The Cleveland Cavaliers are planning to bring back the same team that just got boatraced in the Eastern Conference Finals. In doing so, they refuse to learn the lesson that the New York Knicks just taught them: pursue greatness, not mediocrity.
Fact: The Cavaliers just lost in embarrassing fashion to the Knicks.
Fact: Ask anyone other than Kenny Atkinson, and they will tell you that the Cavaliers were not on the same level as the Knicks.
Conclusion: Running back the same team, coaching staff and front office will not result in a different outcome than this year.
And yet, the Cavaliers are poised to do just that.
Cavaliers are making a poor decision
Doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results is a definition of insanity. It is hard to apply any other label to the Cavaliers at this point, as they have made known they intend to bring back Kenny Atkinson and his coaching staff, are poised to sign Donovan Mitchell to a massive contract extension, and have all but put pen to paper on a new deal for James Harden.
They are bringing the band back together, and the band is not that good.
Mitchell is the size of a point guard but has the skill set of a shooting guard, making it difficult to build a balanced roster around him. James Harden is 36 years old and turns into a pumpkin in the playoffs. Evan Mobley has failed to make the leap from defensive monster to two-way superstar, and the pathway to him becoming a Top 10 player (and thus good enough to lead a team to a title) appears to have disappeared.
And leading them all is a head coach who has seen significant regular-season success, and yet has been outcoached in two consecutive postseasons, and doesn't seem to want to take accountability for his failures. He is not seeing clearly, and yet the franchise wants him to continue steering the ship.
Yes, it is defensible to bring everyone back. This team made the Eastern Conference Finals, and they have won a lot of games over the past two seasons. You can make arguments that this group deserves another chance. That you have to lose before you win.
They might even point to the New York Knicks as evidence, since that group lost in the Conference Finals last season and now are advancing to the NBA Finals. The problem with that argument, however, is that the Knicks didn't sit on their hands and try the exact same thing again.
The Knicks showed the Cavaliers what to do
Instead, the Knicks made the difficult choice to fire Tom Thibodeau, an established coach who had just taken his team to the Eastern Conference Finals. It was even easier to defend keeping him -- the Knicks kept improving in the postseason, they took the Indiana Pacers to six games, and he had a long track record of success.
Yet he was gone after the season, and the Knicks hired Mike Brown. He completely redefined the culture and offense in Manhattan, and it worked. The Knicks are on the most dominant 11-game run in the history of the NBA, and they are heading to the NBA Finals.
They were brave enough to make the hard decision and change things up. That doesn't always work -- it's a risk, to be sure. The next coach could have been worse. They could have fallen short.
Yet without any risk, there is no reward. The Cavaliers are looking at a collection of players and coaches who struggled through two rounds before being blown out in the third. This group is not going to magically get better without a major change. And the team is refusing to make that move.
Check back in a year from now, when Atkinson has been fired and the Cavaliers have wasted another year. Not making the move now means disappointment then.
It's inevitable.
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