To get us through the late-Summer doldrums of the NBA, we’re reviewing teams from around the league and how their offseasons went.
Cleveland Cavaliers
Key Additions:
JT Thor (Two-Way)
Key Losses:
Tristan Thompson
Damian Jones
Unresolved:
Isaac Okoro
Offseason Review and 2024-25 Season Outlook:
The Cavaliers had a strange offseason. In one sense, I’d call it a success. The team got Donovan Mitchell to sign a 3-year contract extension, which is huge. Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen also signed extensions. The Cavs shook things up on the bench, too, firing JB Bickerstaff and hiring Kenny Atkinson. If you believe in the team’s talent and feel like Bickerstaff let the team down (not an unreasonable argument to make), then it makes sense to replace the coach and otherwise maintain status quo. Kings fans are weary of the term continuity, but there is an argument to be made for a good team not making a bunch of changes just for the sake of change.
And yet it still feels like the Cavaliers maybe could have done more this summer. Isaac Okoro remains in RFA limbo, but at this point it seems likely that he ends up back with the Cavs. Unless some sign-and-trade materializes so move Okoro elsewhere, the Cavs will be taking roster continuity to an extreme. Their only free agent signing to date is adding JT Thor on a two-way contract. I like that move, Thor played well in the Olympics and I like seeing him get another NBA shot, but I like it less when that’s a team’s only move. Is Kenny Atkinson and internal growth really going to be enough to propel the Cavs to the next tier in the Eastern Conference? I’m skeptical, even though I really like a lot of the players the Cavs are building around.
Why We Hate Them:
For some unknown reason Donovan Mitchell loves playing against the Kings. He torches us every time, and has a career 13-4 record against Sacramento. What did we ever do to you, Donovan? I also hate those jerseys with the giant C on them. Banish those forever.
Rejoice! This wraps up the Eastern Conference and now we’ll move on to the West, which should be a little more interesting to us as Kings fans.
And there was much rejoicing.
Thanks again for putting these together for us desk jockeys to distract ourselves with.
I appreciate you sharing what you know about the NBA and the other teams.
Thank you.
I am looking forward for a longer version of “Why we hate them” for those Western conferences teams.
As we got some rough patches with some of those teams.
The Cavs seem to mired in the Perennial underperforming expectations. They win well and often in the regular season, but have had disappointing post seasons.
The last two seasons had them winning 99 games (48 last season, 51 the season prior) and yet they lost in the first round one year, and the second round the next.
I wouldn’t be disappointed if the Kings made it out of the first round, so maybe I shouldn’t talk, but I just expected more from that Cavs line up. They have a solid star in Spider (Spida?) Mitchell, and have former All-Star Darius Garland, and Jarrett Allen on the squad. Then they drafted the much beloved Evan Mobley. I thought Max Strus added a lot to their line up last year. Caris Lavert is the type of slasher/scorer, decent defender that I thought would work well as a wing on the Kings – but DeMar DeRozan is much (much) better. That’s a pretty nice top 6 grouping.
Do you like that 6 over the Sac 6? (Ox, Swipa, Spock, Deebo, King in Arabic, and Keon Ellis) very different squads, aren’t they?
In fairness to JB Bickerstaff – his first year in The Land (I dislike this more than the Big C on the jerseys) in his four years, he went from 22-50 his first year, to 44-38, then 51-31, and last season 48-34. He was a part of the jump from cellar to respectability. I get them (Cavs ownership and fans) wanting more too.
JB did alright, moving right into the coaching vacancy left by the $79M/6 year deal Monty Williams Piston experiment (fiasco or debacle – coin flip call), and getting hired by Trajan Langdon (who replaced Troy Weaver), on a 4 yr, undisclosed amount salary deal. The 45 year old Bickerstaff was a positive in righting the ships in Houston and Memphis as well.
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