Garland Surgery and a Look at the Rotation

Justin and Carter react to the news of Darius Garland's surgery and what it means for both the offseason and next year. From there they dive into the Cavs rotation and some of the changes they may consider this offseason. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This crowd rises to it speaking what Carl slammed it
out art left.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Wing free ball perfect Darlot.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
Then the helift block, the shot at the rim pow
with the left hand head of fowl. Welcome to the
Chase Down Podcast, part of the Caves Media family. I'm
your host Justin Rowan. The Chase Town is presented by Fubo,
the official streaming partner of the Calves. Watch over three
hundred and fifty channels of live sports and TV, including
fan Duel Sports Network without cable, there's no cost and
no commitment. Pry for free at foobotv dot com Slash Calves.

(00:32):
The off season continues to roll on and unfortunately for
the Cleveland Cavaliers, they have some news. Darius Garland underwent
surgery on his big toe. To help me discuss this
as well as a continuing our dive to look at
what roster moves the Caves are facing this offseason. It's
my co host, Carter Rodriguez. Carter, how you doing, Buddy good?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Uh, It's it's been a crazy, uh crazy stretch personally,
so uh, you know, why not a little bit of
crazy in Calves Town, you know, with some bad news.
I guess I would say, but like, I don't know,
I'm curious how you felt, you know, reacted to this one,
because like, on one hand, it sucks, you know, and

(01:15):
Darius is going to have to rehab all summer, which
means he doesn't get to work on his game all summer,
which means that you know, maybe camp might be in jeopardy.
We're not share based on some of the reporting out
there in terms of his full recovery. But on the
other side, there is like a little bit of validation
for like, you know, for two you know, card carrying

(01:36):
members of the Darius carl And fan club where you know,
we it feels like there's been a lot of people
coming after, you know, Darius for not being able to
play like himself in that postseason. It's like, well, see,
like there is a little bit of that, right, So, like,
I don't know, like there's obviously I'd rather not feel

(01:57):
validation and have him be fine and not need certain
but there is like a little bit of that. For me,
they're actually surprisingly enough, and I'm someone that is prone
to being smug. It's one of my best and worst traits,
particularly when I feel like I'm right. That's one of
my default reactions to any news. But really, when when

(02:18):
I saw this news, I just kind of felt empathetic,
right Like, even to the people that had some doubts
about what this run was, you're not operating with the
information to make a judgment, right, And I think, you know,
so much of the conversation is unnecessarily combative, and I
just feel like when people are reacting to the raw
emotions of the situation, we all wanted the Cavs to

(02:39):
go further than they did. It was a very disappointing moment.
You're you're looking for any.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Outlet there, You're not not everybody is incentive ized to
think about things rationally and sit down on a microphone
and try to make sense of it, right Like, you're
you're really dealing with the emotions of the moment. So
my instinct wasn't to go, hey, hey, you see you
know you you doubtersay everything that went wrong. It's like, yeah,
you know, we're all pulling in the same direction, and

(03:07):
this is unfortunate news. You know what you said about
the offseason, that's disappointing, right, Like, I think there's probably
still going to be a lot of work that he
does end up doing. I think you're going to have
opportunities to work on your body physically, to to try
to you know, get your your strength up, and to
add some weight. Probably you aren't able to add too
much because you don't want to add more weight to

(03:28):
the toe and all that, but you know, there is
still opportunities to do some exercises, and the cav statement
indicated that he's expected to make a full recovery and
start to resume basketball activities around training camp. I still
would expect him to miss some time into the regular
season obviously, you know, you're you're hoping that it's less
than it is more, but you know it's it's going

(03:51):
to be a process. But part of me also thought
back to twenty fifteen, Kyrie gets hurt in the finals,
he misses the start of the next sea, and even
despite all of that occurring, even despite you know, it
taking him until about February to look like himself, he
still ended up taking that next step. He took that
playoff leap that was necessary for the team to win

(04:12):
a championship. So it's not like we don't have a
precedent for it. But you know, obviously you would want
a better outcome than what we got here.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, And I just do think it kind of just
goes to show like injury luck is it's just a
hard thing to manage, you know. Yeah, And I think
and there really is a lot of truth to that.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
No one's healthy by the end.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Of the year adage, and it's just about degrees at
that point. And you know, the fact that it was
bothering Darius for like two months before before it got
got real bad on a complete freak incident, as you know,
is just one of those things where you kind of

(05:01):
have to settle in. And I kind of was, like,
I remember thinking to myself and I might have said
this on the podcast of like it's hard to like
feel like you wasted your good luck injury season where
you know, you didn't lose anyone for the year, and
you had general health. You know, almost all your players

(05:23):
played up, you know, in the high sixties at least
Jarrett played all of you two, and you feel like
you waste it.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
But like.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
I mean, at the end of the day, you still
had a guy who was so hurd he needed surgery,
and it's part so maybe they weren't as lucky as
we thought. They were, I guess is the crux.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
It's part of why when I look at the NBA
Finals right now, I'm not sitting here being like well,
part of me still says it should have been us,
just given the way that the rest of the breaks went.
But at the same time, like when I watch Game five,
and I've actually watched back that series three times now,
so out of your mind, I am out of my mind.
I'm in a dark, dark place here, Carter. But when

(06:03):
when I watched that back Game five in particularly like
Darius and Donovan, it was just so clear they didn't
have more games left in them, like they might have
had one or two. But if they even advanced past Indiana,
I think Donovan, I this is pure speculation. I think
it would have been like Boston where he gets shut
down and he just can't complete the series. Like I

(06:24):
thought it looked like that. I thought he was moving
around in that way. Darius was just so clear that he,
you know, was in a very very you know, serious
situation physically, right, It's it's inevitable, like when when he
was sitting out the first two games again against Indiana.
It's hard not to think, as you say, all these
injuries are degrees, right, Like everybody's dealing with some sort

(06:45):
of ailment. When it comes to the playoffs, you're sitting
there being like, well, you know, Austin Reeves, he looked
like crap, but he was playing through a toast brain,
right Like you're you're wondering, what is this? What what
degree are we at? When it comes to Darius. And
then when he's playing in Game three and he just
couldn't even maintain it balance at times and he's you know,
falling flat on his face without real pressure on him.
I'm like, Okay, we're talking about something really serious here.

(07:08):
And you know, I thought maybe we're out of the
woods when some time had elapsed from the regular season
to to this point now that there wasn't going to
be a surgery. But clearly, you know, you try to
maintain this situation, see if that's necessary. You know, some
people always question, well, why wasn't the surgery done right away?
There are issues when it comes to surgery, right, Like

(07:30):
you have to deal with scar tissue. You have a
lot of things going on, like look look at myself.
I tore my achilles and I didn't have surgery, Like
it was full rupture. I know someone that actually had
their hamstrings ripped from their hips and that was corrected
without surgery, right, Like, there are ways that you can
manage those types of situations without going you know, the

(07:51):
operative route. So you know, obviously it reached a point
where they felt like this was necessary to clean this
up and to guarantee the best possible outcome when it
comes to his health.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, And also I think it's like it was just
clear that this was an injury that you just kind
of were waiting to get better, waiting to get better,
waiting to get better, and when you know, I don't
you know, I don't know how the team felt behind
the scenes. You know, reporting is a tricky thing at best,

(08:23):
let's just say charitably in terms of how injury reporting
works in the league. But like, you know, I even Darius,
I think if you were to ask him, was like, damn,
I thought this was gonna be good by now, you know,
after he set out those two Miami games after the
first one, and it was just.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Like, remember after game two, we debated should they rest
Darius for a game?

Speaker 2 (08:45):
I know, yeah, crazy and I and I just think
it was one of those things where the longer it
didn't get better, the more like resigned. I got to
this is not gonna follow, uh, you know, a standard timeline.
It's just going to be an injury that either like that,

(09:06):
they're just they you know, we've left the standard deviation
right with it with it with a toe injury.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
And.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Especially just given that, you know, athletes don't rehab like
we rehab. You know, the I'm sure the real answer
is don't walk on your toe for a month and
a half, but that's just not really a thing players
get to do. So and I wouldn't be surprised if
you know, like you know, the recovery was set back

(09:36):
further by the fact that he did got it out
the last couple of games. And of course we're not doctors,
we don't know, but it was just one of those
injuries that I think, to your point about like they
didn't have any games left in them.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
I did.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
That's why I you know, the second he got ruled
out for Game two, I felt like the season was over. Yeah,
And I I texted several people as much because like
I just I think that I think that toe is
screwed in a major way and this is not the
difference between forty eight hours of rest at this point,

(10:12):
and that clearly has borne out to be true.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah, and it's unfortunately because it's now two years in
a row that you know, the season really ended in
injury and both guards being limited in the playoffs. Right
Like last year, Darius didn't get hurt in the playoffs,
but you know, he didn't really have that recovery time
to get the weight back after the job, right, Like,
there was so much stuff going on. Obviously he had
the death in the family as well. Donovan missed post

(10:37):
All Star break and was not himself physically in the playoffs.
Looked great against Miami, like Games one and two. Both
guards out out there, you know, running, they're flying all
over the place, and then you see how the season
ends and both of them are limping and not making
through it. And you know, as much as we are
advocates for hey, we want to see you know, the

(10:57):
at least the bones of this team return, you know,
this is going to be one of those questions. This
ultimately might be the story of the Caves, is they
can't get through a playoff run fully healthy, right, Like,
we don't know, and so much of this is luck right, Like,
even you know, you can have something that's only a
ten percent chance of occurring, and you can spin that
wheel a few times and you fall on a ten

(11:19):
percent You know, two three straight times doesn't necessarily mean
it's going to happen the next time, but it you know,
the more times it occurs, the worse it's going to feel.
But I think, you know, I still feel like are
kind of how we feel about the offseason is still
the same. The Calves owe it to themselves to see

(11:39):
what options are available to them as they approach the
second Apron, and they're going to be limited in terms
of movement. But when you look at really the ability
to only make kind of one for one or one
for two moves or for players below from a salary standpoint,
at the very least, I just I'm I consider myself
to be a creative guy. I just don't see a
lot of trades out there that seem worthwhile when you're

(12:02):
looking at those players below, Arius Donovae and Evan.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, and before we talk about any of the Apron stuff,
and I know we're going to keep hitting on it
all summer because I do think it's really important and noteworthy.
I do you think your probability you know, you're spind
the wheel metaphor does hold true because we want this

(12:27):
to be merit based, We want this to be structure based, and.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
And it is.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Of course, there's a reason good teams stay good and
bad teams tend to stay bad. Right, there is a
skin that we're not playing the slots here, but like
the best percentage chance you have for a title, especially
if you don't have a Lebron James generational Michael Jordan
type of player, the best chance you're probably going to

(12:58):
get if everything goes like you know, any time you
simulate a season is going to be like twenty five
percent of the title, thirty percent of the title, and
every other in all these elements that play in, you know,
meaningfully knock that down because it's like an injury to
you and an injury to one of the other twenty

(13:20):
nine teams. They're not equivalent, like in terms of your
title hopes, you know, and so it's just one of
those things where you just you just there's nothing known,
there's nothing guaranteed, and you know, the job is not
to build a team. They can't lose the team. The
job is to build a team that has the highest
probability of winning, and like, if you're worried about this

(13:44):
team's ability to hold up in the postseason, I'm there
with you. I am worried both in terms of their
literal physical health and some of their style of play
concerns that we hammered on. But you know, at the
end of the day, I do think that's it needs
to constantly be reminded that there this is a this

(14:05):
is a numbers game and a probability game, and uh,
all the all the front office can do is try
to maximize get that number as high as possible. Yeah,
and you know, for the most part, like if you
want to take some solace, like for the majority of
what the Cavs have dealt with, you know, this season
from an injury standpoint, it's fluke stuff, right, Like DeAndre

(14:26):
Hunter a bit of a you know, a tough play
front from Ben Matherin and fractures his finger, right, Evan Mobley, Yeah,
Evan Mobley, yeah, thank you. High ankle sprain had the
same thing happened in last year's playoffs.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
It's unfortunate. He's a warrior for his ability to play
through that kind of stuff. But that's not a wear
and tear kind of fatigue injury. Darius when he broke
his jaw, like, that's that's a fluke, right, and that
derailed the whole season unfortunately. But you know, he was
healthy for that Knicks series, right, and he was healthy
for the play and he like we've seen him finish

(15:03):
most of the last few seasons. And I think, honestly,
I think how he played after the jaw has impacted
how we feel like he plays when he is a
little banged up. We've seen him play with you know,
an ankle sprain and stuff like that and still be effective.
I think, you know, finding out that the toe went
back as far as it did, it's kind of funny,
you know it was, I think, Sham said March twenty third,

(15:25):
That's when things started turning around for him. That's when
he started getting a shooting touchback. That's when you got
you know, those games against the Knicks and all that
after a couple of weeks of poor shooting. So we've
seen these guys be effective. The one that concerns me
a little bit from you know, a soft tissue, wear
and tear type thing is Donovan, where you have these
recurring issues on the left side right, like it was

(15:47):
a bone bruise in his left knee last year going
into the playoffs, had a calf strain ultimately against the
Celtics in on his left leg, and that's what caused
him to miss the rest of that series. Again. You
see kind of thatt ankle, left knee, soreness, left calf right.
And that's a big part of why my philosophy and
going into this offseason is not I want to increase

(16:09):
the load on Donovan Mitchell. Let's make him the primary initiator.
Let's trade you know, Darius for a three and D
wing and and let him play the point guard. I
think you know, this is once again an opportunity for
them to redistribute some usage, still using Mitchell as a
primary play finisher, but continue to empower Evan Mobley into
to build them up in that way.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, it's uh, there are opportunities that come out of
these kinds of things. I am you know, I yeah,
I think you know. We've been pretty clear we're not
on team trade Darius.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
Uh and uh and uh.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
It's not like I'm not transparent about like how I
feel about him. We're pretty clear that.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
We're fans and we think he's kind of the best
guy to run our offense moving forward. And you know, again,
the next series they lose because they couldn't get stops
will be there first or all their series, they've lost
her on the offensive end. And you know, you can
certainly quibble with Darius's ability to stay healthy down the stretch,
but you know, I still trust what he can do

(17:15):
based on that end compared to just about any of
the other options.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
And and the tricky man.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
Yeah, there's a tricky tricky thing with kind of the
roster construction of the Calves is when you look at
the top three, there are some redundancies in terms of
Garland and Mitchell, like they're both you know, smaller guards
six to three and under that that handled the ball
a lot. But they on the other hand, there's not
that real redundancy because honestly, like if Donovan's out, I

(17:44):
don't think Darius is able to step up as a
scorer in the way that we would need him to
in order for us to be a functioning top ten
type offense. If Darius is out, we have already seen
that Donovan isn't the level of playmaker to have a
playoff top ten offense, he's able to get his own
as a score or but indeed, what was their philosophy.
We're not going to send help at you. We're going
to like force you, bait you into being a score

(18:07):
because if we're not sending a second man to you,
we're not giving you playmaking reads that you're going to make.
And you see the rest of the team go cold,
and Evan Mobley like, you know, I don't have to
make an argument for why, you know, there's no redundancies
with what he does. He's you know, he's that dude.
But you know, going back to what I said about
reacting to the Darius surgery news and how I wasn't

(18:29):
really you know, jumping down people's throats about the injury,
I feel the same way when it comes to roster
building constructions because I think how scary the second apron
and the restrictions are is going to vary based on
your level of belief with what the roster they currently
have is right. And I don't mean.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
That second apron is fine if you like your roster.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
I don't mean that one through twelve. I think you
know there's opportunities for changes, and we're going to get
into that on this podcast. But when it comes to
how far you believe the core is going to be
able to go when they're healthy. If you were a
skeptic going into last year, nothing occurred that's going to
change your perspective or how you view or how you

(19:10):
feel about them. How can I sit here as an
analyst and everyone knows where my feelings are, but from
an analysis standpoint, how am I going to sit here
and say, hey, you know, there's a lot of context
that went into the playoffs. You really should, you know,
open your mind up to changing your perspective and those
preconceived notions you had. That's unfair me to ask to
any fan or analysts that I don't happen to agree

(19:32):
with their reasoning. How you feel about the second apron
is and how panicked you are about the restrictions of
it is completely impacted by how confident you are in
the top and talent of this team. Yeah, I mean
that's fair and if you but I will say it's
hard no matter what, Like, would I rather you know?

(19:59):
I remember we might have been talking about this privately,
but there was you know, there had been some reporting about,
you know, the owners being like, oh, the second apron
is too punitive, Let's let's lighten, let's maybe tweak some
of these things. And part of the reason I was
kind of cool with going into the second apron is like,
maybe they'll just make it better. Maybe it won't suck
so much to be here. By the time we're there,

(20:19):
it doesn't seem like that's forthcoming. Who's to say, yeah,
you know, I haven't seen any reporting since those kind
of initial that initial noise.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
A year or two ago.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
Could you imagine being the team that made some moves
to do, you know, adjust their situation right before that
news broke. I feel like the Chicago Bulls.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yes, of course they'd never pay the luxury tax, so no,
it wouldn't. I but yeah, I mean, I definitely feel
the challenge of it because even on the mark it,
it actually is just as hard to upgrade the middle
class of your roster. It might be harder, honestly, because like,

(20:58):
if you're on team Darius isn't as good as as
as like me and you think he is or Jarrett
less so because of where the numbers at. But like
it's easy to make to find a Darius Garland trade
for some pretty good players, you know, like you can

(21:19):
generally make that work within the numbers. Now, neither of
us want to do that because we don't think those
players are better than Darius Garland.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
And I've also seen a lot of like reasonable examples
that will work within the numbers that don't work within
the numbers, which you should probably figure those out.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yes, you should, probably you know, boot up the old
trade machine on spot track before you you share. But I,
at the end of the day, like I see that
for someone like me who is interested, who feels pretty
good about the top guys on the team, and you know,
might want some stylistic changes in the middle class, it
is hard. And it's hard for two reasons. It's hard

(21:56):
because of the restrictions and not being able to do,
you know, two for one aggregating trades or taking in
more money than you bring in. But I think the
hidden little demon of of of it is the fact
that it also just completely makes it impossible to work
with any other teams who are in your situation. Like

(22:18):
in order for the Calves to do a trade with
the Phoenix Suns, it has to be a dollar for
dollar match. Or it's not legal, and like, so all
these teams that are you know, even even first apron
teams that are right up against it, it's just really
really hard.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
So like not don't.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
It's not just that you have limitations, it's that you
know a third or of you know, two or forty
percent of the rest of the league has similar or
ass punitive of limitations. So you can't do business as comfortably. No,
you really can't.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
But there are some ways that can bring in additional
help without additional cost. Carter, do you know which one
you're overlooking?

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Which one?

Speaker 3 (23:05):
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Speaker 2 (23:25):
I was just gonna say, like it is just it's
just a challenge to figure out how to meaningfully tweak
the roster, and like deciding how much you're willing to
how risky you want to get. I guess in terms
of that, you know, like even within the rotation of
the team right now, you know, Isaac had another really

(23:47):
rough playoffs, and Diana is and yeah, Dean as well,
So you know, part of your brain goes, I don't
know if I want to go into the playoffs, you know,
hoping for the third or fourth straight year with these
guys that they're gonna they're gonna get hot from three

(24:08):
in match their regular season offensive output. But so so
you might look at like a Jalen Tyson and say, hey, Jalen,
we didn't really give you much run, and but we
know the things you're good at, and there are things
that you know, maybe we you know stylistically, aren't great at.

(24:28):
So like there's some things that you could bring, but
that's gonna be a real challenge.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
And like when you.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Talk about coaches coaching for the playoffs, sometimes that means
playing a worse eighty two game player in hopes of
a better sixteen game player. Because there's a real world,
because like there is so much value in guys like
Isaac and Dean not screwing up for eighty two games,

(24:56):
being reliable, being you know, being pretty much the same
guy night to night to night, and you know, some
nights they go they you know, they're they're they're better
than others, but like their floor is pretty high in
terms of what to expect them from them on a
ninth night basis throwing transactions off to the side, like

(25:16):
how comfortable are you saying, hey, uh, you know, Jalen,
h we want to see if you're someone who can
help us in the postseason, and we're gonna let you
figure it out or play and play twenty minutes a night,
even knowing that they'll probably like there's a very good
chance that Isaac is a better regular season player than

(25:40):
him right now, and we don't know that Jalen is
a better sixteen game player right now.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Like you have to be.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
You have to get a lot riskier I think in
your in your in your headspace, and I'm just I'm
curious to see how ready the team is to do that.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
Yeah, I'm I mean there is a real risk, right,
Like young players are really exciting. But when I was
talking about you know the Synergy stats available on basketball
index of you know, where the team ranks in terms
of perimeter isolation defense and all those sorts of things.
Balen Tyson did good on the screens, but isolation defense

(26:19):
is small sample. In the minutes that he played. He
is not only the only person below you know, the
fiftieth percentile in the league in perimeter isolation defense, but
he's down below like the tenths. Like it's bad. It
was really really bad for him. And you know, some
of that small sample you're coming in in garbage time.
But that's what you expect from young players, right Like
they're not always ready for that moment. He's definitely someone

(26:42):
that I would be interested in, right Like we talked
about him last season when they brought him in, is
hey potentially the following season, that could be a lot
avert succession plan, right Like someone that's going to step up,
handle a little bit of that ball handling, handle a
little bit of the initiation. I love some of the
stuff we saw from him. I love the activity. I
love his ability to you know, high point basketballs and

(27:04):
get the rebounds. I thought he is someone that you know,
fills up the box score when when he's out there.
That's exciting to me. I like the fact that he
you know, honestly, I like the fact that he gets
turnovers because it shows that he's seeing things like it's
not hey, I can't handle the ball and I'm turning
the ball over type things. It's you know, finding the
right read, but you're half second slow. And I'd rather

(27:27):
I have someone that can see that kind of stuff
and try to make those plays and explore the space
than someone that's just not doing anything out there but
not making mistakes. This is going to sound like a
convenient answer, because it absolutely is. I'm ready to, you know,
put him part of the regular rotation because I think
if he hits, it's something that the calves need and

(27:49):
would benefit from within the rotation. I'd also kind of
like a little bit of a veteran option to go
to if that's not panning out come.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, that was kind of my next question, which is like,
if you're you know, right now, I think we're really
looking at the back half of the calves playoff rotation,
you know, and to probably put a finer point on it,
the Okoro Dean uh after the.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
Top six right right now, if we're assuming you know,
the core war guys, Strus and Hunter are all back
after that, I think it's an open question for how
you want to distribute your you know, your last chips
in terms of who you can sign, who you can
bring back, who you're going to trade for are you're
going to trade a first round pack?

Speaker 2 (28:33):
And I'm all kind of presuming Tie is back. And
obviously you know they know what, you know what they
say about assuming, but I think for the sake of
this exercise, I'm going to presume Tie is back and
he's in the rotation, and we're going to chalk up
you know, this that nightmare series to just being a
nightmare series. Ye that role players have sometimes, you know.

(28:59):
But and if he hadn't been so great against Miami,
I would maybe feel different.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
But you know, he.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Did play great for a stretch yep and like I'm
not sure I could say the same for Dean or
Ice where I don't think either of them played well
against Miami either. No, and before you continue with your point,
the one thing I want to say with o'cor is,
and you know, Dean has been unhealthy for a lot
of kid of these playoff runs. Last year he was
healthy and there was the heasnancy to shoot right, Like

(29:25):
I thought, he played well defensively, but you know, you
need kind of that willingness to shoot, and particularly like
when we talk about how the Cavs need that secondary playmaking,
they need guys with juice, just not getting that from
either of those positions, and I think the potential of
that with a Jalen Tyson is what makes me interested
in exploring that as an option.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
But with o'cora in particular, like he shot thirty eight
percent from three in the playoffs, and you know, normally
that's the type of thing that we celebrate about, but
to me, that just goes to show you how meaningless
that percentage is because one it's a low volume and
two he was turning down shots and there was a
lack of confidence there, and the fact that there were
times where he was floating, not playing confidently after a

(30:09):
regular season where I thought he was used better. He
was used as a screener, a roller, he's doing all
these kind of active things and stuff like that. The
fact that that didn't translate to the playoffs and there
isn't an injury situation and he is turning down open shots,
that to me is different than what we've seen in
the past, and that to me makes it more urgent
to you know, really explore what went wrong there and.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
What options you got to explore the space? And I
guess my question I was trying to kind of ramp
up to is I think we're both interested in, uh,
the you know, the Jalen Tyson door. If we're at
a hallway with three doors, and we've got the Jalen
Tyson door, we've got the you know, run back the
same rotation as last year door, then the third door

(30:54):
is go get someone. Yep, would you be are you
more interested in going and getting someone and even maybe
giving up a little capital to do so in the
form of players and some draft compensation. Obviously we're not
talking about Tradin first right now, but I might be, well,

(31:15):
maybe maybe, But are you interested in going through that
third door more than you're interested in going through the
Jaalen Tyson door. Yes, I think that needs to be
the priority. I think that would be the priority. But
part of why I.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
Can confidently answer that is because I've seen that Kenny
Atkinson approaches the regular season. I see how deep in
the rotation he goes. I know that opportunities are going
to arise for guys to step up and play more minutes.
I would like Tyson to at least be you know,
the tenth man in the rotation, because we do know
that Kenny goes ten deep. I want him to be
part of the regular rotation. But I think the priority

(31:49):
should be really looking at what options are available to you.
And you know it's going to be a tricky line.
What veteran free agents are you able to bring in
because who you target is a trade candidate. If you're
looking at kind of those smaller salaries that still can
find actual matching players. The types of players you are
going to target are going to be impacted by who's

(32:11):
available in the free agency market. You know, are you
able to convince someone like Al Horford to take a
veteran deal with the Cavs. That might impact who you
look at from a trade standpoint, Like you might not
be looking at a big you might be looking at
a wing, right. Same thing goes for Larry Nance Junior.
I think he can get more than that. But we
saw last offseason guys like Trey Jones, Gary, Trent Junior,

(32:34):
a whole bunch of guys that we thought were, you know,
for surefire like mid level or some like Gary. There
talks of him being like a twenty million a year
player ended up going on a vet minimum to contending teams.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
I can I jump in real quick with something that
in the biggest difference this year for those kinds of
guys is last year we didn't have room for him
because we still I think we were still ready to
go one more year with it's Isaac spot to lose,

(33:08):
it's Dean's spot to lose. And it's really hard to
go into those conversations with anyone any of these you know,
guys who basically like I'll take a haircut to be
on a good team and try to rehab my value,
you know, like it's like the difference between three million
and two million is not moving the needle for me,
you know. And I'm throwing out BS numbers, but you

(33:28):
get what I'm saying. I do feel like the sea
has changed enough for this CALVS team that it's easier
to go to a Larry and say, hey, if you
sign here, our plan is to have you in the rotation. Yes,
you know, and I don't think they could. I don't
think I would have said that going into last year

(33:51):
to Gary Trent Junior or a Trey Jones. You know,
I don't think you could reliably promise that in a
way that any player would believe you. I think the
back end of this calvs rotation is shaky enough in
terms of how confident we are in their postseason contributions
that we like. I do think the Calves have better

(34:13):
AMMO going into this summer.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
I think the other factor is we're not coming off
a forty eight win season where the guys were hurt,
coaching change, you don't know what it's going to look like,
what's the stability of the roster, all that sort of thing.
You know, they lost in the second round. Boston just
won the championship. Austin's tearing it apart, Jason Tatum's going
to miss next season. Right. The Cavs won sixty four games.

(34:36):
I think it is an easier sell for a veteran
to say, hey, not only are you going to play
a role, the East is wide open. There's a real
chance we were the best regular season team in the
Eastern Conference. We need to get over the hump in
the playoffs. We think some veteran, you know, veteran push
can can make a difference here. Maybe that is attractive to,

(34:56):
like you said a Larry and Ants JUNR Malcolm Broggen,
someone that's been mentioned, is willing to take a VET
minimum deal to you know, play it for a contender.
Does that impact how you view things with Ty Jerome
right and all the time when it comes to these
free agents, like you know, you can say, hey, I
like what he brings more than the guys you're considering
bringing back. You don't know if they have any interest

(35:18):
in the calves. You don't know who's actually an option
or not. But I'm saying whoever does express interest. When
you do your you know, your talking agents and your
back channeling and all that kind of stuff that might
inform what you're looking at from a trade standpoint, that
might inform kind of where you're prioritizing your energy to
fill out the roster. And like for me, it's also

(35:40):
a different conversation because DeAndre Hunter's on the roster, Like
that really really changed the dynamic. And like my top
priority when it comes to this offseason, I'd love to
add a power forward. I'd love to add a backup
power forward so that DeAndre Hunter is in default slotted
into that role. I don't have passionate feelings about who

(36:02):
should start, particularly if we're going to be upping Mobiley's usage.
I think Max Streus might be more suited to that
than a DeAndre Hunter. But I want both of those
guys basically playing those starter minutes or like twenty eight
minutes a game. I want them both to be on
the wing. But I want to have that power forward
that makes it easier for Hunter to slide down to
small forward and for us to play bigger around our

(36:23):
smaller backboard.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, I mean, how good did it feel, even just archaetypically,
whenever Dean and DeAndre were sharing the floor at the
three and the four next to Evan or Jared at
the five, like it felt good, they felt big. But
then when you tried to run those lineups in the
postseason and it's just like, well they're not Garden Dean,
and when he catches the ball, he can't really attack,

(36:47):
you know, and like it just it just you weren't
getting the yield, you know, from those lineups, and like
adding a little bit more juice, either whether as a finisher,
as a dunker, spot lurker, as a corner, like whatever,
it is. Someone with a little bit more juice, a
little bit more oomph, you know, I think at the

(37:08):
end of the day. That's what I want from this
Calves offseason is oomph injections. I want, like I watch
two teams make the NBA Finals with sharp elbows and
in nasty pushing and shoving and grabbing and holding and bumping,
and yeah, they're also fundamentally really solid. But people aren't

(37:31):
terrified to go against the thunder because Alex Caruso slides
his feet so well, yeah, they're terrified to go against
the thunder because every time you bring it in, someone's
digging in and poking at the ball and slapping at
your arms and slapping at your hands. I dude, I
almost like if the Calves are near the top of
the league in foul rate next year, I'll be happy.

(37:54):
It's almost one of those like negative stats that you
want to see more of because it means the team'sing
a more physical brand of basketball and like so like
that's kind of almost what I'm looking for, is like,
who I want oomph and I want chaos generator event
kind of play from this team. Like I'm sick of

(38:16):
being the fundamental nice team. I want to see them
kind of rough folks up.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, and if we are conceding that we think from
a talent standpoint, to make sure you're maintaining the high
end talent at the very least, you got to have
your top three guys back. You got to think about
everything else all around them. And you know, the one
thing I'm going to keep repeating all off season is
they need to change how it feels to play against
the Cleveland Cavaliers. They need to be able to maintain

(38:42):
an identity. That doesn't mean always playing one style. Your
identity might be, hey, we're that team that does experiment.
We are that team that plays, you know, tries different things.
If you know the sauce switching. We made arguments for
and against it on a previous podcast. If that's something
that they want to maintain, you got to ask yourself,
do we have the right personnel to execute that at

(39:02):
a high level? Do we want to have Jared Allen
out there? Is he ideal for when we're playing that style?
Do we want teams to be able to get Tyrese
Haliburn onto him every single time? Now people might default to, oh,
does that mean trade Jared Allen or whatever. No, it
doesn't mean that. Like when you look from a roster construction, standpoint,
and like percentage of the salary cap you're talking about

(39:24):
like an Alex Caruso and in a couple of years
Isaiah Hernstein tier player. If you're bringing in a like
a power forward, another option there that allows you to
play a little bit of a different style defensively, there
might be some matchups where you play a little less
Allen and you are playing you know, a Larry NaNs
junior or a you know, Dwight Powell or whomever you're

(39:46):
bringing in b ball.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Paul, you are ready for that list.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
That was a tough one.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
That was really we're ready for that list at all.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
Bobby portis Yabuselli, Yeah you know you know.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Oh yeah, bo is high on my show. Brother let
me tell ya.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
And you know my dream candidate, which I think is
going to be out of our price range, but you
know why I was advocating for him two years ago. Well, PJ. Washington, Like,
I think that is an absolutely ideal.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Such a helpful player.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
I will say to your point about Jarrett kind of
being in that Caruso and not even yet in the
Hertenstein range is like I do think it. It really
goes to show you how much team context and overall,
team success colors the way we feel about players and
how they fit within the context of their teams. I mean,

(40:36):
you had the thunder benching their thirty million a year
acquisition and people were like surprised by the strategy of it.
But no one I didn't see a single person suggests
that they had made a poor investment in adding Hartenstein

(40:58):
to their team. I didn't see anyone suggest that chet Holmgren,
who played like twenty four minutes in that game, was
not ever gonna get to where Okay, see they needed
him to get because they have so much depth, They
have so much stylistic diversity in how they can play,
especially on the defensive end of the floor, that you know,

(41:22):
it's all defensible and thus easier to rationalize. So much
of the quote unquote Calves need to move on from
Jarrett conversation is rooted in the fact that if Jarrett
is not playing a good ge is not having a
good game when he goes to the bench. They don't
have lineups that can kill teams yep, and that can

(41:44):
play different styles, you know, like generally, Like one of
my big gripes about a Calves down shift, even going
back to when the ang was on the team, was
like they didn't get different, they just got smaller. Yeah,
like they didn't like a whole different kind of version
of them. They just kind of felt like a little

(42:06):
bit a little shootier and a little less anything else,
you know. So like I feel like that's if I'm Kobe,
I'm really trying to generate as many lineup combinations that
allow them not to need every individual contributor to be
on their freaking a game all through a playoff series.

(42:28):
Because guys at Jared's you know, salary slot roughly, are
guys that you're supposed to be able to say, Hey,
it's not your night, it's not your matchup tonight, You're
gonna play twenty twenty four minutes. But right this version
of the caves, because DeAndre couldn't catch the ball or

(42:49):
shoot because his thumb was dislocated, because Dean had another
really rough offensive postseason, because Okoro had another off season,
it's like, well, you're looking around your options to go, Jared,
just figure it out, buddy, and like, you know, that's
in you know, and to his whatever the opposite of

(43:10):
credit is, by the end of the series, he wasn't
figuring it out and it wasn't going well. But again,
I just think the context matters so much, and like
they need to just keep juicing the rest of this
roster with that kind of stylistic diversity, and that might
mean being a little risky with what kinds of promises

(43:31):
you make in terms of rotation spots and free agency,
what kind of and how aggressive you want to be
on the trade market.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
Yeah, the thing that I keep coming back to as
well as the Cats have a lot of depth, but
in terms of how you like access that depth and
how you get them to perform, the number of routes
were very limited. It's usually Donovan or Darius or or Evan,
you know, generating some looks for guys and they're out

(43:57):
there being play finishers. You don't have the ability to
create from so many positions, different positions. And you know,
as much as I want size and I want physicality
and I want it to feel a little different, I
want a little bit of juice of playmaking.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
Right like that.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
That's why al Horford is appealing to me, That's why
Larry's appealing for me. Obviously that comes with an injury risk,
and obviously I'm biased as a friend of the podcast.
I'd love to have Larry. I think it would be
great to have him on the roster. But he's a
terrific playmaker. He's someone that you are able to, you know,
get the ball to when teams are pressuring, because you
know when teams are being physical, when you're receiving that pressure,

(44:34):
the best way to beat it and the best way
to prevent it from even getting established is by swinging
that ball and creating You look at the Indiana Pacers,
Tyres Halliburn is one of the best playmakers I've ever
seen playing basketball. Like though, the way that he takes
care of the basketball, the way that you're able to
run offense through him, and all that, it's terrific. When

(44:55):
you look at the true usage so you know usage
rate and assist opportunities generated, TJ McConnell has a higher
true usage rate on that team than Tyrese Haliburn because
they're comfortable allowing Tyres to play off ball and to
generate action and run offense coming off a swing. The
Caves denied Tyre's Hallimburn the ball a lot against the

(45:16):
Pacers in the playoffs. What were they comfortable doing? Andrew
Nemhard's going to run more pick and roll actions for
the entire playoff series than Halliburn did. And if the
ball happens to swing to Halley on a possession, we're
good with it. If it doesn't, that's fine as well.
We're going to allow the Cavs to try to be
physical and face guard him and take him away from
the ball. And you know, it swings to him with

(45:38):
six seconds left and he's got a nice so with
Jared Allen, he's going to take that step back to
his left like they're completely comfortable with that, and that's
something I think the Cavs can emulate. Darius is one
of the better off ball guards that we have in
this game. Donovan's made huge strides there. You need more
guys that can initiate that have a little bit of
juice as a playmaker. Max Struss is not Steve Nash,

(45:59):
but think of how much better the offense feels and
how much he unblocks with just the playmaking he has.
You have one or two more guys that can do that,
and you have bone and fide play finishers like a
DeAndre Hunter and the top end guys. I just think
it's going to be so much harder to turn the
water off for this offense when it comes to the playoffs, yep.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
And it also makes it easier to have guys at
seventy five eighty percent for a series or two yep,
you know, because they can just be part of a machine.
Like as much context as we've provided in trying to
kind of argue, like, you know, this wasn't the best
version of the Caves because of these injuries. Like I
keep going back to last year's playoffs where Indy is

(46:46):
down to Halliburton. They're down like three rotation players, and
they're still beating the hell out of out of Boston
and making them earn every bucket and making and making
Boston guard every possession and imposing their style of play
even without all their best players there to do it.

(47:08):
I think about Orlando and they're having their season from
hell this year, down a lot of important players. The
vibes are wrong.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
All year, you know.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
They they basically like barely squeak in. And then what
do they do. They impose their style throughout an entire
playoffs series, even when they're completely outgunned and really have
no shot from a talent perspective, and and a styles
make fights perspective, but they still impose their will. And

(47:40):
like that's where I think some of that that playmaking depth,
what that what that kind of stuff gets you. In
the form of Indie or in the form of Orlando,
they have so many guys that can do what they
want to do, And I just I just feel like
to your point, all the stuff for the calves is

(48:02):
generated at the top. Even when it's mobively getting more,
which we still want, there's still it's still a top
down offense. Which it's not that in terms of like
you know, like in terms of touches maybe, but like
it is that in terms of like impact and initiation.

(48:24):
Like you look at Indy and they're running dribble hand
offs with Thomas Bryant, Ben Matherin gets to cook, Ben
Shephard gets to run some side pick and roll, you know,
up and down their roster. Everyone gets to do stuff,
Nie Smith, nim Hard, Like there's just stuff happening up

(48:47):
and down their roster. And like I do think I'm
trying not to like over index, like the caves can't
just become the pacers.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Like the stuff to be themselves.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
You can steal stuff, there are a lot of good
things to steal from this Pacers team, absolutely, and frankly,
like there should be like a little bit of like,
well damn, like, yes, there's a miss on like the
overall talent analysis of of that Pacers roster, like they're
definitely more talented than we thought they were. But I
don't think I think we've just kind of forgotten the

(49:19):
uh as a basketball community. Like the story of this
Pacer season, to me is forgetting that the whole thing
that we love about basketball is the more than the
sum of your parts, is the like because we dude,
how many pickup games have you played in where either
your team or the other team's just got it going
and it doesn't matter, Like it's like they you know,

(49:41):
or you're playing with some boys that you like, that
you know really well, and like you know that this
guy's gonna cut here, and this guy's going to do this,
and that guy's going to do that, as like, and
you beat a team that that should be running you
off the floor, like we've all been part of that,
We've all we all know what that is, and I
think we kind of forgot about it. And all the
spreadsheet tracking and transact transition and player rankings and transaction tracking,

(50:06):
like this is the stuff that matters, and this is
the stuff especially when you don't have a top one
type of star, you need to find a way to
bottle up.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
Yeah, you gotta, you know, take from all over the league, right,
it's a copycat league. You know, there's value in stealing
stuff when when you see someone doing something good that
you're not currently doing, take that from them. I went
to made it through college without that. Like, it's it's
important to find these ways to become more than some
of your parts. Because I don't think the Cavs have

(50:37):
accomplished that yet. I think they have done it as like,
if I look at the regular season, I think they've
done it offensively. The other thing that kind of strikes
me is when it comes to the regular season approach,
I don't want it to be as kind of plain.
I don't want it to be shell offense and defense

(50:57):
like we did in the regular season. I thought we
added some ring clos throughout the year. I think for
the most part, you know, we played our style and
it was good enough to get sixty four wins. I
want to see a little bit more experimenting. I want
to see, you know, trying things out. I want to
try playing different styles. I want to try playing different lineups.
Like the fact that we got so little of DeAndre

(51:18):
Hunter with Garland, Mitchell, Mobley and Allen. That's that's a bummer.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
That's a mess. It's a mess.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
Honestly, the fact that we got so little DeAndre Hunter
at power forward next to Mobley with Garland and Mitchell,
like we got almost none of that. I think we
actually got none of that in the playoffs, and obviously
availability had something to do with that, but that was
something that we thought, hey, maybe that could be a
closing line up. They might go away from Jared in
these moments and go to that. I want to see

(51:44):
that kind of stuff. I want to see different looks.
I want to see as much as I loved the
predictability and the reliability of the rotation, I know Sam
Merrill's checking in at this time, I know you know
Isaac's checking in at this time, Like this is how
we're going to run things. I want to see. Let's
get practice of changing up a little bit of what

(52:06):
we do for different matchups. I don't think it needs
to be every game, you know, I think Nick Nurse
wore out the Raptors trying to change the defense with
every single matchup that they had in the regular season,
but prioritize one game a week of Hey, this is
one that we want to try something. We like this matchup.
We've done a little bit of scouting. We're going to
approach this a little bit differently. These teams that we

(52:28):
see in the playoffs, the teams that are still playing,
they play a variety of different styles. Right like when
okay See went away from Hertenstein in the starting lineup. Yeah,
some of that was because the injuries, Chet miss time.
You know, guys miss time, and you know they were
able to go to that, but it was also a
lineup that they would start second halfs with. They would
change up things mid game, even if you have kind

(52:50):
of your ceremonial starters. I want to see just a
little bit more of that, And I don't think that
that's something that's going to really increase how much of
a load we're and how much we're asking of these
guys in a regular season.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
Well, cool thing about this is I don't think we
have a coach that gets high on his own supply
too much.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
You know, like and and.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
It's going to be a real challenge, I think, you know,
and I think we're gonna learn a lot about Kenny
uh over the course of the season, because like it
was just kind of pure Uphill or pure Downhill Sledden
all regular season, and even when he made certain calls

(53:32):
like that, I wouldn't have made that, everything kind of
seemed to work. And like now like this is the
first time we're gonna see Kenny react to some failures
and like as and again, as much context as there
is around injuries, I think Kenny would tell you they
could have won that series and or at least certainly

(53:52):
could have extended it if if if they had played I.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Think everyone in that thought they could win it, and
I agree with it.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
And so it comes down to, like I always go
back and say, it's gonna be a long offseason to
me saying this, it's like what lessons is Kenny gonna
choose to learn? Is it was it that the team
didn't do what he was telling them to do well
enough and he needs to make sure he's doing telling
them stuff, or like how much is he gonna question

(54:20):
his own strategy and his own rotations and his own
prep and because like there is a you can't be like,
you can't just be like you know, you can't just
flop around and chase every potential insecurity, right, So he's
gonna have to decide certain things that he's like, No,
I was right to do it this this way, and

(54:43):
I can't change that because that's who I am as
a coach versus I thought, this is who I was
as a coach, but maybe I shouldn't do it this
way next time. And like, because like, you can't change
everything all the time, you will lose your locker room
so fast if they feel you floundering. Try to find
who you are. So but you also can't be like

(55:04):
the stodgy like you know, we've seen so many coaches
get run out where like they run into yeah, their
battle plan doesn't survive first contact and they're just like, no,
just do it my way but better, over and over
and over again, and eventually that where's then and players
stop believing in that. So big test for Kenny this

(55:25):
this upcoming season, I think an underrated quiet test for
Kenny that he's really gonna we'll learn more about him
this upcoming season than we ever could have This past season.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
I totally agree with that, and honestly, the like this
is the part of basketball that I find so fascinating,
Like how you adjust, how you learn from these experiences.
I love that, And what I'm really looking forward to
with you know, Kenny going through this challenge and the
team going through this challenge is how transparent Kenny is. Right,
Like he talks about, you know, how much he learned

(56:00):
from every experience that he has with whether it's coaching internationally,
whether it's being an assistant, whether it's his own personal failures.
There's so much reflection and transparency, and like that that's
red meat for this podcast, Like I'm really looking forward
to to hearing what his reflections are, what they work
on throughout the off season. And No, I trust the

(56:21):
front office to do their due diligence, Like really, you
owe to yourself to find out every single option that's
available to you, and frankly, like outside Evan Mobley, like yeah,
you listen to absolutely everything, and I knowing you know
what that means. I don't think that there's an option
available that makes sense to trade Donovan. I don't think
there's an option available that makes sense to trade Darius

(56:44):
but you have to listen to everything out there. But
if I don't think it makes sense to trade Darius
for a collection of role players, I sure don't think
that about Donnovan Mitchell, and I continue to say the
of all the great things that Donovan has brought to
this organization, and like the stuff he's done to win
me over, the way that he has sacrificed, the way
he has adapted his game, the leadership that he shows.

(57:05):
All of that, everything that Donovan has done, I think
the most valuable thing of bringing him in is it
started the stress test early. We've got guys got put
in situations where they could be pressured, where they could
fail in the playoffs, where they can learn from those
experiences and we can learn about them. This is one
more opportunity for us to learn about the team, and

(57:28):
we're going to find out what lessons they chose to learn.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
As you like to say, Yeah, it's going to be
a fun one. I'm really manifesting another sit down with Kenny.
Maybe I can maybe ask him some of these questions directly.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
Hell yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
Would love to see that. I absolutely would love to
see that. We will continue our off season coverage. Big thanks,
to everyone tuning in live on YouTube. We appreciate you guys.
Make sure you like and subscribe. Click that notification bell
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(58:02):
we really do appreciate it. I'm sure you guys are
staying safe out there until next time, yo, get