The Cleveland Cavaliers’ biggest focus area in training camp should be building their on-floor chemistry, and though it’ll seemingly be a year with plenty of turnover, plenty of rotational pieces should be able to learn how to play off one another better, anyhow.
Training camps for NBA teams don’t start for a few more weeks, but at this point for players, that might as well be much earlier than that, I would think, and most of the Cleveland Cavaliers will fall in line with that, too.
As of now, the training camp roster for Cleveland has been set, with the team now officially having 20 players on that.
The training camp roster will consist of the 13 players under guaranteed contracts for the 2019-20 season, along with two-way Dean Wade, and training camp invitees J.P. Macura, Marques Bolden, Sindarius Thornwell, Jarell Martin, Alex Robinson and Daniel Hamilton, and according to the NBA transactions log (and h/t Sam Amico of Amico Hoops), Cleveland waived Levi Randolph and Malik Newman on September 3.
Amico would go on to note that given Randolph and Newman (who are assumed to be playing with the Cavs’ G-League affiliate, the Canton Charge in 2019-20) were signed to Exhibit 10 deals, though, “they’ll receive bonuses of up to $50,000 if they can stick with the Charge for two months.”
As we’ve touched on here at KJG a bunch of times, the Cavaliers will reportedly likely head into the regular season with 14 players on their roster (so they’ll likely have one roster spot open), so based on that being reported by Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor, The Athletic‘s Joe Vardon and others, such as Amico, it seems that the training camp invitees will be trying to land that one open regular season roster spot and/or the other two-way spot.
So, anyhow, though it is not just featuring the players that are going to be playing for the Cavs when the games count, the biggest key to me for training camp should be gradually growing chemistry.
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It was good to hear that Kevin Love (who has been traveling all over this offseason and has not gotten in reps with his teammates, really) is reportedly organizing team pre-camp workouts in New York next week, per Fedor, and as Fedor noted, Love did the same thing last year in Miami, and it’s clear that LeBron James‘ leadership influence is playing into that with Love (as James did that when he was in his return tenure with the Cavs).
In those pre-camp workouts, which are players-only, I’d like to think that Garland and Sexton should be able to work together some on the floor, as they’ll likely be playing in the same backcourt a good chunk of minutes next season for head coach John Beilein and his staff.
Adding to that, I’d hope that Love, Larry Nance Jr., Tristan Thompson, John Henson and Ante Zizic could get more acclimated with the backcourt players as rollers, and as screeners for off-screen shooters/handoff perimeter players such as Dylan Windler, Kevin Porter Jr., and along with the incumbents in Jordan Clarkson and Brandon Knight.
Cedi Osman should be able to build better chemistry with players such as Love, Larry Nance Jr., Sexton, Zizic and perhaps Thompson, too, in training camp (per Fedor, him and Matthew Dellavedova won’t be at the pre-camp workouts), and that likely comes from the timing of cutting off off-ball screens, becoming more precise in timing of firing shots off flare and elevator screens, along with becoming more comfortable as an on-ball pick-and-roll creator, too.
Osman showed some flashes as a PnR creator last season as a scorer when he was able to take advantage of some switchouts on to bigs, but he had his issues as a passer.
That being said, with Love on the floor more and Garland and Sexton (who shot 40.2% from three-point land last year, per NBA.com) opening up more space, Osman should get more opportunities near the rim in 2019-20 and when help comes, he’ll have more legitimate three-point shooting threats around him to dish it to, and that sort of thing should start to come to fruition with on-floor reps in training camp, I would think.
In addition, even though Thompson, Henson, Clarkson, Knight and Dellavedova are expiring pieces (I’m not including Osman, who is set to be restricted next offseason currently), the young players such as Windler and Porter, who both can shoot it from three-point range (with career collegiate marks of 40.6% and 41.2% from deep, per Sports Reference), need to get more comfortable on the floor with those players along with the likes of Love and Sexton, for example, and especially because Windler and Porter will likely play off the ball the majority of their minutes, at least early on.
With the Cleveland Cavaliers having a system that is more predicated on ball and man movement, along with featuring bigs more as playmakers than last year (though Nance did lead qualified players in assists per game with 3.2 last year, per NBA.com), for instance, under Beilein, it’ll be important for the younger pieces and veterans alike to be more on the same page in timing on and off-ball, and on the other end, defensive communication needs to be ironed out a good deal, too.
I understand that a chunk of the live reps in camp will be featuring the training camp invitees, but that’s fine, anyhow, as the Cavaliers could realistically be playing a few of those players at some points during the 2019-20 season because of injuries, or potentialy two-way deals, so again, getting them reps on the floor with other pieces matters, too, so players are more on the same page if duty calls down the road in a grueling 82-game season.
We have previously touched on how during Summer League, relationship-building off the floor and regular rotation players lending support (which added to that theme) seemed to be the key focus for Cleveland, and that was good. During training camp, though, while the locker room and team bonding is always uber-important, building the on-floor chemistry with plenty of new pieces playing big minutes and figuring out how pieces will play off each other in 2019-20, or at least to some extent and getting that ball rolling in Beilein’s system, is the biggest focus area for training camp.
Hopefully even with plenty of potential roster turnover, the key pieces for the near future in Sexton, Osman, Garland, Windler, Porter, Nance and Love can build on their collective chemistry more in camp at minimum to at least keep that progressively stronger, regardless of possible trades as the season progresses.