Cavs should follow the Lakers’ lead with their Russell Westbrook decision

The Cleveland Cavaliers have a natural connection to the Los Angeles Lakers. LeBron James is the greatest player in franchise history, and in 2018 he left the Cavs for Southern California to spend the rest of his prime playing in Forum Blue and Gold. Yet the Cavs should be taking notes not on LeBron, but on another one of his Lakers teammates.

In the offseason of 2021, Los Angeles made the puzzling and doomed decision to trade the depth of their title-winning team for Russell Westbrook. The results were disastrous, with the Lakers missing the playoffs entirely. With LeBron James another year older, the Lakers knew they had to come up with a different plan this year.

The Lakers made the decision to move Russell Westbrook to the bench. The Cavs should follow their lead and move this player out of the starting lineup

One option was to trade Westbrook, and the Lakers certainly explored that, reportedly getting right to the finish line on a deal with the Indiana Pacers before backing off. Yet if Westbrook stays on the team, the best option would have to be moving him to the bench. His fit with LeBron James and Anthony Davis is too poor for this team to have any chance otherwise.

That finally looks to be happening, with the Lakers’ new head coach Darvin Ham bringing Westbrook off the bench in the team’s final preseason game, and it looks like that will be the plan moving forward. It’s a tough sell for any player but especially one with an expectation of starting and playing such a prominent role.

The Cavs should take absolutely no advice from the Lakers on trades or on minimum signings, but they should consider following the Lakers’ lead on this one issue. They have a player in line to start who would benefit the team more by coming off of the bench.

That player? Caris LeVert.

Cavs’ LeVert is a poor fit with the other starters

The Cleveland Cavaliers have an incredibly-talented young foursome to form 80 percent of the starting lineup. Yet as talented as they are, pairing two defensive bigs and two offensive guards leaves the group with a few glaring needs. They need off-ball spacing and they need perimeter defense.

What they don’t need is a player who thrives with the ball in his hands, but that is Caris LeVert’s modus operandi. He’s not bad at it; he has a tight dribble, good passing skills and has a solid midrange jumper. The problem is that the Cavs have some elite options with the ball in their hands, and if both Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell are on the court, giving the ball to LeVert lowers their offensive ceiling.

There has been talk of letting LeVert handle the ball with Mitchell and Garland playing off of him, and their shooting and basketball intelligence can help make that workable. That’s not a way to optimize their offense, however; it’s a way to make a fit work in order to find gains in other areas. The Cavs will likely try this as Evan Mobley grows as an offensive force, letting him handle from the elbow with movement around. You make that sort of tradeoff because of Mobley’s elite defense. LeVert brings no such benefits to the table.

LeVert has said all of the right things about working on his defense and shooting, but his track record suggests he will be average at best for his position in both areas. LeVert’s strengths are duplicative and not needed with the starting group, and his weaknesses only exacerbate issues with the group. While he can certainly improve as a player, he’s starting far enough back that it seems like a stretch.

Who should the Cavs start instead?

The problem with moving Caris LeVert to the bench is that the Cavs don’t have an obvious player to swap into the lineup for him. That sounds like it was a similar issue for the Lakers, who have a perilously thin bench, but the problem for the Cavs isn’t that they don’t have talent on the bench, but that none of the other options fit perfectly for what the Cavs need.

Cedi Osman and Dylan Windler both have the size and some of the shooting potential to fill the role, but Osman has been wildly inconsistent the past few seasons and doesn’t appear to be a favorite of head coach J.B. Bickerstaff’s. Windler can’t stay healthy, missing the entirety of the preseason with an ankle injury. Lamar Stevens brings defensive heft but his off-ball offense is paltry and he’s probably on the wrong side of the rotation entirely on nights when everyone is healthy.

The options come down to Dean Wade and Isaac Okoro, and while neither are excellent options both are better fits than LeVert. Wade fits the “3-and-D” mold, but he has a low ceiling as a player and at 6’9″, 228 lbs would have a hard time running with guards. His insertion into he starting lineup would raise their floor the most.

Okoro would represent the best chance to raise their ceiling, to capture a longtime starter among their current roster. He has the defensive chops, and can take on anyone from Tyrese Maxey to Tobias Harris. He will struggle against the biggest wings, but perhaps in such scenarios he and Evan Mobley can swap out. He’s also the team’s best guard defender, a huge benefit to a team starting two defensive negatives in the backcourt.

The problem for Okoro is his shooting, both the volume of 3-point attempts and his accuracy. If he can take a step forward as a shooter, suddenly he becomes an excellent fit at the 3. Last year he shot better than LeVert’s career-mark from deep, so if he can dial that up just a bit he’ll be a worthy pick to start at the 3.

What Cavs should do with LeVert instead

That brings up the question of what the Cavs should do with Caris LeVert if he is not starting. They should absolutely be looking into options to trade him for a small forward who would be a better fit. However, if the Cavs don’t love the offers they don’t need to move him, and similar to the Lakers and Westbrook should then move LeVert into a bench role.

LeVert’s on-ball creation is less redundant if one of Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell is off the floor, especially before Ricky Rubio returns from his injury. Playing him at the 2 lessens the need for him to bring elite defense, with a number of strong defenders like Dean Wade, Lamar Stevens and Raul Neto working into the rotation around him.

LeVert can also roast opposing bench defenders, as most teams have softer spots to attack coming off of the bench. It’s unlike he would play much without one of Garland or Mitchell, which means at worst he will be facing the opponent’s second-best defender in bench lineups, an advantage for a player who is still very gifted at attacking offensively. Comparing him to his All-Star backcourt teammates is tough; comparing him to opposing bench guards shines a much better light.

Doing anything the current Lakers regime does seems questionable, but in this one area they seem to have the right of it. Building trust with a player and walking them through such a move to the bench can be difficult, but ultimately if the Cavs can help LeVert make that transition they will be better set up for on-court success.