The Point Four-ward: Can He Build It?

Four points I’m thinking about the Cleveland Cavaliers following their NBA Finals loss to the Golden State Warriors in six games…

1.) As a sports fan, I always dread the morning after a loss. The loss, when it is happening and immediately after, is usually a familiar cloud of disappointment and pizza and nostalgia and beer. Therefore, any real pulse-checking on how truly bad a particular loss is going to feel long term often has to wait until the page has turned and I’m faced with a bright new day.

Waking up on (an unfortunately bright) Wednesday, though, my feeling was the feeling of most Cavs fans — if Twitter is to be believed, anyway (and why should it not?): I just don’t feel too bad after this loss.

This Cavs team has been so much fun to watch — well, since the end of January, anyway — and, really, the Warriors were just too good and too deep to expect a team smarting from missing two of their top three scorers to pull off the seemingly impossible. Sometimes, after all, the seemingly impossible seems impossible because it’s pretty damn near impossible. But, man, how the Cavs fought to make us believe otherwise — that it was possible…. that it was going to happen this year… that it was the Cavs turn at destiny.

2.) These Cavs were built to complement their three main scorers, so it wasn’t exactly a shock when they struggled to score, especially against the regular season’s top-ranked defensive team. Even still, they had a shot to pull out wins in Games 5 and 6 against a Warriors team whose long distance shooting seemed to break the Cavs back in more places than Bane broke Batman’s.

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to see the Cavs win and even thought, at times, that it could happen. But when it didn’t, I just didn’t have it in me to blame the team. This was a long, exhausting season for not only every single Cavs player, but every single Cavs fan. Spending too much time not appreciating the grit and determination to win the Cavs displayed over the course of these playoffs — focusing too much on what players, who were never expected to do what they were suddenly being asked to, couldn’t do — seems like a slight to the effort given by a team that played how any basketball fan would love to see his/her team play — excepting a few more timely shots, sure.

What a great season by your 2014-15 Cleveland Cavaliers. Now, let’s see what the future will bring…

3.) One of the biggest differences between the Cavs and the Warriors, of course, was the quality depth Golden State had to draw from on their bench.

Yes, the Cavs lack of depth was further exposed by the injuries to Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving that forced key reserves Tristan Thompson and Matthew Dellavedova into starting roles, but even with Irving and Love the Cavs bench players were often a big question mark. The Warriors, however, got a Final MVP performance out of top sub Andre Iguodala and were able to go completely away from regular season starter Andrew Bogut in favor of Festus Ezeli. Sitting all the way at the end of their bench was former Cavalier Marreese Speights and even he came up big for the Warriors the Cavs in overtime of Game 1 (before, in blowing a wide-open breakaway dunk at the end of Game 2, he came up big for the Cavs, as well).

The Cavs bench, meanwhile, featured two seven-footers (Kendrick Perkins and Brendan Haywood), a rookie second-rounder (Joe Harris) and a soon-to-be-retiring veteran (Shawn Marion), none of whom had the trust of head coach David Blatt. Add in the few token minutes Blatt would give Mike Miller and you’re looking at a bench that never stood a chance once Warriors coach Steve Kerr went small and turned the Finals into a sprint.

If you’re looking and your glass is half-empty, you’d immediately decry “GM LeBron bringing in his washed up former teammates” and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. Miller gave the Cavs none of what they expected when they brought the sharpshooter aboard. James Jones, on the other hand, gave the Cavs a good deal more than do most guys playing on a veteran minimum deal.

Building these Warriors was (and will continue to be) aided greatly by the deal of the century, Stephen Curry’s contract that paid him just $10.6 million this year and goes until 2017, and locking up Klay Thompson to a long-term deal before the salary cap explodes next summer, while the Cavs look to be paying James and Love in excess of $20 million next season. Add to that, the fact that Irving’s max-level extension kicks in next season (at over $15 million), while Thompson, J.R. Smith, Shumpert and Dellavedova will all be looking for raises — and Thompson’s, in particular, will be a significant raise — and the Cavs have some very real flexibility issues going forward.

4.) If, on the other hand, you’re still happy to see that your glass is half-full, you’ll take note of something else: the Warriors bench has been built over the course of several seasons, while this Cavs team has been a running work-in-progress for much of the last ten months. So far, Cavs GM David Griffin has made more good moves than bad ones… so, let’s see what he — along with GM LeBron, of course — has in mind.

It will be particularly interesting to see what kind of deals all of the Cavs variety of free agents receive. After each having moments where it looked like they were playing their way to huge paydays, Smith, Shumpert and Dellavedova each fell back to being, essentially, the role players we all thought they were. Thompson has earned the big deal coming his way and seeing him blossom in the playoffs this year was a real treat for Cavs fans. But, if you’re the Cavs, how much do you pay Dellavedova, a solid backup point guard and part-time cult hero, Smith, an shooter capable of swinging games… only if he’s the fourth or fifth best player on your team, or Shumpert, a true lock-down defender whose offense is an absolute mess?

Or the better question: how much do you pay them if you’re another NBA team?

One danger for the Cavs is overpaying for players simply based on the good feelings of this playoff run. Another is letting quality NBA rotation players who fit into their system walk and not having the salary cap room to make the deals to compensate for that loss… or, more importantly, to improve upon it.

The Cavs aren’t flush with options, but they also can’t go through another season with half a bench worth of dead weight.