It was evident that the key cogs for the Cleveland Cavaliers didn’t play up to their standard nearly enough in Cleveland’s first round series loss to the New York Knicks. The Cavaliers’ core four guys had to be better, and that’s completely fair to say; the four guys couldn’t put it together as a group enough in that series.
One should still have confidence in Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley, though, and there’s reason to believe Jarrett Allen can rebound next season and in the playoffs from here, he can still aid this group, particularly if he improves in a few areas.
The Cavs to need to give the core guys some relief, too. Objectively, it’s clear the Cavaliers do need to find ways to get better shooting around Garland and Mitchell to give the team more pop on the wing, and it seems realistic to think potential wing upgrades via a trade and/or in free agency could be in-store this offseason.
There are other tweaks that could occur along the margins, too, beyond the wing outlook and whether or not Caris LeVert is re-signed this summer. Cleveland could seemingly look to bolster their reserve point guard depth, considering Ricky Rubio was less than stellar this season and is not getting any younger.
From there, the Cavs would be wise to possibly target backup 5 in free agency with perhaps some of their Non-taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (roughly $12.2 million). Cleveland needs more legitimacy there than Robin Lopez, and improving 4 man depth beyond Evan Mobley could be sensible as well.
Here, we’ll suggest a couple of young bigs who could bolster the Cavs bench and improve the reserve offensive outlook.
The first of the two backup 5 options we’ll take a closer look at here could give the Wine and Gold bench a different dynamic.