Cavs: Recent clip yet another reminder of how rebuild will be collective effort

The Cleveland Cavaliers are in the beginning stages of their full-rebuild, and a recent clip highlighted how for them to be successful in their progression, it will take a blending of different perspectives from the coaching staff and a team-oriented approach from the players, too.

The Cleveland Cavaliers hired head coach John Beilein, along with assistant coaches J.B. Bickerstaff, Antonio Lang, and Lindsay Gottlieb, this offseason in large part because all of them reportedly fit when it comes to being great “teachers” of the game, and according to the Cavs, seem to provide a boost when it comes to keeping young players’ games on an upward trajectory.

Player development is Cleveland’s focus in the coming years (along with asset accumulation) as general manager Koby Altman has often stressed, and players such as Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, Kevin Porter Jr., Dylan Windler and Cedi Osman, will seemingly be getting big minutes in the near future, given that the Cavs aren’t likely to be on the cusp of the postseason for a few years.

That’s the right mindset for the Cavaliers to have, as building the team back up gradually through the direction of Beilein and the coaching staff is the best way for them to have long term success down the road.

It’s always difficult for the Cavs to make big splashes in free agency, and as we’ve often discussed here at KJG, Cleveland will need to build through the draft, while having the steady leadership of pieces such as Kevin Love, and likely Larry Nance Jr., too.

When it comes that gradual rebuild over a number of years, it will take the coaching staff blending their different perspectives on the game together, as inclusion will be essential to getting the most possible out of young players through getting different viewpoints on the game.

As KJG contributors have often referenced, Beilein (who has always been a head coach, and never an assistant) has extensive coaching experience at other levels of basketball, and did a tremendous job turning the Michigan basketball program into a consistent winner in a tough Big Ten Conference, but he does not have any coaching experience, even as an assistant, at the NBA level.

That’s where that inclusion aspect to this rebuild comes in, and a recent clip, courtesy of Cavs.com highlighted how Beilein is seemingly more than willing to bring in as many voices as possible to help his teams get the most out of their players.

Despite Beilein being 66, he has touched on how he’s a coach that is going to the embrace analytics side of operations, and you can notice that in how his teams at Michigan were able to utilize ball and man movement to often get open three-point looks and layups in the scope of halfcourt offense, while also being locked in on being fundamentally sound in their coverage defensively of the three-point line as well.

Last season, the Cavaliers were in the bottom third of the league in three-point attempts and makes per game, and only the New York Knicks had a lower assist average and true shooting percentage (per NBA.com).

Hopefully that won’t be a repeat scenario in the coming years, and more weapons/spacing for the Cavs in the coming years should ensure that’s not likely.

In a prior interview, Nik Stauskas, a former player for Beilein at Michigan (and who last played in the NBA for the Cavs and could potentially again it seems), reportedly detailed how Beilein is a coach that will always maximize his talent and adjust in the best way possible based on his players’ strengths, too.

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Additionally, in the clip above regarding Summer League, it was good to see the Cleveland Cavaliers’ assistants, such as Lang initially, actively engaged in key points and leading in practice/drills, even though it was only Summer League, as that will need to be the case very often with the NBA season being a grueling one and obviously, Beilein not being the youngest head coach in the league.

Hopefully, he and his staff can find ways to find quality looks for players such as Garland, Sexton, Kevin Love, Osman, and Windler on the perimeter, to go with effectively utilizing Nance and Ante Zizic as rollers/screeners, too, while teaching the proper defensive principles, too (as Cleveland had the worst defensive rating in NBA history since that was recorded by Basketball Reference in 2018-19).

I would imagine that Beilein and his staff will allow leaders such as Love and potentially Nance/Matthew Dellavedova to be involved in the teaching side of things as well, in order to set the right example for younger players and help them really develop into professionals.

So, again, this rebuild will take a full team effort in relation to getting the best of young pieces from proper player development, and building meaningful player-coach and player-player relationships in the process is paramount to doing so, as Gottlieb (and really the other coaches) hit on in that clip.

It appears that the foundation is in the process of being set by Beilein in this early stage.

Will that lead to a bunch more wins than the 19 in 2018-19 (per NBA.com)?

Probably not, but the principles of team first and being open-minded is encouraging for what’s to come later on.