Next season, expect the Cleveland Cavaliers to deploy Channing Frye early and often as the team’s main offensive threat off the bench.
Channing Frye the Cleveland Cavaliers biggest weapon on the bench next season. The 6-foot-11 forward is a flamethrower from three-point range and after 11 years in the NBA, has the ability to protect the paint with veteran savvy to complement his lanky frame.
His story is enough to make anyone a fan of him as a person. A few minutes of watching a player near seven-feet tall get white-hot from three while sporting a lightning-quick release is enough to make many people fans of him as a player. In this perimeter-oriented era of the NBA, Frye is a the prototype stretch-four and he always has been.
The former lottery pick rose from the bottom of the high school recruitment ranks and in two seasons with the New York Knicks, the team that drafted him eighth overall in 2005, Frye was successful. In those seasons, Frye averaged 10.8 points and 5.6 rebounds per game but with the ascension of David Lee, Frye became expendable. The New York Knicks traded Frye and guard Steve Francis to the Portland Trail Blazers for Zach Randolph, on a 2007 draft night trade. Current Cavaliers small forward James Jones was also acquired by the Trail Blazers that summer.
Unfortunately, in the following two seasons, Frye seemed to flame out completely with Portland. As a backup to the LaMarcus Aldridge, Frye didn’t get much opportunity to shine despite being the same player who averaged 10.8 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. When his rookie contract expired it was a safe bet that Frye would sign with another team.
After the 2009-10 season, the Cleveland Cavaliers attempted to sign Frye. Frye would have started for the Cavaliers, as the team would have been able to pair their superstar small forward with a floor-spacing power forward that complemented LeBron James‘ ability to penetrate the lane at will. Situations like the following could have played out for the Cavaliers six years earlier.
However, Frye who long desired to play and with Steve Nash, signed with the Phoenix Suns instead. In four years with the Suns, Frye averaged 11.4 points and 5.7 rebounds per game for the Suns while also finding a three-point shot and shooting 38.9 percent from long distance. In 2012, four games before the playoffs, Frye went down with a shoulder injury. Then, two months later, Frye’s daughter was diagnosed with cataracts in both eyes.
Before the start of the season, and recovering from injury, Frye was diagnosed with an enlarged heart. He was told he’d never play basketball again. He only was able to eventually perform the basketball activities that would have been strenuous enough to kill him because of yoga and golf.
After Nash and Grant Hill‘s departures from the Suns, Frye was a prime candidate for free agent relocation once again. Although fond of head coach Alvin Gentry, in 2014, Frye signed another four-year deal but this time with the Orlando Magic.
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In two seasons with the Magic, Frye was underutilized as the team tried to develop Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic. While being a primary trade target of Cavaliers general manager David Griffin, who was the Suns Vice President of Basketball Operations from 2007 to 2010, Frye averaged 6.1 points in 21.0 minutes per game but hit 39.5 percent of his shots from three.
Now, Frye is finally a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers. During the final stretch of the regular season, Frye, while getting acclimated to his new teammates, posted about the same averages as he had in Orlando. However, in 26 contests after the trade he eclipsed a double-digit point total in 10 games, including 15 points in his second game with the Cavaliers.
In the playoffs, The Buffet of Goodness was an integral piece of the Cavaliers bench unit that featured Matthew Dellavedova, longtime friend Richard Jefferson, LeBron James, and Tristan Thompson alongside himself.
Frye shot 56.5 percent from three and per 36 minutes Frye averaged 17.3 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. He shot the ball quick and often when he was on the floor, and was often a beneficiary of a James pass out to the three. With a true shooting percentage of 79.1 percent, Frye finished the playoffs with a PER of 20.5. He recorded a double-digit point total in five contests, including a 27 point effort on May 6 against the Atlanta Hawks.
Often, there were times when Kevin Love was sitting on the bench that Frye made Love look expendable as a stretch-four. There were also times when Love and Frye were in the game at the same time and an opposing team like the Atlanta Hawks had no answer for the amount of space they had to cover to guard the shooters. Without a rim-protecting center to be a chaperone in the paint, James and Irving could attack the rim without relenting.
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This summer, the Cavaliers have added another elite shooter in guard-forward Mike Dunleavy Jr. However, Dunleavy’s arrival won’t effect of Frye’s minutes. With a bench unit including these two sharpshooters and the hustle players Jefferson and Iman Shumpert, it will be up to Frye to provide the Cavaliers with the bulk of the their offensive production from the bench.
Players like Jordan McRae, Kay Felder and Chris Andersen will come off the bench sporadically in an effort to maximize their production. McRae, for his part, is a high-octane shooting who will come off the bench as a point guard but because of his tendency to be inattentive on defense and as a facilitator will have a short leash.
Felder is a sub 6-foot point guard with the skills to be an all-around point guard but will have to prove that he can consistently handle when opponents switch onto him in order to take advantage of his 5-foot-9 frame. Andersen, or “Birdman” as he’s more widely known, isn’t a scorer but instead a rim protecting forward-center with an affinity for lobs and putbacks on offense.
Frye will be counted on to be the most consistent contributor at the offensive end, but with 38-year-old “Birdman” as the only depth behind him, will be counted on to make big contributions on the defensive end too.
In the regular season, Frye held opponents 4.6 percent under their shooting average from out to six feet away from the basket. In the playoffs, Frye averaged 1.4 blocks and 0.9 steals per game for the Cleveland Cavaliers. He also caused opponents to shoot 9.5 percent worse than their average from two-point range.
With his 6-foot-11 height and 9-foot-3 standing reach, Frye was often the tallest player on the floor for the Cavs and protected the paint decently with his size. With active hands, length, experience, and quick feet, Frye was also made a positive defensive impact in pick-and-roll coverage.
Though not a strong leaper, the 11-year NBA veteran now also has the veteran savvy to diagnose plays as they happen in real-time, intuitively getting to the right spot on time. By being privy to offensive tendencies of the majority of players in the league, an added benefit of his experience in the league, Frye has the ability to compensate for his lack of athleticism.
With Frye, Cleveland Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue has the perfect weapon to maximize the team’s efficiency. Using a blitzkrieg offensive attack spearheaded by James and Kyrie Irving, shooters are often left open on the perimeter. This is the perfect situation for the elite catch-and-shoot player that Frye is.
The question last year regarding Frye was the defensive capability of him in tandem with Love in the frontcourt.
After Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Cavaliers offense was outscoring opponents by 40 points per 100 possessions with lineups playing James, Love and Frye together. Lineups with Frye and Love were holding opponents to 94 points per 100 possessions defensively as well, further removing doubt that Frye and Love could play together.
When Frye plays with Love, Love’s own versatility is maximized. With Frye on the court, Love doesn’t have to be the frontcourt player to stand out on the perimeter and draw out a big man to give James space to attack. Love is able to have his own mismatches in the paint as he can go one-on-one in against players he can beat off-the-dribble and in the low-post with improved quickness.
Frye’s presence also allows Love to be the playmaker from the elbow that he was with the Minnesota Timberwolves. With the space that Frye provides, Love will often be in one-on-one matchups on the elbow as well. Hand-offs to Irving and James from the elbow would be deadly, as well as the fake hand-offs that Love could use to pass to cutters on the weakside or as a set-up for his own pull-up shots from the elbow.
Defensively, Love and Frye won’t be a real liability as a unit and using their intelligence could actually be superb team defenders. The strong individual defenders the Cavaliers have on the perimeter in James, Shumpert and J.R. Smith if he re-signs, can compensate for duo’s lack of athleticism.
However, there’s also an impending defensive makeover the Cavaliers will have to be prepared for. Lue draws his defensive philosophy from Scott Skiles. His philosophy is to create a system so that every player completely knows their responsibilities, to contest every three-point shot possible, and to protect the rim.
Last season, the Skiles-coached Orlando Magic doubled aggressively and rotated out to shooters as often as possible. This worked but eventually drained the players despite their conditioning.
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Lue will likely do some of these same things, already citing excellent conditioning as a prerequisite for the team to play how they want. While the Magic gave up a lot of threes last season, the team wasn’t as nearly as experienced or talented as this Cavaliers team, factors that heavily contributed to the Magic’s defensive struggles.
In the end, Frye’s experience in Skiles’ system made him a better defender and will translate in his time with the Cavaliers. Frye was an accomplished defender for the Magic before the trade as he used active hands, quick feet, and his high awareness to impact the game as the starting power forward. That’s the attitude and play that translated in his time in Cleveland.
The defending NBA champions will need to improve a bench unit that scored 26.7 points per game, and had a defensive efficiency rating of minus-2.5 that ranked 20th in the league.
Frye playing in a familiar defensive system and maintaining a reputation as an effective defender, in addition to his offensive capabilities, will be key for the Cavs next year. Frye won’t be an All-Star, but he’ll be a piece of the championship puzzle playing strong defense in a system he’s familiar with and will often be seen catching aflame from three.
Next year, the Buffet of Goodness will re-open it’s doors for business. The Land should be ready for Frye to put up numbers they haven’t seen from him since his time with the Phoenix Suns. This time around though, he’ll be trying to help his team win back-to-back NBA championships, not trying to win his first.
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