Cavs: 3 takeaways from Koby Altman’s end-of-season media availability

The 2020-21 season for the Cleveland Cavaliers ended out in less than stellar fashion, as they ended up losing 12 of their last 13 games. Injuries that were piling up in the closing batch of contests didn’t aid the Cavs’ cause though.

That’s not solely the reason for the L’s stacking up after Cleveland did appear poised to make a push for a play-in berth, but it didn’t help Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and company.

On a positive note, while a 22-50 record wasn’t screaming out a boatload of success, there was internal growth from the likes of Collin Sexton and a bounce-back season for Darius Garland. Isaac Okoro showed his share of nice signs as the season progressed and even more so from April-onward offensively, and defensively, I thought his play was better as the season wore on, even with such difficult matchups.

Players such as Dean Wade and Lamar Stevens even made things happen, too, and Wade, because of his stretch big qualities and defensive play, I believe was Cleveland’s top bench player in this now-past season.

Anyway, for the Cavaliers, their season did end up wrapping up on Sunday, May 16 at the Brooklyn Nets, in what would end up being a 123-109 loss. It was a bit odd that Cavs general manager Koby Altman for nearly two weeks following that hadn’t publicly addressed the media, but he did eventually do so in relation to the season on Friday afternoon.

You can that full presser here, via the Cavs, and Altman/the front office wanted to give the club/players time to decompress and there were reportedly two rounds of exit interviews that were done with players anyhow, even with the lack of publicly addressing the media.

In relation to that, there were a few key takeaways that jumped out from him to me.

We’ll touch on those here from Altman, with three coming to the forefront from my perspective as a Cavs fan.

The first of those had to do with Altman looking set to stick around, and in his current role.

#1: Altman appears set to stick around as the Cavs GM

There were recently a few reports that made it seem as though Altman might not be back next season as the Cavaliers general manager, of which you can view more on here. It’s either that was potentially in question, or it looked as if Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert could be set to bring in a voice or prior player of high esteem that could be trusted for oversight of Altman and the Cavs current front office.

That was per a report from Sam Amico of Forty Eight Minutes and OutKick, and Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com stated in an article (subscription required) that Altman’s resume will be put “under the microscope” by Gilbert this offseason.

Nonetheless, it still didn’t necessarily seem that Altman would actually be terminated or demoted, and though we’ll have to see, a few comments from him regarding how Gilbert views the situation cleared things up more for me.

Altman stated that him and Gilbert have had “candid talks” about how after four straight trips to the NBA Finals amid the LeBron James return then, Cleveland just being three seasons removed those times wasn’t much time to be well-equipped to be a major player again just yet. That was via Tom Withers of the Associated Press.

From there, Altman expressed that Gilbert, who is still recovering from a stroke suffered in 2019, is still “very much engaged,” via Withers, and that he and the Cavaliers owner have had “good conversations about the future.”

There have been some hiccups from Altman, who is a young general manager, but with the Kevin Porter Jr. trade situation, in particular, there were layers to that and issues off the floor/immaturity concerns that led to the decision.

And the draft picks of Sexton, Garland and Okoro I believe have been quality ones, and the trade acquisition of Jarrett Allen from the Brooklyn Nets in mid-January has typically fit in well.

So from there, the second takeaway was involving the young core, of which consists of those four players especially.