The Point Four-ward: Empty the Bench

First off, if you haven’t read Ben’s excellent recap of the Cavs win in Detroit last night, please do yourself that favor. Then, it’s onto—

Four points I’m thinking about the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) On a recent Cavs telecast, I heard something that gave me pause. It concerned the overall league ranking for the Cavs bench. Anyone want to guess what it was?

Try 30th overall. That’s right, the Cavs bench is ranked dead last in the league averaging just 23.6 points per game according to hoopsstats.com. That is not something that inspires much confidence when talking about a team whose recent stretch of torrid play has vaulted it back in the thick of the championship contender conversation.

But it didn’t seem quite right to me, either. I mean, I know the Cavs bench doesn’t feature a big time scorer like a Jamal Crawford (or, for that matter, even a Dion Waiters… anymore) and I know they rarely push whatever lead is handed to them when the starters sit out the fourth quarter — which the starters have been doing with semi-regularity recently. Basically, I reasoned, the bench couldn’t possibly be that bad (from a league-wide ranking perspective, anyway) simply by virtue of how much they’ve played.

2.) Thankfully, I was right. In the last 10 games, the Cavs bench has been a solid, unexciting — but much more acceptable — middle of the pack. While only upping their scorting output by a point and a half (25.1), Hoopsstats.com rates the Cavs bench as the 15th ranked reserve unit in the league. Remember the random opposing bench player who would go off on the Cavs almost every night in the first few months of the season? That was a large contributor to the team’s -11.2 efficiency differential between its bench mob and the opponents’. Now, that difference in efficiency is down to -2.8. Big difference.

The bench is not a strength but the rotation is strong and that has been the difference for the February-and-beyond Cavs.

Welcome to average, Cavs bench. It sure looks good on you.

3.) Speaking of the bench, new Cavs back-up center Kendrick Perkins had this to say about his perception around the league:

“I know a lot of teams don’t like me, but that’s fine. I’m a good guy if I’m on your team. Other than that, that’s fine. I feel like if another team don’t like me, then I done my job for the night.”

Objectively, signing Perkins was a no-brainer for the Cavs. The size in the team’s regular rotation drops off precipitously after Timofey Mozgov and Kevin Love and, after news that Larry Sanders “probably won’t play” in the NBA this season following his buy-out by the Bucks, Perkins was the best big, the best fit, etc., etc., etc.

Still, any Cavs fan who remembers those Cavs/Celtics games from 2008-2010 knows exactly what Perkins is talking about. I know Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett may have hit more actual daggers against the Cavs back then, but it’s possible — it’s true for me, anyway — that Perkins is the biggest Cavs villain from the original LeBron run still lacing them up (with obvious apologies to Hedo Turkoglu of the Los Angeles Clippers who, we’ll say, is more of a slip-on guy at this stage of his career than a lace-up type).

This ain’t gonna be easy, Perk. But I am willing to try…

4.) ESPN’s Brian Windhorst made some waves last weekend when he suggested in an interview that had Andrew Wiggins been represented by Rich Paul, he would likely still be a member of the Cavaliers.

Now, readers, before you just start piling on Windhorst — which, yes, I know you love to do — let’s take a step into that hypothetical realm and see how the dominoes would have fallen differently for the Cavs had Wiggins remained on the roster.

First off, the team still likely parts ways with Waiters. We’ve seen enough from the real universe to suggest that the struggle for ball dominance on this team wouldn’t have been much different. With Wiggins on the roster, though, GM David Griffin probably doesn’t go shopping in New York and real-life “godsends” (to steal from head coach David Blatt) Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith never arrive. Does Minnesota still make a deal with Cleveland? Maybe Waiters, Anthony Bennett and a pick for Love? Or does Cleveland hang onto that package, go for a cheaper Love replacement (say, the player Minnesota picked as its Love replacement, Thaddeus Young) and then turn Waiters, Bennett and Memphis’ protected first rounder for a big man… maybe even Mozgov, as we know Blatt and Griffin had their eyes on the Russian big man for a while.

So, all that and the Cavs still would have burned through all of their acquired assets — all the extra picks, all the young players. Yes, you’d have a young star in the making in Wiggins, but you’d be fielding a worse rebounding, worse shooting stretch four and the Cavs would be, even with a deal for Mozgov, small-ish, a fact that was exposed in their Love-less pre-All-Star loss to the Bulls.

What’s my point? Well, I didn’t know I had one until I got here, but the point is that Love — even the somewhat uneven version of the Love Cavs fans thought they were getting — is a better fit for this team as it tries to win a championship now than Wiggins would have been. That’s been said before, but all the moves around the trade deadline proved it for the Cavs again. They found, it’s easier (or, at least, less expensive) to find talent on the wing than it is to find it down low. The bigs that can shoot like Love is capable of, don’t rebound the way he does. The ones that rebound don’t stretch as well.

Love showed the importance of that specific balance of skills Tuesday night against the Pistons as he hit eight threes and grabbed nine boards and played a huge roll in the Cavs overcoming a 14-point second half deficit.