The Point Four-ward: Pass Happy

Four points I’m thinking about the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) Kevin Love was only credited with one assist in Monday’s preseason victory over the Dallas Mavericks and only two in Sunday’s loss to the Toronto Raptors. Still, as he goes about getting his shot into regular season form, his passing that has shown it’s already there… and then some.

Against Toronto, Love had a couple of nifty behind the back passes that led to Cavs points. He carried that over into Monday’s game where, on the first Cavs possession, Love received the ball at the top of the three point arc, and barely had enough time to admire the reflection of his long, luxurious hair in the glossy sheen of the brand new NBA-issued Spalding, before zipping it to Timofey Mozgov who had sealed off Dirk Nowitzki down low.

Later in the first half, Love caught the ball under the Cavs hoop and could have easily taken the shot himself. Instead, he made a little shovel pass to a charging Mozgov. Even with all the time he missed recovering from shoulder surgery, Love has come in with a clear sense of where his teammates are, where they’re going to be, and he’s enjoying making the correct extra pass.

It’s tough to get a read on exactly how this team will execute once all of it’s pieces are in place — and no one is saying that the team’s overall offensive execution this preseason has been anywhere near a thing of beauty. But Love’s return to the lineup keeps alive the dream that the thing of beauty might not be far away. The few games in which James played this preseason, the ball moved when he was in there, as well.

Last season, ball movement was a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde thing for the Cavs. While the James/Kyrie Irving ISO Show dominated (no pun intended) much of the talk about the team, there were times when they — and James, especially — would sometimes force a pass that, considering he was still getting to know how to play with everyone on the team except for Anderson Varejao, often resulted in a turnover.

This season — Year Two for this coaching staff and for a lot of this roster — it will be interesting to see just how much the Cavs not only trust each other enough to pass, but know each other well enough to turn those passes into points.

2.) David Griffin received plenty of praise this off-season for the speed with which the Cavs GM got LeBron James and Love to agree to deals. Later, a contract that brought back popular point guard Mo Williams was applauded, even as negotiations between the team and back-up forward/center Tristan Thompson stalled. However, the crowning jewel of Griffin’s off-season — excluding the James and Love deals, obviously — may end up being the deal that brought Richard Jefferson to town.

Jefferson, the 14-year pro out of the University of Arizona, initially planned on re-signing with the Dallas Mavericks this off-season. When DeAndre Jordan retracted his commitment to sign with the Mavericks, though, Dallas no longer looked like the the championship contender Jefferson thought they’d be when he agreed to re-sign. So, he asked Dallas owner Mark Cuban if he could be released to sign elsewhere. Cuban agreed and Jefferson signed a one-year $1.5 million deal.

So far, Jefferson has blended in seamlessly with his new team. The revolving door of available players during the preseason has caused head coach David Blatt to use Jefferson as both a starter and a reserve, playing both shooting guard and small forward. He’s shown the ability to knock down open three pointers — a crucial skill when playing with players like James and Irving, as well as with Love who (as mentioned above) is a more than willing passer — and still, at age 35, drive and finish at the rim.

Jefferson also just plays smart basketball. He showed a glimpse of that in the span of a couple of minutes in the first half against Dallas. Twice,  Jefferson received a pass beyond the three point line near the left corner and was relatively uncovered. The first resulted in him nailing a wide-open three pointer and the second, when a Mavericks player tried to close out on him, saw Jefferson put the ball on the floor, blow by the closing defender and lay in an easy two.

If he can carry over his preseason performance into the regular season, the Cavs will not just have finally found a player who can legitimately back up LeBron James, they’ll have found a player efficient and versatile enough to play alongside James in certain lineups, as well.

One more note on Jefferson: A lot has been made of the damage that Jefferson’s three-point shooting (38% for his career, including 42.6% last season) could inflict on the Cavaliers’ opponents this season, but consider this, as well: Jefferson is also a career 77% free throw shooter which, should he continue to challenge opposing defenses with the drive, could make Jefferson a gem in the rotation… especially come playoff time.

3.) On Tuesday, NBA.com’s John Schuhmann posted the results of his 2015-16 General Managers survey. While many considered it a no-brainer to predict the Cavs to win the Eastern Conference (96.6% of those polled, in fact), it was a little surprising to see the Cavs picked as the overwhelming favorites to win the NBA title. Turns out, it’s not just Cavs fans who feel good about the talent and experience assembled to don the wine and gold for the 2015-16 season. A whopping 53.6% of GMs across the league picked LeBron James to lead his team to its first ever NBA Championship this coming June.

The San Antonio Spurs, fresh off landing LaMarcus Aldridge, one of the top free agents last summer, came in second (25%), while only 17.9% picked the Golden State Warriors to repeat as champs.

Also predicted to end is James’s two-year breather from being voted the league’s Most Valuable Player. A season after James played in a career-low 69 games, a fact that surely played a part in his third-place finish on the MVP ballot, 39.3% of the GMs polled chose James as the winner for this coming season, ahead of Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans (25%) and a (finally) healthy Kevin Durant (10.7%). Stephen Curry, last season’s MVP, was tied for fifth with Thunder guard Russell Westbrook with 7.1%.

4.) And, finally, let’s give a big round of applause to the CtB readers whose names were pulled to represent y’all as competitors of the second annual Cavs: The Fantasy League. Welcome, Andrew Wandler, Ned Sedlack, James Simmons and Gregg Andrick. You’ll have the (un)enviable task of trying to match fantasy wits with Evil Genius, Nate, Mallory, Cory, Mike, Ben, David and myself.

As an added bonus, we’ll be recording the live draft and posting it as a podcast early next week.

It’s almost the 2015-16 NBA Season, Cavs fans. Grab your knife and fork… and buckle your bib!