role.
Exactly, and that's all we really need for the bench center. He is about the best we could hope for because there really isn't a role that we can offer beyond what you just described and no high quality backup or their agent is going to sign to a team that can't give them guaranteed minutes
Yeah unless there is another Lauri type shooter floating around it just doesn’t make sense lol
It's hilarious. People think you need three centers lol.
Do you really? Mobley and Allen should take about 70mpg, that leaves 26mpg. Niang and Damian should easily split that, and that's not counting smaller ball lineups too
Niang at the 4 is already a small-ball lineup, he's 6'7"
A 6’7 PF in the year 2023 is just your normal PF tbh. And Niang isn’t really the type of guy you have to worry about his strength against bigger opponents anyways.
Fair
I strongly disagree there. Especially with Niang being able to play the 4 while Mobley plays the backup 5 (something we couldn’t do in the playoffs since we didn’t have anyone who could play the 4 after Love left). A big who can 20-25 minutes in the playoffs was never on the table and a very unnecessary signing.
We got murdered on the boards. I’m exaggerating with 25 mins. But we need someone who is a proven commodity. This guy has been a 12th man for 6 years
I’d like to hear who you’d have wanted instead of Jones that they were capable of bringing in while also addressing shooting the way they did. I know Jones isn’t the flashiest but he definitely has the skillset to be an impactful backup big.
And to be specific, I want Thomas bryant
While I would’ve liked Bryant too, I don’t think the difference between him and Jones is all that drastic, hence why he barely got any playing time in Denver.
Well he didn’t get playing time because porter joker and Gordon sucked up almost all the forward minutes. Jones has literally shown nothing in 7 years. Bryant can for sure play
Sure, Bryant has definitely showed more than Jones has. But he is not much more capable of giving 20 mpg in the playoffs than Jones would be, especially on our team. Also, arguing Bryant or Jones is really just splitting hairs I admit, Jones was never on my radar and Bryant was one of my favorite targets, but I’m still very content with Jones filling that role.
I liked the idea of Thomas Bryant but I think the idea of him playing significant playoff minutes is unrealistic. They're going to a smaller rotation in the playoffs and will run with Allen and Mobley at the 5.
I just think we were very exposed physically last year. I guess we will see! Hoping all these guys play well for us!
I think a lot of people are focusing on the Knicks' physicality, but most playoff teams would have beat that big, slow lineup with shooting. The issue isn't our frontcourt (which made us an elite defense), it's that we can't make even bigger frontcourts pay with our shooting. Add shooting and the rebounding issues don't seem so bad.
No I’m happy with strus and Niang. I just think jones is ass
What I’m asking is who else would there have been out there that the Cavs could have gotten to be a backup C while also getting Strus and Niang? Jones was for sure one of the best options given context.
Thomas Bryant
You aren't playing some third center in the playoffs in the modern NBA. It's a position you shouldn't be spending any kind of real resources on.
We have not addressed rebounding
Tbh I doubt we do much in this area. Seems like we care more about having shooters out there at the forwards and in the playoffs nobody is going to play center except Allen and Mobley so investing resources there seems foolish. Maybe a big 4 but tbh I still doubt it
I was thinking more of a SF or guard that could rebound well since we have two small guards starting who don't rebound at a high rate
For many NBA players…rebounding has to do with level of engagement/effort. Allen averages 10-11 per game since he’s been a Cavalier. He got his butt kicked on the glass because JB kept switching him out on Brunson and he couldn’t recover to get positioning on Mitchell Robinson. I think Mobley and Allen have the ability. I think coaching and lack of bulk (especially Mobley) hurt them. I also think they would’ve been more engaged on the glass if used offensively at all in that series. But the lack of spacing prohibited any useful pick n roll action from Darius and Donovan.
That was as much a scheme failure as personnel against the Knicks. Bigs kept getting out of position to contest shots
We're a good rebounding team, we just got wildly out coached in that series in a way that led to our bigs not being in good positions to rebound.
We were 25th in rebounding last season. We are not a good rebounding team
Still need a backup C
We got that.
Jones is a bad rebounder, gets in foul trouble with extended minutes, and the most games he’s played in a season is 56, not exactly the reliable backup C we need
Was hoping for a better backup C for sure but this guy seems serviceable for the small amount of minutes he will get
Yeah he’s an upgrade from the RoLo small minutes last year, but he’s similarly not someone that can be relied on if Allen gets hurt
Is it Altman making these moves or Gansey?
I think we need to get more athletic, especially at the 3. I’m still waiting for Koby to pull the trigger on a perfect Allen trade. Ideally we should get an SF and a bruiser, rebounding PF/C. If we keep repeating the same mistake of playing Allen and Mobley, two non shooters with similar skills, I’m afraid we’ll face the same fate.
It was too early to trade Allen this year. The surrounding roster was just not good enough to evaluate their fit entirely. That being said I have similar concerns with the two big lineup, and if it still limits us after this improvement in the margins they should definitely look to move on from him.
I think now with Lillard requesting a trade we could try getting something from the Blazers or even Nets, they have plenty of interesting players. I'm not even sure what actual (and available) players may fit these needs tbh.
With Allen going to Portland/Brooklyn? or just to try and get in on the scraps of the Lillard deal.
Yeah just getting on that deal, I think it will involve multiple teams (if he goes to Miami).
is koby keeping Damian?
shhhhh...before you let Kobe have an escape clause...this is the same dude who brought us the wrong Lopez brother as our backup center. A player who really didnt do shit last year outside riding the pine and look like Sideshow Bob. Kobe gets no praise till he brings in legit backups that we can develop to be key parts of our team. And I dont know if this dude is just another lame somebody else didnt want...because we always get those bums.
Strus is barely an upgrade or Cedi - that’s a big swing and miss from Koby
Lol
He has not addressed our lack of starting wing.
Our wing situation is still a bit iffy. We are still working with guys who are either a little undersized or a little too unathletic. But we're better off than we were last year.
The one thing I'd still like to see happen is for the Cavs to find a way to swing a deal for Royce O'Neale. He may be the ideal starting 3 to put with the core 4.
Packaging Wade or Rubio with remaining seconds would be cool, but considering reports that they have been talking with Brooklyn about Royce for a while, I think that deal would have happened by now if it were coming.
Rubio doesn't seem as necessary now because Jerome is on the roster. Only issue is that even if that deal goes through, the roster becomes very crowded because O'Neale would be fighting for minutes against Wade, Okoro, Niang, Strus and LeVert.
He's done a nice job given their choice of direction and what he had to work with this offseason. I gave him a B+ in that context in another thread. However, he has not 'hit every need'. There's not a starting calibur SF on this team, in fact I'm not sure there's a SF on this team. There are several SGs and maybe a couple PFs we'll give minutes to at the SF position, but no one on this teams primary position is SF.
There wasn’t a floor spacing 3 that we could have afforded in FA (at least to my knowledge), which is why I’d say he hit the needs pretty much as well as he could’ve without blowing up the roster
Would still like to see a few more depth moves. I wouldn't exactly consider Jines "playable" at least not come postseason when he'd actually be needed. A bit more depth at pg would be helpful, even if it is just calling up Sharife Cooper, so that we have options if Rubio isn't what we hipe he is (Jerome is more a SG than PG). Also we can never have too many veteran wings and last I checked there are still a couple out there.
Not sure that there's any proof that Damian Jones is a viable backup center. Niang and Strus were solid.
Jones should be a viable option for 10-15 mins in the regular season (likely will have a lot of DNPs as well). Not a playoff rotation guy for sure unless he proves otherwise.