Cavs Mailbag: Is Caris LeVert Leading NBA Sixth Man Award Race?

Welcome to Cavs Mailbag! In this daily mailbag, Spencer Davies will respond to fans’ curiosities surrounding the Cleveland Cavaliers throughout the duration of the 2023-24 season. In order to submit yours, simply send your questions on X to @SpinDavies or via email at spindavies22@gmail.com.

Mercifully, the Cavs are set for some home cooking after 10 days out west and splitting a long road trip. Seven of their next eight games will be played at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, with tough opponents on tap soon and not many breaks in between until the end of November.

Once again, thank you all for your participation. Because of the volume, I will do separate posts to try to get to everybody’s thoughts.

Let’s get to it.

Caris is going to win Sixth Man of the Year, right? - @mcc15__

There’s a lot of basketball left to play yet and getting into award talk in mid-November can be a fool’s errand, but I’ll play along. I think when you look at the production on both sides of the ball and the consistency he’s performed with this first month or so, Caris LeVert has a real shot of competing for that distinction. He’s been invaluable on the defensive end, is constantly in attack mode on offense and shows up when and where the team needs him at all times.

In the box score, LeVert is third in the NBA in scoring when he comes off the bench (17.4 points per game) to the scorching Tim Hardaway Jr. in Dallas and a steady vet in Malcolm Brogdon, who’s with Portland at the moment. Since the Sixth Man of the Year award tends to focus on contributions to a winning team and the points column, he’s definitely got a shot.

I’d argue that Chris Paul is doing a hell of a job for the Golden State Warriors as well as a floor general. Naz Reid is going to get a look because of his amazing start. Bobby Portis is doing his thing. Lonnie Walker IV is playing well with the Brooklyn Nets.

We’ll see who sustains and who doesn’t, but since the Cavs are so focused on keeping LeVert comfortable as the leader of their bench in lieu of yanking him in and out of the lineup, I’d venture to guess he’ll be in the running for sure. Cleveland just has to improve as a whole for him to gain voters’ attention.

I understand the need to protect the paint, but the Cavs continue to over sink off the corner over and over again resulting in wide open threes. Is this coaching philosophy, laziness, mental lapse? - @1BA30

Perimeter defenders are clearly cheating toward the interior to make sure driving lanes are shut off and teams are shooting uncontested or lightly contested triples as a result. Unfortunately, you’ve got to choose what you’re willing to give up in those situations, but I do agree that there’s been moments of unnecessary helping or overreach from guys instead of trusting Allen and Mobley to hold it down in the paint.

What’s conflicting is that the metrics actually show that Cleveland is allowing the least wide-open shots in the NBA overall (15.4) and beyond the arc (13.7), but also the seventh-most open threes per game (15.0).

(Per the NBA, "wide-open" is where the closest defender is six or more feet away, while "open" has the defender closest being four-to-six feet away.)

To me, the closeouts and contests have been late and “scrambly.” They’re depending on guys’ ability to cover ground in the snap of the finger with the way players are positioned. So to answer your question, it’s a little bit of the scheme and the team as a whole mistiming the game plan.

The Cavs deserve a benefit of the doubt with their defensive abilities due to their track record. The new guys — and even the mainstays — just have to get used to it. Let's not forget that a lot of this stuff is happening in transition too off long rebounds and turnovers, which will put the defense in a precarious position.

Will the lack of size off the bench need to be addressed at some point this season? We feel like one of the only teams in the league without a backup center that logs at least 10 minutes. - @CoopRoss4

I doubt it. It’s been difficult to devise a routine plan for the big men because Jarrett Allen is still on a restriction below 30 minutes. Evan Mobley has been acting as the backup center in addition to being the starting 4-man. Tristan Thompson has spelled both in small increments and those minutes have been positive. But once Allen is allowed to play his usual amount, it won’t look as small as it may seem.

The Cavs have gone to Georges Niang and Dean Wade at both positions and even the 3 sometimes, so I feel like there’s plenty of size there. Being big doesn’t always mean production or perfection though, which we’ve seen particularly on the defensive end of the floor. That’s something they’ll need to figure out. It also doesn’t help that Isaac Okoro hasn’t played in five games and Ty Jerome, a 6-foot-5 guard, has played one-and-a-half games because of injury.