2 goals for Cavs’ Robin Lopez in the 2022-23 season

With the likes of Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen and Kevin Love in mind for this upcoming season for the Cleveland Cavaliers, it’s difficult to foresee Robin Lopez being a rotational regular, barring injury.

When the Cavaliers signed Lopez to a one-year, veteran’s minimum deal earlier this month, that wasn’t a noteworthy signing. Lopez was a player that was only active in 36 games last season with the Orlando Magic, with them wanting to prioritize giving younger guys their share of minutes and time to develop. Needless to say, the Magic were tanking.

Lopez, as we were hinting at earlier, is not a guy that’s going to be an every-night type of player for the Cavaliers next season, but not in the tanking sense. Cleveland is just going to give Allen the lion’s share of 5 minutes, and Mobley will function as a backup 5 some. I wouldn’t anticipate Love to be playing much in meaningful minutes with Lopez, either, as an aside.

Taking all of that into account, though, Lopez is still a player that I could foresee getting some action in games in non-Allen minutes, and he’s still a capable player that is formidable on the interior in a rotational sense.

That’s matchup-depending, but Lopez can be viable for spurts/some stretches if needed, and at least for injury insurance, it was a sensible team-friendly signing for playable depth. While one shouldn’t be expecting Lopez to be an All-Star by any stretch, he is an upgrade for essentially a third 5, in comparison to last season.

So, what might be two goals for Lopez in 2022-23 with the Cavs as a vet big?

As far a couple of goals for Lopez for this upcoming season, we’re not going to be discussing Allen-level goals to strive for, but those are relative. We’ll begin with the first.