Coming into the 2018-19 season, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ goal was reportedly to compete and possibly make the Eastern Conference Playoffs. Instead of trading valuable veterans like Kyle Korver and Kevin Love, they brought them back with the hope of making the postseason this year; that’s not going to happen and the rebuild was going to happen from the jump.
In an interview during the off-season, during the Cleveland Cavaliers’ time in the Las Vegas Summer League, general manager Koby Altman laid out his case for competing to make the Eastern Conference Playoffs, per Joe Vardon (then of Cleveland.com), and noted how the winning culture LeBron James built should carry over to this coming season, even without James in the building, and that not winning isn’t a fun alternative in the coming years.
"“The years where you’re non-competitive aren’t fun,” Altman said, in his first public comments since James agree to leave the Cavs and join the Los Angeles Lakers. “And I know that’s hard to build a culture that way and we’ve had a great culture of winning because of LeBron and that infrastructure that he brings right away. And I’d like to capitalize on that."
Altman then touched on how the Cavaliers wouldn’t be nearly the same without James (obviously), but that they could still “be competitive.”
"“You won’t be nearly as good if you lose a player of that magnitude,” Altman said, speaking of James. “But we can still be competitive, we can be tough, we can be skilled, we can be talented and we can still use that culture that’s sort of been embedded these last four years.”"
Unfortunately, things haven’t gone as planned with the team standing at 2-13, and with them arguably being the worst NBA tea, it appears this team is in for a full-on rebuild. It probably wasn’t realistic for this team to make the playoffs. This is for the most part a very similar roster that at times struggled last year with the best player in the world, and especially in the postseason.
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Some of the problems with this years’ Cavs are this is a team that mostly is made up of spot-up shooters who were largely dependent on one LeBron James to facilitate and be able to kick it out and get them open looks. Last year after ranking fifth in three-point attempts (32.1 per game, per NBA.com) and third in three-point makes (12.0 per game), this year, they’re dead last in three-point attempts (23.1 per game) and makes (8.2 per game).
This is still a very similar defensive team who struggled last year finishing 29th in defensive rating, and currently, they are dead-last, but without the firepower to make up for it. Sans James, they have dropped to 26th in offensive rating and 25th in the league in true shooting rate, per NBA.com.
The Cavs needed a lot of things to go right to have a fighting chance to compete for the playoffs , but it certainly doesn’t help that they’ve been hit hard with the injury bug. This was a team that had hard times even early on when healthy, which makes it much more difficult when factoring in the injuries. On ESPN’s The Jump, Love, (who’s sidelined with a reported toe injury), said he expects to be out until sometime after the new year.”
The day before LeBron james returns to Cleveland, we check in with the Cavs - @KevinLove, @Channing_Frye and Richard Jefferson react in real time to JR Smith separating from the team, plus Love (foot) says for the first time that he expects to be back on court after the new year. pic.twitter.com/TyikP3MTYD
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) November 21, 2018
With all these things in mind the Cavs should fully commit to rebuilding and trade some of the valuable veterans on this roster for young assets. It will be difficult as most of these guys were a big part of the most successful period in franchise history and perhaps Cleveland sports history, but gaining future assets is probably the best route to go for a team in rebuilding mode.
According to Vardon (now of The Athletic), veteran guard J.R. Smith will “no longer be actively with the Cavs,” and “the two sides are not working on a buyout at this time,” which is really no surprise, given how Smith is stick as a veteran on the Cavs in a post-James era rebuild.
The breakup is ‘amicable,’ the source said, and the two sides are not working on a buyout at this time https://t.co/MF6zcKc2Wk
— Joe Vardon (@joevardon) November 20, 2018
A trade that probably doesn’t get mentioned enough is the Mo Williams trade made in February 2011. In that trade, the Cleveland Cavaliers sent Mo Williams and Jamario Moon in exchange for Baron Davis and a 2011 unprotected first-round pick. As most of you know, that pick ended up netting the Cavs future NBA superstar Kyrie Irving. Making that trade is one of the huge reasons why the Cavs were 2016 NBA champions.
The Cavs still have valuable veterans like Love (who’s eligible to be traded January 24th), Smith and Korver (of which the last two have non-guaranteed contracts for the 2019-20 season) on this roster who could bring back future draft picks and/or developmental young players, as we’ve noted here at KJG.
Those pieces could be huge in making this a successful rebuild , and in a few years time, those pieces could have big roles for the next winning Cavs team alongside potential key players Cedi Osman and Collin Sexton.