Caris LeVert’s playmaking has given Cavaliers a big lift early on

Coming into the season, it was difficult to know what to expect from Cleveland Cavaliers swingman Caris LeVert. In the season opener, he was set to start at the 3 alongside Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell, with Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen in the frontcourt, and there was some uncertainty involving LeVert.

LeVert did do a fine job in preseason, and was healthy coming into the new season, but I still need to see more with him alongside Garland and Mitchell for stretches. Now, Garland did unfortunately suffer an eye injury and missed the second half of Cleveland’s close season opener loss at the Toronto Raptors, though, and Cleveland’s convincing win at the Chicago Bulls, which was less than ideal.

As it pertains to LeVert, his playmaking help has really made a difference for the Cavaliers early, in any case, and that’s been great to see. It is meaningful that’s played out sans Garland, also, and he won’t be in action versus the Washington Wizards on Sunday.

Circling back to LeVert, anyway, he’s had seven and then eight assists at Toronto and Chicago, to go with 10 and then 14 points, respectively. It’s been encouraging that he’s been aiding the team with meaningful ball movement, and if Cleveland can keep getting this type of play from him, it should pay dividends for other guys.

LeVert’s playmaking has been crucial early on for the Cavaliers.

It’s been two games, to get that out there. That said, while I’m skeptical this could work with LeVert for elongated stretches of games for the Cavaliers with Mitchell and perhaps Garland with him, I have to give credit to him where it’s due.

We’ll still have to see when Garland is back, which should reportedly be next week, however, LeVert has given the Cavs quality minutes, especially from a playmaking perspective, early. As we mentioned, he’s had healthy assist totals in both of the first two contests of the season, and he hasn’t been forcing things much.

In fairness, he has not been able to get looks to go much on the interior, as he was only two-of-seven and four-of-12 in these first two games. His shooting clip has been just 31.6 percent overall, with that in mind.

Fortunately, LeVert was two-of-two at Toronto and then three-of-six from three-point range at Chicago, and despite my hesitation to buy him being viable off-ball, there were some encouraging signs last season and in preseason.

So, maybe he’ll prove me wrong on that front. I do have my doubts about LeVert being viable off-ball for legit stretches in games, let alone for multiple strings of contests, though; we’ll have to see. Thus far, he’s three-of-four on catch-and-shoot deep attempts, and two-of-four on pull-up deep attempts, per NBA.com’s shot tracking data.

Even still, I do acknowledge that LeVert’s defense has been better than I would’ve anticipated coming in, and he has gotten his hands in passing lanes, leading to deflections, helping generate transition opportunities.

And, as we hinting at earlier, his playmaking for others offensively has aided a number of Cavs, such as with sprayouts, one-more feeds for knockdown-type looks, and he has mixed in some timely dishes to interior targets.

LeVert’s decision-making in that sense has been on-point, and he, along with Donovan Mitchell, have helped make operations run more smoothly for other Cavaliers teammates. Hopefully in coming games, we can see that from those two pay off more for Evan Mobley, Kevin Love and others. LeVert has aided Mitchell himself in that realm early on, too, for what it’s worth, as Mitchell has shot eight-of-13 (61.5 percent) on passes directly leading to shots for him from LeVert so far, per NBA.com’s pass tracking data.

It’s a two-game sample size, for clarification, but very early on, Caris has definitely given the Cavaliers offense a lift with his playmaking for others.

Let’s hope we’ll see the drives mixed in with better results in upcoming games ahead, paired with that.