The Cleveland Cavaliers reportedly came to an agreement with former Michigan head coach John Beilein to be the franchise’s next head coach, and he will seemingly attempt to make operations system and assignment-driven on both ends on his new squad.
The Cleveland Cavaliers seem to fully understand that they will not be building their team via free agency in the coming years too much, and general manager Koby Altman and the front office know that their draft picks (two in the first round in 2019) will be crucial for their long-term success.
Cleveland also knows that young pieces such as Cedi Osman, Collin Sexton, Ante Zizic, combined with players such as Larry Nance Jr. and potentially David Nwaba, will need to continue on an upward trajectory in the coming years for the team to progress in the right way in its rebuild.
The Cavaliers seemingly believe that in order for them to get back to being a winner, it will take a collective effort focused on sustainability through quality principles on both ends of the floor, and not individuals having outstanding talent.
That sort of thing is why Cleveland reportedly hired former Michigan head coach John Beilein to be the team’s next head coach, as ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported.
As we here at KJG and many others have detailed, (including Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor) Beilein is a proven winner, though he has not coached at the NBA level.
He has a career D1 record of 571-325 (per Sports Reference), and his track record has been achieved through constant ball and man movement offensively, which is something that the Cavaliers want in their team to help them improve in the coming years with their player development focus.
As we’ve often noted, Cleveland was second-last in the NBA in 2018-19 in assists per game, and only six NBA teams had less passes made per game, to go along with Cleveland being dead-last in potential assists per game, per NBA.com.
One of Beilein’s primary tasks will be getting the ball hopping more, and for Cleveland likely to get more productivity and movement earlier in the shot clock, so more players can get their hands on the ball to have better team offense; too often last season, as we’ve touched on, players such as Sexton, Jordan Clarkson and to an extent, Cedi Osman, were prone to over-dribbling and causing Cleveland to not be efficient and for teammates to not be in-rhythm consistently enough.
Sexton and Osman did have some success as pick-and-roll scorers due to switchouts, but both had their share of issues as passers in the PnR, and with Kevin Love hopefully on the floor more with them next season, his perimeter shooting presence should allow for more movement, such as elevator and down screens for shooters and back-door cuts to counter off that, allowing Sexton and Osman to have easier reads.
Additionally, with a quality passing big operating in the middle of the offense such as Nance (who had a career-high in assist metrics last year, per Basketball Reference), and solid screeners such as Nance and Ante Zizic, Beilein’s system (which has a number of Princeton offense principles), should fit well in that regard.
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
I would expect the Cleveland Cavaliers to feature more dribble hand-offs on the wings for players such as Osman and Nwaba to get going downhill more, too, and with countering ball-reversals to play off that more, instead of just two-man games which seemed to be the case more in the last few years for Cleveland, and especially last season, without LeBron James handling the contols.
Sam Amico of Amico Hoops essentially mentioned how Cleveland’s offense won’t be based on isolation under Beilein, especially because the team likely won’t have top-end talent in the coming years such as James and Kyrie Irving.
That’s definitely clear, and even if the Cleveland Cavaliers were to land the first selection in the 2019 NBA Draft, which would likely be Zion Williamson, the team offense overall will still not be individual, but collectively-driven.
Along with that, as our own Josh Friedman highlighted, the Cavs’ defense should have better discipline, especially when closing out to shooters, and pieces such as Osman and Zizic should have their feel improve on that end, especially in PnR coverage.
Roughly half of this video (courtesy of hoopvision68) illustrates how Michigan’s defense was so sound last season under Beilein (as they were second in defensive efficiency last year, per NCAA.com) because of good structural discipline and not over-helping, leading to very few open looks especially from the perimeter.
The three-point discipline is something that the Cavs did not have last year, as they conceded the worst opponent three-point clip in the league (at 38.0%, per NBA.com), and hopefully under Beilein’s assignment-driven approach to defense being more matchup-sound, Cleveland can have a better collective effort in that area.
Injuries, which killed the Cleveland Cavaliers last year as we’ve mentioned a number of times, will have a key say in Beilein’s ability to implement this team-first style, of course, but at least in theory, the Cavs should have more uniform play due to a system, not individually-driven approach on both ends. Let’s also keep in mind that Beilein won’t be coaching college kids anymore, either.
Overall, though, the principles seem to fit well with the Cavs’ player development approach in the next few years.