Cavs: Tristan Thompson’s Role Becomes Even More Valuable
By Dan Gilinsky
With Kevin Love potentially sidelined for six weeks, the skill set of Tristan Thompson becomes even more crucial for the Cleveland Cavaliers to stay atop the Eastern Conference.
An injury to the Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star reserve obviously stings; everybody knows what Kevin Love does for us. He’s having his best season in Cleveland, with averages of 20.0 points, 11.1 boards per night, and overall offensive rating of 116. His production speaks for itself, but the injury bug has always seemed to get “Lil’ Kev.” Now he can be a chick magnet for a bit. Luckily for the Cavs, they have one of the best rebounders in basketball in Tristan Thompson.
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As Cleveland fans know, “Double T” got paid for doing what he does best: go after the basketball in traffic. With the way this team is presently constructed, you can’t overstate rebounding. You see so many instances throughout games that Double T gets the Cavs extra possessions. These often result in kickout three’s and dunks from ball movement a la LeBron, Kyrie, and company.
With K-Love out for over a month, Thompson’s offensive rebounding is even more important to get production out of shooters the likes of Channing Frye, Kyle Korver, and Richard Jefferson. He’s fourth in the Association in offensive rebounding, accounting for 3.7 per night. This is the key reason that he has the second-highest offensive rating of his career at 128. With more offensive weapons on the roster now, unlike the case when the Cavs were missing Love in the 2015 playoffs, Double T can still feast on the offensive glass at a high clip.
In addition to the offensive boards, Thompson has become much more effective in the pick-and-roll game. You saw some of that against the Minnesota Timberwolves Tuesday night, where he used rim runs and business-as-usual putbacks to put pressure on the interior defense.
Of course, Double T’s other staple is defensive versatility. He is surprisingly quick for being an interior defender, and that enables him to hedge out and take away blow-by drives from opposing guards. In addition, he was very effective in key moments against Minnesota in which he contained Karl Anthony-Towns, one of the best young bigs in the league. He wasn’t at his best in that game, with a plus/minus of -2, but he’s had his best defensive box plus/minus rating of his career overall this season at 1.9.
With Love out, Thompson is going to have a heavy workload on both ends. He has shown throughout his career, and in particular, with Love sidelined, that he is up to the task of cleaning the glass. With Double T carving out the inside, players like Frye, Iman Shumpert, and Korver just need to be ready to shoot the ball, as offensive rebounds cause defenses to scramble.
Key three’s came out of that against the T’Wolves, and newcomer Derrick Williams has shown he can help Double T with energy and hustle plays. Losing K-Love hampers the Cavs rotation a bit, but Thompson’s production will be there on a nightly basis, and the team will feed off it. It’s a “next man up” league, and the Cavs will lean on their mountain of a man for a while before they get back their All-Star. This should also help Double T’s confidence heading into the playoffs.
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Who will step up in Kevin Love’s absence? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section or Twitter @KJG_NBA.