If the Cleveland Cavaliers are going to come back from LeBron James departure 2.0, the Cavs front office will need to be better than they were when LeBron left the first time in actually hitting on their draft picks.
If the Cleveland Cavaliers are going to return to prominence, the front office will need to nail their draft picks and have a good player development system. Yes it sounds very cliche saying a team has to draft well and develop guys well, but it’s the absolute truth, and if you look at how the Cavs became a championship-caliber team, it was kind of the perfect storm of events that helped turned them into a championship contender.
Winning the NBA Draft lottery three times in a four-year span and capitalizing on it, at least in terms of drafting Kyrie Irving, was a big help. The Cavaliers may win the lottery this year, but it’s a long shot they win it three times in four years again.
The greatest player of this generation in LeBron James isn’t coming back in his prime to save the Cavs this next time around. If the Cleveland Cavaliers are going to be good-to-great again, the front office will need to make some savvy draft selections with non-top picks, like other NBA teams have made in recent years.
You could look at a team like the Utah Jazz and how they’ve built their team. They were able to find star sensation Donovan Mitchell near the end of the lottery with the 13th pick in the 2017 NBA Draft (per Basketball Reference) .
They found one of the best big men in the league and a now-perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate in Rudy Gobert with the 27th pick in the first round in 2013.
More from King James Gospel
- 3 possible starting lineups for Cleveland Cavaliers in 2023-24
- The Cavaliers may have snagged a hidden gem in Craig Porter Jr.
- 4 players the Cavaliers should pursue in 2024 free agency
- 6 players Cavaliers might replace Jarrett Allen with by the trade deadline
- This stat is one to keep an eye on for Cavaliers’ Max Strus in years ahead
Joe Ingles, who is one of Utah’s most important players on both ends, was another tremendous find.
Ingles went undrafted in 2009, but spent time before that playing for the South Dragons of the National Basketball League (a professional league for teams in Australia and New Zealand), to playing in Spain and Israel, and now he’s a key starter on a Jazz likely postseason team.
The Jazz went 51-31 last year with those players, and won a tough postseason series over the Oklahoma City Thunder, and after a slow start, should be back in the Western Conference Playoffs this year.
The Denver Nuggets, who have the second-best record in the West are another example of a front office that has done an excellent job of finding guys later in the draft.
If you look at the Nuggets’ core players like Nikola Jokic (the 2014 second round, 11th pick, per Basketball Reference), Jamal Murray (the 2016 seventh pick), and Gary Harris (who was initially the 19th overall pick in 2014 by the Chicago Bulls, and the Nuggets later traded for him), all these guys are under 25 and play crucial roles.
They have helped lead the Denver Nuggets to right near the top of a packed Western Conference. Both the Nuggets and Jazz from the front office level drafting, to the coaching staff developing, have done a great job building their respective teams with under-the-radar selections, and have capitalized on lower picks.
If the Cleveland Cavaliers are going return to prominence, under this rebuild these are some of the moves the Cavs front office will have to make.