The Cleveland Cavaliers have gotten off to a fairly promising 9-10 start to the 2020-21 campaign, and that’s been quite a notable feat, when you factor in that they’ve had to deal with so many injuries.
Kevin Love (right calf strain/reaggravation) has been active in one-plus games, and has been sidelined since Dec. 27 versus the Philadelphia 76ers.
Dylan Windler recently made his way back to the rotation last week after fracturing his fourth metacarpal in his left hand way back in the Cavs’ first game of the season, too, and that was such a rough bout of luck with how he missed all of last season because of a stress reaction in his lower left leg.
The Wine and Gold were without Darius Garland (right shoulder sprain) and Collin Sexton (left ankle sprain) for eight and five games, too, for example. Fortunately, the Cavs have gotten much healthier, and Larry Nance Jr. (right wrist sprain) was back on Friday at the New York Knicks in a rough loss.
Anyhow, it’s been noteworthy that Cavs head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and this squad currently have the NBA’s eighth-best defensive rating, even while coming into Wednesday, they had played the NBA’s third-toughest schedule, per Basketball Reference.
A key reason for that, though, is the play of Cleveland’s bigs.
In that realm, here, we’ll highlight how each of the Cavs regular/semi-regular rotation bigs have graded out at the near-quarter poll.
First, we’ll take a look at how Andre Drummond has done.
Examining Drummond’s play for the Cavs so far
I have to give Drummond his share of credit for what he’s provided for Cleveland this season. To this point, Dre’s had 18.1 points, a league-leading 14.7 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.4 blocks per game.
He’s been a force on the boards, as has been customary in his entire career, mostly with the Detroit Pistons, really, and Drummond has helped will home some Cavs wins when they were depleted by injuries for a stretch there. I’m not discounting that, and his force on the interior has been impactful.
Drummond set a Cavs record for consecutive games to begin a Cavs season with a double-double at 12 (he did one miss game), and it’s apparent that he’s going to produce in the traditional interior sense.
And defensively, Drummond’s active hands have helped the Cavaliers get out and take advantage via transition/production off turnovers. Drummond is fifth in the NBA to this point in total deflections, per NBA.com’s player hustle data.
Point being, Dre has been a major contributor, and I’m not denying that.
Being objective, though, it’s still frustrating that Drummond misses seemingly so many shots on the interior near the rim, which frankly does aid his offensive rebounding splits a bit, and while Bickerstaff has reportedly encouraged it, the freelance stuff Drummond often works against Cleveland.
Drummond has had 2.6 assists per outing, sure, but he’s also had 3.6 turnovers per contest, and some of the turnovers and unnecessary drives when the advantages are nowhere to be found in secondary transition have been head-scratching.
And while I’m not an overly critical turnover person, some of the passes Drummond has thrown via outlets or trying to thread the needle like he’s Nikola Jokic in set offense have killed the Cavs.
But all things considered, Drummond has been good, to a large extent, and though with him expiring, it would seem highly likely that he’s at least dealt by the March 25 trade deadline, per recent rumors/reports, he’s been bought-in.
The often lack of touch, non-shooting, and at times unnecessary freelancing and also defensive gambles that at times leave his teammates in unfavorable situations to me factors into why, also with Jarrett Allen, Drummond won’t be a long-term piece, though. But the raw production does jump out, and I give him that.
Drummond’s near-quarter grade for the Cavs: B+
Next up, we’ll take a look at Nance’s play thus far.