Recent Cavs clip highlights how bubble is allowing team to reconnect

It’s been anything but easy for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who haven’t played in so long.

At this point, the Cleveland Cavaliers 2019-20 campaign has been over for quite some time. The squad’s last game action was on March 10, in what was a narrow loss to the Chicago Bulls, and then shortly thereafter, the NBA’s season went into a novel coronavirus-induced hiatus.

From there, the Cavs were not a club invited to the NBA’s season restart in Orlando; clearly, it’s been a while. Along with that, NBA commissioner Adam Silver recently stated in an interview with Citizen CNN that his “best guess” is that next season will begin in January.

So for the Cavs, it will be paramount to keep the group as a whole locked-in as best they can, seemingly virtually to a large degree still. On the plus side, the Wine and Gold is currently amid their own in-market bubble team workouts, with some individual work still in there and optional shooting sessions.

While it’s obviously not game action, it’s nice for the Cavs to have been getting in some 5-on-5 work, even with that being limited to one hour per session, and they will have been six sessions that will have been played out through Sep. 30.

For players such as Collin Sexton, Darius Garland and Kevin Porter Jr., these sessions should be especially meaningful for them, and it’s good to know that Dylan Windler, given that he didn’t play at all in 2019-20, is fully healthy and a participant. Now there are some pieces not at this Cavs in-market bubble, though.

Cedi Osman is still overseas, in his native Turkey, and Andre Drummond, who is reportedly highly likely to pick up his $28.8 million player option for next season at some point, is not in attendance due to a personal matter.

Granted, Cavs general manager Koby Altman did say in Friday media availability how the Cavs “don’t know” what Drummond will end up doing, via the Associated Press‘ Tom Withers, but it does seem very likely he’ll be back via opting in.

From there, due-to-be unrestricted free agents Tristan Thompson and Matthew Dellavedova are not either, which is understandable, and these workouts are voluntary, anyhow.

In any case, these team in-market bubble workouts are truly invaluable for Cavs head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and company, both for young pieces’ development, in particular, and from a team chemistry perspective.

To the latter point, a recent Cleveland Cavaliers clip highlights how the bubble is allowing the squad to reconnect.

This clip tweeted out by the Cavs on Thursday shows how these team workouts are allowing the group, at least to a large degree, to reconnect. This was in shooting drills it seemed, but again, the team chemistry aspect with guys more so being around others jumped out from this.

Collin Sexton, Darius Garland and Dante Exum, to go with two-way Matt Mooney in there, just enjoying getting in work is nice to see and this more so than anything stresses how it’s so crucial with this essentially extended offseason to keep forging relationships with the crew.

In that regard, it’s also terrific that Kevin Love is a participant in these voluntary workouts, from a leadership/team chemistry standpoint, as Sexton stressed in recent media availability.

For a Cleveland Cavaliers team that hasn’t been able to get in team reps/be together formally in so long, as the above clip demonstrates, though, this in-market bubble is allowing the squad to reconnect. They seemed to be gaining momentum post-All-Star break leading into the hiatus, and were a respectable 5-6 in the stretch in which Bickerstaff took over the Cavs head coaching reigns.

That said, it’s crucial for the group as a whole, both from an on and off-floor perspective, to be together, given the layoff. And I’d imagine these team workouts have been big for Bickerstaff and the coaching staff.

Moreover, it’s apparent that for Sexton, a tireless worker that led Cleveland in scoring in 2019-20 at 20.8 points per game and had 23.5 points per outing in his last 33 games active, that getting group work in is something that he’s loving every second of, as that above clip highlights.

And his work ethic, which played into him gaining good weight over the break, has to be wearing off on others, you would think.

It’s a plus for the Cavs at least to be getting some group work in from a player development and team camaraderie/bonding perspective, even if the next season is still a ways away.