3 reasons Wade should keep starting for Cavs if Okoro remains out

Reason No. 2: Solid defender

What Wade does best for the Cavs is bring his outstanding defense every night. For a big man, he has excellent footwork and stays between his man and the rim where most possessions his opponent struggles to a get off a clean shot. He can recover quickly too if his player makes a move and can cause problems for his opponents.

When there is a 50/50 ball on the floor Wade is often in the middle of trying to get the recovery. If the ball is flying out of bounds, he hustles after it to keep the possession for the Cavs.

In most games, Wade is matched up against some of the opponents best players because of these factors.

The best coaches know that defense is the name of the game, especially in these playoffs that are about to happen. Keeping Wade in the starting five or at least in the rotation with good minutes, as in 20 minutes or more, will go a long way in helping Cleveland to wins.

Reason No. 3: Floor spacer

On offense, while Wade isn’t your scoring machine player that some of you wish he were, he does help in one key area that you need in this Cavs offense. He’s a floor spacer and while you might be pulling your hair out, or screaming at the television screen to have Wade move out of the baseline corner, it does make the defense have to respect him out there and thus create a more open floor for the scorers like Mitchell and Garland.

You aren’t going to see the opponent like the Knicks standing in the lane trying to take away the drive by Mitchell, and dare Wade to shoot it from the outside. If they do, Wade will make them pay like he did back in October when he rolled for 22 points.

That floor spacing also gives the Cavaliers other big men like Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen more room to work down low in the paint.

Wade is also a very cerebral player. He’s a guy that has an excellent basketball IQ that most ignore that have been critical of him. When Wade is out on the floor, more times than not, good things are going to happen.

This first series against the Knicks is going to be big and the pressure will be on this young and upcoming Wine and Gold squad to win. When you win more than 50 games in a season, you should be able to win a playoff round. The Knicks will be a tough out but with Wade getting solid minutes and potentially getting starts, if Okoro is unavailable at times, the team will be in much better shape than not.

Let’s hope the head coach in Bickerstaff sticks with what’s been working, or at minimum, gets Wade opportunities to impact games in bench minutes.