Cavs: Larry Drew did an admirable job in tough spot this year

According to recent reports, it seems unlikely that the current head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Larry Drew, will be back after this season. Nonetheless, in an awful set of circumstances, Drew did just fine, and as many have noted, he’s held the pieces together nicely.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have not had the season they would’ve hoped for, and we’ve stressed why that’s been the case time and time again.

Over the time span of when current head coach Larry Drew realistically started calling the shots, though, the team has progressed pretty well, and they’ve seemingly stayed together mentally, which is a testament to Drew.

Despite having so many injuries, especially to Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson (who’ve only appeared in 22 and 43 out of 81 possible games to this point, per Basketball Reference), most notably, the Cleveland Cavaliers have remained playing hard and staying engaged.

As we’ve highlighted often here at KJG, the team’s key young pieces, such as Collin Sexton and Cedi Osman, have stayed the course, even after having an extremely rocky first half of the 2018-19 season, and over the last two months, they’ve shown they both have a very bright future.

Currently, both players look like they could be cornerstone pieces in the near future, and Drew should receive some credit for their continued growth throughout the year, with the way he stuck with both of them and let them develop even as the losses continued to pile up (for reference, Cleveland is just 19-62 on the year, per NBA.com).

In addition, Larry Nance Jr. had a career year and Ante Zizic flashed as a key bench piece for the coming years, as we recently detailed.

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Moreover, post-All-Star break, when the squad got considerably healthier, and with Love playing more minutes, the Cleveland Cavaliers have a much more respectable true shooting percentage (12th in the league in that stretch) compared to the totality of the year (in which they have the league’s second-worst, per NBA.com), showing their improvement and how Drew could have had a better team had they not been missing key players for much of the season.

Now, the defense was a complete disaster all year, and will have the worst defensive rating in the history of the league since that metric has been recorded, so, yes, that’s not a huge compliment to Drew’s competence.

However, given the lack of defensive personnel/expertise Cleveland’s had, and with their constant reshuffling of lineups, particularly in the middle of the season when injuries were at their peak, Drew just keeping the team engaged and bought in was meaningful.

On Sunday after the team’s loss to the San Antonio Spurs, Nance touched on how even with all that’s happened and with what’s gone wrong, the guys in the locker room have still developed a special bond and have a togetherness that is all-telling, even saying that this has “probably been the best locker room I’ve been a part of,” (courtesy of Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor).

He would go on highlight how Channing Frye‘s constantly positive mindset toward the team meant a ton, and how the team stayed together, which goes to show how much Drew has helped the team in it, even with a postseason birth never really being a possibility (again, transcribed by Fedor).

"“No, seriously, this has been one of the best locker rooms I’ve been around in terms of the guys we have and just the camaraderie,” Nance said. “It’s been a tough year, but the growth we have had as people and players has been immense.“It’s really easy to smile and laugh when things are going good. We have had a heck of year. I think it sets our locker room apart that guys can keep smiling through it all and see the silver linings in things.”"

That kind of quote from Nance shows that Drew has had his imprint on this club in a rough season in terms of them sticking with it and playing for each other.

For now, Drew and Cleveland will wait until after the season officially ends Tuesday night against the Charlotte Hornets to figure out if he has a future at all with the team, as he announced on Sunday (per Sam Amico of Amico Hoops).

That being said, based on a recent report from The Athletic’s Joe Vardon (subscription required), Drew’s time with the Cavs will be done very shortly. That takes nothing away from the fact that given all that transpired this year, Drew did an admirable job with the cards he was dealt.