Where Do the Cavs Go From Here?

If you're the Cavaliers, and this ends 4 games , 5 games, whatever it is, do you look at this season as a success?

Do you look at this as a season that Look, you've got further than you did last year.

You've gotten further than you have since the LeBron era.

Or do you look at it like, hey, we just got smoked by the New York Knicks, who are a good but not great team.

Next year, Boston's gonna be back.

Other teams could be climbing, especially in the basement.

Some of those teams up they're gonna get Washington Wizards, Washington Wizards.

Indiana, Tyrese Halliburton coming back.

Like there's, there's, there's reason to look at the Cavs, be like, you know what, maybe we've plateaued.

Maybe we've got to be bold this offseason.

How would you, if you're Cleveland and you're Kobe Altman and that front office and Dan Gilbert and that ownership, how do you assess this season if it ends, uh, prematurely?

Yeah, I mean, if by the time people out there are listening to this, you know, the Knicks have won, or if the Cavs, they take.

To 3-1, they're not winning the series, man.

And I don't think they're gonna get past game 5 would be my opinion, right?

Analytically, well, we'll get to that in a minute, I assume.

Um, but I would definitely make bold moves because how far you get, oh, we got to the Eastern Conference Finals is as much a result of who you play, right?

I always say, I'm uncomfortable making preseason predictions because.

I don't know what the bracket's gonna be.

Until you know what the bracket in the playoffs is, it is very hard to say, oh, this is a conference finals team or not, because who might they face early.

And even though they advanced in the bracket against who they played, which was a Toronto team we knew was never going to get very far in the postseason, and a Detroit team that you, I, and most of the analysts in basketball knew was not equipped to play in the playoffs despite their regular season and needed to get help with the deadline and didn't.

And both of those two series where you got to the conference finals, the thing that you, you would hang your hat on if you decided not to make big changes, you had opportunities to close those series early.

Right?

And you had disastrous games when you could have put your foot down, and I have said this to you all season, the Cavaliers have not shown me that they can do the thing I was just talking about with the Spurs.

You will take this win out of my cold dead hands.

You have to go through me to beat me, that sort of thing.

They've, they just haven't shown it this season and they didn't show it in these.

Playoffs.

Oh, we won game 7.

Great.

It should never have gotten to game 7.

Both of those teams were teams you should have beat in much less than 7.

So getting to the conference finals to me not only wasn't some great accomplishment, but the way they lost in games leading up to this hurt them for the conference finals.

They are exhausted out there, exhausted.

The Knicks have played 4 less games than they have in the playoffs, and I think it's like 13 less or something from a later date or something like that, but it's, it's just, it's ridiculous.

Yeah, uh, I would take the latter on this, and I'd be disappointed as well, um.

And I would look at this team and say it needs something big to get to that level that they're trying to get to.

Uh, Obviously, priority for the, uh, the Cavs in the offseason is getting Donovan Mitchell to stay long term.

But if you're Donovan Mitchell, you probably want to see this team do some things if you're gonna stay long term.

Now, the James Harden dilemma is exactly that.

Um, this is yet another postseason where he's not delivering.

Um, I, I , I harp on Harden a lot because he's the guy that has to be your number 2, or at least on this team.

He's the guy that's gotta come up big, but that's a bad role for him.

It is a bad.

So that's what I'm saying like if you're gonna bring him back.

You've got to not pick up that option and you've got to say to him, we'll pay you.

Maybe it's for multiple years, but it's commensurate to the player that you are today, and that is a 3rd or 4th option, potentially a 6th man.

And it's got to be that kind of value, like 15 million dollars-ish in that range.

Still great money, but that's, that's kind of what James Harden is.

You cannot go into next season where James Harden is your number two option.

Expect to win anything.

Even in the Eastern Conference, you can't expect to do it.

The bigger question is how bold do they get with trades?

Because Evan Mobley.

When he's great, he's a ceiling raiser for them.

I've used that phrase a lot because Kenny Atkinson used it with me at one point.

When he's great, he takes you to another level, but he's not consistently great.

He is not showing that he's ready to step into that role as the number 2 option.

So my question would be, like, if you're the Cavs, how How aggressive do you get with Giannis Tendopo?

Like, how hard do you push?

Because I'm sure if you're Milwaukee, getting Evan Mobley, a blue chip young player under contract for the long term, along with some draft capital, along with maybe some other pieces, that makes sense.

That might be something that Milwaukee would consider, uh, in exchange for Giannis.

And if you're Cleveland, Maybe it's not the solution, but you've got to roll the dice here.

Like you've got to take a chance because right now, this team going into next year, you have them behind New York.

I'd probably have them behind Boston, not knowing exactly what Boston's gonna do.

Um, Indiana, when they, as they bounce back, maybe put them behind the Pacers as well.

Like, you're looking at a team that may be a 4 or 5 seed in, in the Eastern Conference that gets beat in the 1st or 2nd round.

Like you can kind of see how it plays out with the Cavs.

So if I'm Cleveland, if I'm Kobe Altman, Um, I , I, I'm taking a big swing.

If I, if, and I think if, if I'm trying to get Donovan Mitchell's name signed to a contract, I might have to take a big swing because why would Donovan Mitchell lock in long term in Cleveland if he doesn't see a clear path to contending for a championship?

And right now there is no path to contend for a championship.

Do you think, uh, Donovan Mitchell's looking across the floor at the Knicks being like, could have been me, could have been him.

Could have been him.

111 phone call or two the other way with those, uh, conversations with New York.

Yes, I mean, look.

The Giannis thing is interesting.

Although the question is, you, you like to harp on James Harden.

Giannis is, even though he's not actually an older player, he's kind of an older player in terms of his body, right?

You know, I'm not saying it's not without risk.

It's very high risk.

So you're talking about two guys now on that team who are older players, although Harden's proved very durable in the regular season Harden back like on.

Cheat.

Like, if you get him on the right deal, I'm not worried about that.

It's like you're now right now James Harden, whether, and I think we'd agree, he is, he is presented as the number 2 option on that team, but that he shouldn't be, he shouldn't be, right?

But you gotta, you can't pay him that much though next this time.

No, no, absolutely.

And I said to you this last week, these guys as they age, that generation of players, I think have a little bit of a misconception of who they are as they age because of LeBron.

I just think, yes, they know LeBron's better than them, but hey, LeBron's still playing at 41.

So how far can I push it?

No, right?

And you look at Carmelo Anthony, when he retired, he was 37 and spent the time coming off the bench.

Dwyane Wade didn't come off the bench in his final game, but was coming off the bench and retired at 37.

James Harden's turning 37 this year, this summer.

He will enter into next season 37.

It's time.

You know, I don't think it's time for him to retire, but I think it is time for him to go to the bench, and I don't think that's any, you know, bad, bad knock on him.

I just think that this is what happens in the time.

The man you did not mention as a possible change is Kenny Atkinson.

And it is now time, I feel, to get to the thing that I've been so upset about since yesterday is the Kenny Atkinson quote where he said, analytically.

We've actually we're actually up 3-2 in this series.

Analytically, no, I think it was analytically.

I was trying to find it right here, but it's buried in some story.

Analytically, we've won 2 out of 3 in this series and using that in the past tense to me is just insanity.

What he's saying is that they can do the numbers of if a guy is at a certain player is at a certain spot on the floor and a certain defender is defending against him at that spot on the floor, what are those, all of those, what are the averages on whether that shot goes in?

Sure, A, as Herm Edwards once said in football, that's why we play the games, and B, you don't take into account the exhausted legs that the Cavs are on right now and the fact that the reason they are not paying off those analytics is because they physically can't, and the reason they physically.

Can't to me is what I went back to in the previous answer.

They did not have the heart or skill or connectedness or coaching, or whatever you wanna call it, to close out their earlier series.

And so they are exhausted, and analytically, they can't make those shots.

And I thought saying that in public.

It was such a gaffe and just your players think you're stupid saying that everyone else in the NBA thinks you're stupid and that's after you completely botched coaching game one of this series.

It's after you said after that game, James Harden's a great one on one defender basically like and , and make coaching mistakes throughout the first couple of series.

And look, I never root for someone to lose their jobs.

I don't.

I, I think, you know.

The coaches, especially in this league, the turnover is, you know, reprehensible.

I don't think that it's sort of , oh, what are you gonna do?

Fire the coach.

But in this case, if you want to elevate.

The Cavaliers kind of already did this when they thought, oh, let's move on from JB Bickerstaff , even though he got the franchise, this huge win total advancement.

It may be time to elevate over Kenny Atkinson.

I mean, it would be a Bold move in that a year ago, Kenny was coach of the Year after winning what, 66 games and this year they're in the conference finals, but I, I take your point.

It's in this conference finals.

He has been a negative overall.

Haven't we seen someone been fired after he winning Coach of the Year?

I feel like that happened already in the NBA, like the next season after the conference finals, Tibs, of course, right?

But somebody who actually won Coach of the Year, they win Coach of the Year and then get fired.

I don't remember that.

I feel like it's happened before.

I'll have to go look it up.

Yeah, maybe, and maybe it did, um.

It's been a bad series, um, and the tone, the tone for him to, the tone was set.

I'm not calling for him to get fired, but that quote didn't help.

The quotes didn't help.

Um, that was ridiculous.

They were ridiculous, and so was the hard one was ridiculous.

The analytics one was ridiculous.

Um, but this series, it, it, it may, it, it, the whole thing may have hinged on game one and having a 22 point lead with like 8 minutes left, having two timeouts in your pocket and not calling any, and then saying after the game, you want to keep them till the end.

You got a team that was just in Detroit two days ago exhausted.

Like the Knicks were like two buckets away from like packing it in and saying, here comes Tyler Cole can't keep them.

You lose them at the end of the game.

I mean at the end of regulation.

And in, in that instance, uh, a coach should have used those timeouts not just for strategy but just to give your guys 3.5 minutes.

Like give them a break.

Give these guys have been out there a bit of a break, slow the momentum.

That, that to me was the original sin of the series.

The quotes are goofy and they don't.

They, they deserve to be laughed at, but the original sin was blowing that lead because that clearly has been unrecoverable for this team.

and leaving Harden as a one on one defender of Jalen Brunson in that situation.

Bad, bad, bad .

What is, by the way, what is Harden doing?

Like his defense, I don't get it.

He keeps his arms down, but he keeps his like all the time he keeps his arm down.

And Kenny talks about his hands.

You can't use your hands if your arms are glued to your side.

I don't get it.

Is it a, like, I don't want to be called for clearly he doesn't want to be called for a foul, but like you're, you're only playing half defense if your arms are down.

I don't get that.

He's done that all series long when he's defended Brunson.

Brunson goes to the basket.

He tries to use his size, but his arms are down.

I don't get that.

I, I know we just talked about Oklahoma City and I don't want to go back and forth, but I do need to ask you, since we've baby touched on it last week and I want you to actually address it, when you talked about keeping your arms down, that clip that keeps going of Da'Aaron Fox standing there.

With his arms at his sides while Shay Gilris Alexander elevates into him.

Into his knees, and then falls on the ground and a foul is called.

I just want your take.

I'm not, I'm not guiding you.

I want your take.

My, my first take is yell at the referees if you don't think it's a foul.

Like there was a referee standing right there and I don't think my interpretation was a little blocked, my interpretation of that was not the knee bump that.

Was the foul, but the fact that Fox was in the landing area, which is consistently called a foul.

But was he in the landing area?

He was in the landing area adjacent.

He was, he was in that complaint that players have about SGA, that he jumps into their landing area, and that is the complaint.

Look, I mean, everybody does that though, like jumping into the landing.

I see that constantly.

The one, the one area just, OK, well, we can stick on this, but like if I'm the NBA, the, the area I've got to address.

More than anything when it comes to fouls is calling fouls, calling shooting fouls from unnatural shooting motions because the pump fake and the jump in, that is not a natural shooting motion flinging it in the air and the NBA has done a pretty good job of legislating that shit out of the league over the last couple of years where that rip-through move is no longer a free throw.

The old Chris Paul move where you just kind of back into somebody that's no longer a foul or a free throw, um.

That's the next evolution of it where you're taking, it's an unnatural shooting motion should not be considered, uh, a free throw.

I, I, the, the angles I've seen of that play, I can't tell if he was in the area.

I, I can't tell if he was in the, the landing area.

Like he was trending towards that area and then he tried to avoid getting in that area.

So I don't know.

I mean, I I didn't have as much of a problem with that as other people did.

I didn't.

I, I think it was just emblematic of a lot of opponents' complaints about playing the team in general, playing SGA.

The flopping is, is, here's the thing about the flopping.

If the flopping is working, and they're working the refs, and they're getting a bunch of free throws, other players, other teams are upset.

But that's not what's been happening in these playoffs.

In these playoffs, if you look at the Thunder free throw averages, they're right in the middle.

In this series, I think they're down even.

It's not working.

And in fact, if it doesn't work and a guy flops, then you just got a 4 and 5, you know, 5 on 4 break the other way.

So, The flapping hurts the other team if it's called, but if it's not, not as much of an issue.

You're going into.

Like Luka Dacic shot more free throw attempts than Shay this year.

I, I agree.

I'm saying it's, if it's James Harden is a legendary flopper.

I agree.

If it's not working, if it's not racking up the free throws, then it is not a problem for the opponent.

In fact, it's an advantage for the opponent, the people it's a problem for, and again, not the only team that flops.

I know everyone's got these cut-ups of the Thunder flopping.

You could do a cut up like that of a lot of teams, team, right?

But the problem is, the, the people who it hurts is the fans.

And when people start to say this is unwatchable, and the reason I think they say that so much when they're watching OKC is that these games are put in front of you because of how far the Thunder get in the playoffs.

So we are now in our 2nd playoff postseason in of just watching this over and over and over.

And the Thunder are a very dependable team.

They're a very thorough team.

They're a very consistent team.

They're not a flashy team.

So in terms of highlights or lowlights, they're not giving you as much.

Yeah, uh, yeah, I, I, I agree that.

If, if you're not getting the calls, there's no need to exacerbate all this.

I also think they've done some, had some dirty moves along the way.

We've talked about the Chetl.

I mean, I, I have a real problem with that.

That's, that's with the Thunder.

Lou Dort's had a lot of moments that have, included recently that clip of him kind of falling on Fox.

Was it in Game two?

Uh, I, I, I, I, I think it is, I am, I am that one .

I mean, the flopping is the flopping.

I've heard people say the flopping, and this is again across the league, it should be a technical.

I wish they'd bring that back.

I mean, they, they'll, what was the arm motion there?

I haven't seen that in a long time, right?

If that's a technical and guys are being thrown out of a playoff game because they've got 16 technicals, technicals like, don't they, they used to consider those technicals but not added to the total, right?

But if it was a technical that could be added to the total, yeah, I don't know if I want to see that.

Like I, I, I, I would like to see it brought back.

I'm not sure what happened where they stopped calling it.

Like it's been over a year.

They haven't been calling it.

I, I wish they would bring that back because.

I thought it was effective in shaming.

Like, if you get called for a flop and you are being told by the referees by the NBA that you are a flopper, you tend to do it a little bit less.

They stop.

Players still call for it.

I don't think the players even know that this thing is no longer , uh, part of the game, but I would like the dirty play, and we talked about this last week .

I don't like that.

I have a huge, huge problem with it.

dangerous stuff.

You are, you are potentially messing up other guys' careers.

Is that OK?