After falling to the Grizzlies 101-91 without Ja and JJJ, the Cavs officially have simultaneously the worst offense and the best defense in the NBA. Granted, the Cavs have been riddled with injuries and have been without Sexton, Garland, and Love, the Cavs' 3 best offensive players, but regardless, it's still the league's worst offense, meaning it simply can't hurt to restructure this offense.
The 3pt shooting was good tonight, going 11-26 for 42%, but everything else was awful. The Cavs signed Yogi Ferrell to a 10-day contract not even 12 hours before tipoff and he played tonight, finishing with 9 points on 9 shots. Not really good but exceeded standards for a player that was unemployed when he woke up that morning. Nance continued his hot streak, finishing with 13 points on 7 shots, hitting all 3 of his threes.
I understand that this team is extremely short handed. Both members of our young talented backcourt are out with injury, as well as the longest tenured member and only remaining player from the 2016 championship team in former all-star Kevin Love. Still, the bottom line is that this team is the worst offense in basketball. Changes need to be made. Currently the league's best defense is being wasted due to the simple inability to put points on the board. We have a real opportunity to win games but we can't do it because we haven't put up 100 points since the third game of the season when the league average for points in a game is almost at 112. I don't care who's out there, whatever we're doing is simply not working. I've said it before and I'll say it again, we need to stop playing out of the post, we can't create offense by giving the ball to Andre Drummond and Javale McGee.
Drummond has a TS% of 48% and Javale's is 50%, league average is almost at 57%. They're simply not good at putting the ball in the basket, yet we look to them to do exactly that. If I had to design this offense I'd run a very high amount of spread pick and roll with one of Sexland and whichever center is in the game. I'm tired of this 2010 offense with post touches and handoff plays and everything else where you have meaningless movement and just hope something happens. Spread pick and roll needs to be the foundation of our offense the moment Sexland returns from injury. It was the foundation of the best offense ever in the 2020 Mavs and it fits the personnel of this team perfectly.
The problems with Drummond and Javale seem fixable considering it is mostly a shot selection issue but something needs to change regardless. Larry Nance has also emerged as a crucial part of this team given his incredible defense and efficiency on offense. It seems like he's the clear-cut starter, but Kevin Love is set to return in a few weeks, but I'm not sure where he fits in assuming Nance remains the starter. All this being said, I think I found a Love trade that makes sense.
- Cavs trade Kevin Love and Javale McGee, get Rudy Gay and Gorgui Dieng
- Spurs trade Rudy Gay and Patty Mills, get Kevin Love
- Grizzlies trade Gorgui Dieng, get Patty Mills and Javale McGee
The Cavs, by doing this trade, remove the logjam at power forward and save over $60 million by not having to pay Love in 2022 and 2023. Gorgui Dieng is also an upgrade over Javale, considering he doesn't take the questionable shots that Javale does and fits into the defensive scheme of having bigs that can force turnovers and block shots. Dieng averages over 2 steals and 2 blocks per 100 possessions between last year and this year. The steals I would have normally overlooked, but it appears to be a factor on this team, given that our defense forces the most turnovers in the league and the three players on the Cavs that get the most steals are all bigs. However, the big difference between Javale and Dieng, aside from not taking bad shots, is that Dieng is a legit 3pt shooter. This year he's shooting 42% from deep but given that that's a small sample size, when you include last year, he shoots a league average percentage on significant volume, making him a genuinely average 3pt shooter. The reason this is significant is that since he plays center, he gives you the opportunity to run 5-out on offense. I previously wanted to do this with Nance, but since it doesn't seem like neither him nor Coach JB wants to put him at center, we have to find an actual stretch 5 to be able to run 5-out. Dieng is that guy. The reason I want to run 5-out so badly is that it allows Sexton to run isos with no one in the paint and only one man to beat to get there. Since Sexton can blow by defenders off the dribble, it produces some easy, efficient offense whenever the offense stalls and we need a bucket. It also just clears out the paint so shots there are easier and provides shooting to one of the worst 3pt shooting teams in the league. Rudy Gay is a veteran who can provide quality minutes and likely won't cause problems after being coached by Popovich for the last four years. It does push Dean Wade out of the rotation, but Gay is better and is much more experienced than Wade, even if he has seen statistical regression. Both Gay and Dieng on expiring contracts, so if the franchise decides to move in a different direction in the offseason, there are no strings attached.
The Spurs, by doing this trade, get a former All-Star in Kevin Love who can space the floor and put efficient points on the board. Honestly, finding a trade destination for Love was difficult given his contract, age, injury history, and defensive limitations. However, the Spurs might be in a rare situation where it makes sense to trade for Love. The biggest reason for this is Gregg Popovich. He's on the verge of retirement, and the Spurs want to put the best possible team around him at all times because they fear he'll retire if they go into a rebuild. This has been evidenced by trading Kawhi for DeRozan instead of young guys and picks, and the fact that DeRozan and Aldridge are still on the roster. The Spurs in the trade give up Rudy Gay and Patty Mills, but Love is an upgrade over Gay and there is a logjam at guard that trading Mills would clear up. Mills is also the most expendable of the rotation level guards on the Spurs. If they don't do this trade, it's because they want to move on from Coach Popovich and start their rebuild and don't want to deal with Love's contract.
The Grizzlies, by doing this trade, get some much needed shooting in Mills and a competent replacement for Dieng in McGee. Currently the Grizzlies have the worst shooting point guards in the league, unless there's another team I'm forgetting. Looking at the rest of the roster, the need for shooting is desperate, more so than I previously realized. The only issue I see here is since shooting is so rare on this team, they might not want to go from an average shooter in Dieng to a bad shooter in Javale, even if it is at center, the only position where not being able to shoot is generally passable.
After the trade, the Cavs' rotation would look something like this:
Garland, Sexton, Okoro, Nance, Drummond
Dotson, Exum/KPJ, Osman, Gay, Dieng
Spurs' rotation would look something like:
Murray, Walker, Derozan, Love, Aldridge
White, Vassell, Johnson, Lyles, Poeltl
Grizzlies' rotation would look something like:
Morant, Allen, Brooks, Anderson, JV
Mills, Melton, Bane, Clarke, McGee
The trade makes sense for all teams involved, and I would really like to see this happen in real life. Some picks might have to be moved to satisfy all the teams, probably nothing more than a second rounder or two, but the value for each team is pretty balanced if you consider the Cavs moving on from Love as a necessity. Before, in these Cavs' recaps, I've focused more on the coaching aspect of the team and what Bickerstaff can do to optimize the talent on this roster, but rather than restating everything, I decided to go more in the direction of roster construction and what to do from management's perspective.
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