At this juncture, it’s apparent that COVID-19, and reportedly the omicron variant most frequently, has been affecting NBA teams hard in recent weeks. The Cleveland Cavaliers are no exception to that, with many of the club’s normal rotation players having already been in COVID-19 health and safety protocols for some time, and Isaac Okoro and Evan Mobley were the first two Cavs players to have entered into that.
Fortunately, Okoro has since been cleared out of protocols, and was on the bench in Cleveland’s dismantling of a severely shorthanded Toronto Raptors team on Sunday. Okoro did not dress in that game, but was back in the starting lineup in Cleveland’s loss at the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday.
Along with that, Mobley reportedly cleared out of protocols on Tuesday, and chipped in in a big way with 22 points. Defensively, he didn’t seem to be his usual self, though.
Nonetheless, Cleveland is still, for the moment, without Jarrett Allen, who is still in COVID-19 protocols, and it was tough to see that Garland reportedly entered protocols on Tuesday, even with Mobley clearing them.
It was encouraging that for asymptomatic players and coaches in protocols, that the quarantine period by the league was reportedly reduced from 10 to six days, though. The CDC reduced the recommended quarantine guidelines for infected people from 10 to five days recently, so that was seemingly the reasoning for the NBA’s change.
That said, with the Cavaliers being without Garland for feasibly a week-and-a-half or so, and we’ll have to see relating to conditioning, it’s evident a few players could have somewhat expanded playmaking roles in the mean time.
Additionally, it was truly crushing to see the news that Ricky Rubio, who has been so valuable for Cleveland often in a supersub-type role this season, reportedly suffered a torn ACL in the same left knee he did back in 2012, which combined with Collin Sexton out, puts all the more on Garland, when he’s back.
Rubio has been everything I would’ve expected and more, honestly, was a solid defender, and really brought legitimacy and stability off the bench, and enabled Garland to play some off-ball in stretches.
From here, I would assume the Cavaliers could look to make a move, such as at least in the interim looking into guys such as Jeff Teague via 10-day hardship exception deals. The Disabled Player Exception could be a possible move as well.
With Garland and Rubio, for now, though, it’s apparent a few Cavs players could have more expanded playmaking roles in the short term, and maybe for a longer period, for a few.
We’ll touch on those three Cavs players in the interim here.
The first in that realm is Denzel Valentine.