Cavs: Koby Altman, John Beilein had right attitude after lottery turnout

The Cleveland Cavaliers landed the fifth overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft lottery, which is far from what would be considered their best-case scenario, but even so, general manager Koby Altman and head coach John Beilein had the right outlook.

The Cleveland Cavaliers and their fan base didn’t have the ping pong ball turnout they hoped for in the 2019 NBA Draft lottery on Tuesday, as the team landed the fifth overall pick (as shown by the squad’s official Twitter).

As we previously emphasized, Cleveland was tied with the New York Knicks and Phoenix Suns for having the best chance at winning this year’s lottery (a 14.0% chance, per Tankathon) thanks to a bottom-three record for the 2018-19 season, in which the Cavs went 19-63, per NBA.com.

Cleveland was not able to win the first pick and essentially, the Zion Williamson sweepstakes, which was won by the New Orleans Pelicans (who had just a 6.0% chance of getting the first pick, per Tankathon), and for fans of teams such as the Cavs, Knicks, Suns, and Chicago Bulls, seeing New Orleans get the first pick hurt.

It’s not as though Cleveland hasn’t had its share of lottery luck in the recent past, though (as we’ve noted), so this isn’t the biggest surprise in the world for the Cavaliers.

Despite the Cavs not getting the best outcome in the 2019 NBA Draft lottery, general manager Koby Altman didn’t seem discouraged, and even with it being somewhat of a public relations move, he had the right attitude when asked about the team’s fifth overall pick (h/t the Akron Beacon Journal’s Marla Ridenour).

Altman saying (per Ridenour) how the Cavaliers are “really bullish” on the upcoming draft is at least the right mindset to have, right as Cleveland reportedly just hired its new head coach in John Beilein, too (as was reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski).

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The fifth selection should still have plenty of intrigue, and though it won’t likely have the potential to be Duke’s RJ Barrett or Murray State’s Ja Morant, Altman still believes that the Cleveland Cavaliers are “going to get someone really good.”

With the way the organization feels about Beilein, who was assistant general manager Mike Gansey’s head coach at West Virginia, and who Altman praised for being a winner everywhere he’s been at as a head coach, as Wojnarowski hit on, it doesn’t seem as if the Cavs, even behind closed doors, are hanging their heads in relation to their 2019 lottery result.

The team didn’t have a particularly great lottery result last year with the eighth overall pick, but that selection turned out to be a player that projects as a key young piece for their future in Collin Sexton, so landing another building block piece (which should probably be able to develop in the coming years under Beilein and other members of Cleveland’s coaching staff) doesn’t seem that far-fetched.

Beilein discussed how he essentially believes the Cavs have some nice young pieces (per Ridenour), and he hit on how at both Cleveland’s first selection at five and their second draft selection (26th overall, due to them having what was the Houston Rockets’ pick courtesy of a previously mentioned trade) they are going to get “two good players.”

Again, that’s the right message to send to the team early on.

Our own Robbie DiPaola highlighted three potential wings for the Cavs to draft with the fifth pick in Virginia’s De’Andre Hunter, Texas Tech’s Jarrett Culver and Duke’s Cam Reddish, and though they are not completely polished prospects, I do like the potential on both ends for all three, as they all could mesh with Beilein’s key principles of offensive movement and sound perimeter defense.

I would throw international prospect Sekou Doumbouya in the wing mix as well for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and I would imagine that Altman, Gansey and Beilein would strongly consider Doumbouya’s upside to be very high, so keep an eye on that name.

North Carolina’s Coby White, who averaged 16.1 points on 51.6% effective field goal shooting, to go with 4.1 assists per game (per Sports Reference), will likely be considered, too, as he showed big-time range as a shooter and has displayed that he can play both guard positions at a high level in the tough ACC, too.

No, the Cavaliers did not get the first pick, but they still will have an opportunity to land at least one high quality player for their rotation in 2019-20, and maybe with Beilein’s coaching ability (he had a career 829-468 collegiate record, per Wojnarowski), they figure that second 2019 first-rounder can be a meaningful rotational piece, too. That’s why Altman and Beilein said what they did post-lottery, and that at least sends the right message to the locker room and the fan base.