The Cleveland Cavaliers didn’t touch their core players this summer, and understandably so. They have three All-Stars and an All-Defense big making up their young core, all 26 years old and younger and under contract for at least two more seasons. They are giving this group another run next year.
The trick will be building out the rotation around them. They were active in free agency this summer, signing Max Strus, Ty Jerome, Georges Niang and trading for Damian Jones. They still have at least one open roster spot to fill. Those players need minutes.
The Cavaliers will be building a new rotation
At the same time, outgoing players from the Cavaliers — Cedi Osman, Lamar Stevens, Raul Neto, Robin Lopez, etc — played 5,140 minutes that will need to be replaced. So those new faces already have minutes waiting for them.
Let’s focus instead on the role players bridging the gap. They survived the summer and are still in Cleveland. Do they deserve more playing time? Less playing time? The bench will be better next season, but it’s not clear who will get the first shot at playing time. Here are five players, three who need to play more and two that need to play less.
No. 1: Dean Wade needs to play more
Dean Wade is a contentious topic of conversation among most Cavaliers fans. Some are convinced that Wade’s new contract is a waste of guaranteed money, that he is “just a guy” and the Cavs need to use his salary as matching salary in a trade for another wing. Others believe he is the perfect glue guy for a lot of lineups and that injuries played a part in his up-and-down season.
The answer will be officially provided this season and likely not before, but the evidence is certainly much stronger for the second group. When Dean Wade is on the court the Cavaliers play better. That was true last season even in the midst of his injuries and poor shooting: when he was on the court, the Cavs had a +2.4 point differential. His two most-used lineups, with Wade playing small forward with a mix of the starters and Caris LeVert, were around +22 points per 100 possessions.
That’s been the story for years with Wade; the Cavs’ best lineups have featured Wade playing either forward position. He has barely received any run as a starter, but the Cavs clearly understood his value to some extent, handing him a three-year contract extension that kicks in this season.
Wade will need to workshop his jumper this summer; it was clearly off when he returned from injury. But his defense, rebounding, ball movement and shooting come together in a player who deserves not only to play more than he did last season; he is likely the best option to start.
No. 2: Isaac Okoro has to play less
Isaac Okoro has had the starting spot gift-wrapped that Dean Wade has never been able to retain. That’s not to suggest that Okoro hasn’t worked hard, or that he isn’t a good player. It does mean to communicate that from the moment Okoro was drafted, the Cavs have handed him the starting small forward position and asked him to rise to the occasion.
Okoro has played 210 games for the Cavaliers and started 174 of them, including all 128 games in his first two seasons. It took until the playoffs last season for the Cavs to seriously limit his role, on account of his poor shooting. Okoro is an extremely low-volume shooter who only takes wide-open attempts; 2.1 of his 2.3 3-pointers last season were classified as “wide open” by the NBA, a whopping 91 percent. The fact that he only hit 36.3 percent of his triples is an indictment on his shooting ability.
The defense is certainly there for Okoro, but primarily as a backcourt defender. He can hound opposing guards, is slippery over screens and has quick hands to poke the ball away. He’s only 6’5″ though, without a super-plus wingspan; he’s alright defending most small forwards, but it’s not his speciality, and against larger forwards he is toast.
The Cavs need to give up on shoehorning Okoro into the small forward position, instead slotting him in as a lockdown defender at the 2 who can play alongside a smaller guard and take on the more challenging defensive assignment. Perhaps his shot eventually comes around, perhaps not, but he needs to slip under 20 minutes per game and be a rotational option, not a rotation lock.
No. 3: Isaiah Mobley should get more playing time
The MVP of the Las Vegas Summer League Championship Game was not a top pick, nor a lottery pick or even a first-round pick. He spent most of last season in the G League. He isn’t a nuclear athlete, a knockdown shooter, or a shot-blocking maestro. What he is, to many, is simply Evan Mobley’s brother.
Isaiah Mobley was dominant in the desert, seemingly too big and strong for opposing bigs to handle. He looked the part of an NBA center, averaging 17.8 points, 8.3 rebounds and 1.5 blocks. He was also a smooth playmaking hub, averaging 4.5 assists as the Cavs largely ran the offense through him.
After averaging 21 points per game in the G League last season, Mobley is ready for primetime. He can still spend some time with the Charge and further hone his abilities, but he has the body and the skillset to play NBA minutes this season. Mobley, not Damian Jones, should be the third big behind his brother and Jarrett Allen.
His passing can unlock different actions for the Cavs, especially if they surround him with shooting as they did in Las Vegas, be that Max Strus or Sam Merrill alongside Darius Garland and/or Donovan Mitchell. Mobley could play with his brother or as the sole big in the minutes both starting bigs sit. He needs to earn a large role, but he should be the third big from the very start of the season.
No. 4: Caris LeVert should play fewer minutes
One strength of the Cavaliers’ core of players is that they can handle large minute totals. Their youth is on their side, but the conditioning of Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen helps them to play more minutes than most of their fellow bigs; both averaged over 32 minutes per game last season.
The rub last season was that J.B. Bickerstaff didn’t just ride his starters for long minutes, he did the same for Caris LeVert, whether the wing was coming off the bench or inserted into the starting lineup. LeVert averaged 30.2 minutes per game a year ago, an unnecessarily large number for a player who fits so poorly with the team’s starting guards.
One argument Bickerstaff could have made last season was a lack of other options on the wing, but that can’t be an excuse this season. From Max Strus and Dean Wade at the 3 to Sam Merrill and Isaac Okoro at the 2, there are enough players to build a rotation with that LeVert can settle into 20-25 at the most.
Perhaps a smaller role helps him hone his shooting and play to his max on defense, both areas he will need to excel in to help the Cavs get over the hump. LeVert is a prime trade candidate, but he should be given a chance to raise his efficiency and lean into a small role rather than “showcased” as a bad player.
No. 5: Sam Merrill should see the court
The Cleveland Cavaliers wanted to add shooting this summer, and they spent a lot of money to bring in Max Strus, Georges Niang and Ty Jerome. Add in Emoni Bates, and every meaningful pickup this summer had “shooting” as the top item on their strengths list.
What if the best shooter for this next season was already on the roster? Sam Merrill caught on with the Cleveland Charge and shot the lights out in the G League, earning the Cavs’ 15th roster spot near the end of last season. That deal came with a non-guaranteed contract for this season, and the expectation was that the Cavaliers would waive him as soon as they found a better option.
Then Merrill went into Las Vegas Summer League and lit the place on fire, finishing as a First Team All-Summer League player. He hit 25 3-pointers in just five games, and his shooting and gravity were the foundation on which their offense ran. With so many teams in Vegas without reliable shooting, Merrill’s contributions were a major part of their run to the championship.
Merrill is slight and will be taken advantage of on defense, but he otherwise would bring elite shooting and reasonable playmaking to a movement shooter role. That’s an exciting player to work into the rotation. He will be somewhat redundant with Max Strus playing starter’s minutes, but he’s dangerous enough that the Cavs should try and get him onto the court on a regular basis.
Sam Merrill may be able to provide a similar impact to Strus; he might also just have been on a summer hot streak and not enough of a plus-shooter to make up for his defensive limitations. The Cavs owe it to themselves to give him some minutes and find out.