3 Cavs players who aren’t living up to expectations thus far

No. 3: Robin Lopez

As for the third Cav, while expectations were not going for him to be a crucial bench contributor, necessarily, Robin Lopez hasn’t been the playable 5 man depth that I thought he might be.

One had to acknowledge that Lopez is a player that has his limitations, and last season, he was not regularly in the rotation that often with the Orlando Magic, a rebuilding team prioritizing young guys getting the bulk of meaningful minutes.

Despite those caveats, I’d have thought that Lopez could at least be able to have viability in some stretches for Jarrett Allen/Evan Mobley, or handle work against more physical 5s for stretches instead of Mobley in that sense.

What’s instead happened is Lopez has been unplayable in a number of games, and while there are flashes, he hasn’t had the interior success offensively as a roller or tertiary post-up threat that I thought he would.

I’m aware it’s Year 15 for Lopez, and he was somewhat of a locker room presence-type signing in the offseason, anyhow, but 3.3 points per game has been telling. He’s been efficient with his shots, however, defensively, he hasn’t been much of a rim deterrent at all, with a block rate of just 1.0 percent, and he’s had a career-low 5.7 rebounds per-36 minutes.

Perhaps Lopez can turn things around a bit; it just doesn’t seem that likely, given what we’ve seen so far.