Despite shooting woes, Cavs need to stick with Lauri Markkanen starting

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Cleveland Cavaliers bigs Lauri Markkanen (left), Dean Wade (center) and Kevin Love celebrate in-game. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images) /

This keeps the bench roles intact for the Cavs, and Markkanen is still a key floor spacer

Markkanen has received his share of criticism from those in the Cavs Twitterverse, but he’s still their best option as a de facto 3, and him there keeps the bench roles intact.

As an aside, Cedi Osman, who recently returned from health and safety protocols on Friday in Cleveland’s win at the Portland Trail Blazers (albeit a very depleted Blazers) could maybe be an option to fill in at the 2 with Isaac Okoro out for a few weeks still. That’s with Collin Sexton having been out for the rest of the year since early November.

I’d still personally rather Lamar Stevens fill in there until Okoro returns, though, because of defensive versatility, and Osman still could come in as a bench shooter, where he’s given the Cavaliers a lift often this season.

Even with Cedi knocking in 40.5 percent from three this season, of which is a career-best, though, him at the 3 over Markkanen doesn’t seem like a reliable option. Markkanen’s length is still impactful defensively, and Osman is not nearly the interior presence, nor close to the finisher of Markkanen. Markkanen is still more of a legitimate floor spacer, too, and is more established in that way than Dean Wade, even with me not discounting Wade’s contributions as a rotational player, and defender.

From there, while I get Kevin Love has been red-hot lately, and with Evan Mobley’s versatility, those two with Jarrett Allen could be an interesting mix starting games, Love with those two I don’t love that much. Furthermore, Love has been so effective coming in as a supersub shooter, and was on fire in December, to echo what KJG’s own John Suchan detailed.

Along with that, even with more minutes for him of late, partly due previously to players being in COVID-19 protocols, Love as a bench guy, where he’s had 14.5 points per game and hit 42.6 percent from three, is still much better for the overall team. That still helps preserve Love, too.