The Cavaliers added key pieces to a team that won 51 games last season.
NBA basketball returns Oct. 24. We are counting down the days like the seconds on a shot clock — literally, that’s what we’re doing. As of Oct. 1, our writers will list 24 storylines heading into the 2023-24 NBA season.
A new storyline will drop each day. Here’s No. 11:
The young Cavaliers are better than they showed in that first-round playoff loss last spring.
Let’s put it this way: They had better be. Otherwise, there’s a lot of time and interest being wasted on a team that barely showed up in its five-game elimination by New York from the playoffs’ first round. Their production against the fifth-seeded Knicks was anemic — based on their field goal percentage (44.9%), their 3-point accuracy (32.7%) and their scoring average (94.2), they would have ranked, well, last, last and last in the league last season. A group accustomed to outscoring opponents by an average of 5.4 points nightly got that flipped on them in the first round, minus-5.4. Additionally, homecourt advantage meant nothing as the Cavs dropped both the series opener and the Game 5 ouster in their building.
Individually, players struggled too. Donovan Mitchell got game-planned into 5.1 fewer points per game and shakier shooting. Evan Mobley went from 16.2 ppg to 9.8, shooting less and missing more. Jarrett Allen scraped enough in his matchup with New York’s Mitchell Robinson that many Cavs followers began to question the viability of the Mobley-Allen combo.
Presumably, Mitchell will see the need and find ways to make teammates better in his second season in Cleveland. Mobley should be primed for a third-year leap. Continuity and maturity ought to bring a boost, and the Cavs seem willing to trade a little defense for a more potent attack. Of course, adding shooters Max Strus and Georges Niang for their cuts and their range will require a willingness to stretch the offense — those two combined elsewhere to make 37% of their threes, but the Cavs shot 36.7%. The key is upping the meager 31.6 3-point attempts that ranked 24th.
Winning 44 and 51 games the past two seasons sure has been a cool breeze compared to Cleveland’s ordeal (99 games below .500) in the previous three post-LeBron James years. But its knocks on the playoff door, while traditional, have been a little timid by comparison. A timely surge, a surprise now and then, wouldn’t have hurt. That was a Knicks squad still on training wheels itself, after all. It’s time, Cavs.
* * *
Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Warner Bros. Discovery.
