Cavs are moving along in rebuild with first option Kevin Love, player development as main focus, ESPN’s ‘The Jump’ just doesn’t see it

In a recent segment on ESPN’s “The Jump,” host Rachel Nichols, and analysts Amin Elhassan and now former Cleveland Cavaliers big Kendrick Perkins seemingly questioned the Cleveland Cavaliers’ direction, and in response to that, there seems to be clear direction. The Cavs are moving along in their rebuild with Kevin Love being their first option and leader and him and the coaching staff helping the development of young players and likely more draft picks in coming years.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are not going to be very good in the 2019-20 season, as they are going to be playing a bunch of young players an awful lot of minutes, as they should, so those pieces can gradually progress, and the team, which had the league’s worst defensive rating last season, is obviously going to mightily struggle on that end.

On the bright side, though, new Cleveland head coach John Beilein and the mostly-new coaching staff at least have a great veteran piece in star big Kevin Love to help them bring along young pieces, such as second-year guard Collin Sexton and third-wing wing Cedi Osman, and the team’s three drafted rookies in guard Darius Garland and wings Dylan Windler and Kevin Porter Jr.

Given that the squad has Love to help Beilein from an on-floor and locker room standpoint, and with the way the team has seemed to establish Sexton and Osman as key pieces, and with the team having three promising rookie contributors this season, I don’t really understand why in a recent segment on ESPN’s “The Jump,” host Rachel Nichols and analysts Amin Elhassan and Kendrick Perkins questioned the team’s direction.

Here’s the clip, per Nichols.

Yes, that second Celtics’ preseason blowout loss was tough to explain, but this Cleveland team is going to take time to gel, and nobody expects this team to be really competitive this year, anyway, and Cleveland has already touched on how their focus their year, and coming years, really, is about player development under Beilein.

Beilein, who is yes, a first-time head coach, will not have an easy task in front of him, and as Elhassan highlighted, yes, coming from the college ranks, even the highest level of college, to the NBA is going to be really, really difficult, and Beilein’s not the youngest coach in the world at 66.

That being said, he’s proven time and time again everywhere he’s been previously in all other levels that he can build up programs from scratch, so that was the Cavs’ rationale in hiring him to lead their rebuild, or “renaissance,” as Beilein has coined it.

Now to the key pieces that can allow Beilein and company to move the team forward.

Sexton, who was essentially a piece that was involved in the deal involving Cleveland trading former star guard Kyrie Irving to the Boston Celtics, because Sexton turned out to be the Brooklyn Nets’ first-round draft pick sent from Boston (who had it at the time) that Cleveland selected in the 2018 NBA Draft, looks like a building block piece for the Cavs.

Though looking back, perhaps Cleveland general manager Koby Altman and the front office could’ve gotten more help than they did for LeBron James at the 2018 trade deadline by involving that Brooklyn pick in potential trades, as Nichols referred to, but I can’t really blame Altman and company for wanting some insurance with them reportedly not sure if James would come back or not (and of course he ended up going to the Los Angeles Lakers, anyway), and now, Sexton appears to be one of the team’s best players in coming years whose arrow is clearly pointing up.

In his first season, he made significant strides, especially as a shooter, which was one of the biggest knocks on Sexton coming into the draft out of Alabama, and his tireless work ethic, something Cleveland has valued tremendously in its rebuild, was the reason Sexton ended up averaging 16.7 points per game in his rookie year, and even shot 40.2% from three-point range (per NBA.com).

I don’t even think Sexton, if you asked him before last season, would’ve really imagined heading into his rookie year that he’d make over 40.0% of his three-point attempts, so that was particularly encouraging.

Though Sexton needs to continue to make strides as a playmaker, as he only had 3.0 assists per game last year with the ball in his hands a ton, and get better defensively both on and off-ball, Sexton’s work ethic and outstanding attitude makes him clearly a building block for the Cavs in their full-rebuild, and he seems to be a player that Beilein will love.

Along with that, though Osman mightily struggled on the defensive end last season and needs to be more consistent, he seems to have the makings of a key piece as well in coming years for Cleveland, and it was a plus that Osman (and similarly to Sexton), despite playing with a revolving door of teammates last year, had plenty of quality outings as the team’s starting small forward.

He averaged a solid 13.0 points, 4.7 rebounds and had 2.6 assists per game (per Basketball Reference), and had he been playing with Love more, who missed 60 games last year mostly due to reported toe surgery, perhaps Osman with better spacing around him, would’ve had more assists and had more room to operate as a cutter and interior scorer, given that Love is still one of the best inside-out scorers in the league when he’s at least mostly healthy.

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Furthermore, though he only played in five games this past season at Vanderbilt due to a reported meniscus tear, Garland is a player that has a monstrous amount of potential and could very well be the team’s primary playmaker of the future.

With the way he has Lake Erie range both off-the-bounce and off-the-catch, and has a really tight handle to get separation, to go with having outstanding passing ability and feel, if he can stay healthy, he’ll greatly help Beilein and company get the Cavs get back to relevance.

Additionally, Windler, who shot 40.6% from three-point range in college at Belmont in four seasons (per Sports Reference), and is a terrific pull-up shooter when coming off curls and when reacting to hard close-outs, an instinctive cutter, and solid ball-mover and rebounder, when he’s back from his reported stress reaction on his lower left leg, also would seem to be a nice rotational wing piece for the Cavs, and I would imagine fits right into their player development focus in coming years.

From there, the Cleveland Cavaliers reportedly sending four future second-round picks and cash considerations to the Detroit Pistons in the 2019 NBA Draft to grab Porter 30th overall appears to have been a terrific move for their future.

Though Porter underwhelmed at USC, where he did not fit in and only got to start four of his 22 games active, which didn’t help him get into a real rhythm, it’s evident that the 19-year-old wing has immense potential as an on-ball creator in this league, with his ability to get separation off-the-bounce with stepbacks and pullbacks, and he can change speeds effortlessly.

Yes, it will take time for Porter to fully develop, and he may never totally live up to expectations of the front office or fans, but it’s again, clear that he’s a player that falls right in line with the team having a player development focus.

It’s also seemingly clear that with the Cavs having a bunch of expiring pieces in bigs Tristan Thompson and John Henson, to go with guards Jordan Clarkson, Matthew Dellavedova and Brandon Knight, and with the way they acquired tons of draft capital (which was cut into with the Porter deal) during last season in large part by dealing away expiring players, that they could very well stockpile more draft assets this season to help them further progress in their rebuild.

So, again, with Cleveland saying all along that they want Love, who though Perkins, who was on the Cavs with Love, did not witness it at the time back then, to continue to be one of their primary leaders and the team’s centerpiece of its rebuild, it’s clear that Love, a five-time All-Star, will play a significant role in helping the progression of young pieces.

At any rate, though Cleveland is going to struggle, they have clear direction, with Love helping the progression of young pieces on and off the floor as the team’s best player, and the team having an overall player development focus which will feasibly involve asset accumulation as well.