The Point Four-ward: Moz-el Tov

Four points I’m thinking about the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) The fact that Timofey Mozgov signed a free agent deal to play elsewhere didn’t come as a surprise to anyone who followed the Cavs last season. Becoming a favorite of fans and daytime bartenders alike after coming over in a January 2015 trade with the Denver Nuggets, Mozgov suffered noticeable dips in both performance and confidence during the 2015-16 campaign. By the end of the season, he’d fallen completely out of the rotation, his rim protection replaced by mid-season pick-up Channing Frye‘s ability to stretch the floor.

What did come as a bit of surprise was how quickly Moz came off the free agency board. The calendar page had only just turned to July 1 when Mozgov agreed to sign a 4-year, $64 million contract, a stunning amount to fork over to a traditional center in the age of small ball. Mozgov’s deal has seemed a little less crazy, as more of his free agency class has capitalized on this summer’s ballooning salary cap, signing for sums that would have seemed ludicrous even a year ago. What’s more, Mozgov was promised a significant role in new head coach Luke Walton‘s rotation and paying a player market rate when he (presumedly) fits in your plans, is not crazy at all.

According to Mark Medina of the L.A. Daily News, it was Walton’s assurance of Mozgov’s fit with the Lakers — a fit he’d once felt with the Cavs, before being dislodged this season — that made the Russian center just as happy (okay… almost as happy) as all the zeros at the end of his new salary. Medina writes:

…Mozgov traced back to a five-minute conversation he had with Lakers coach Luke Walton shortly after free agency began that leaves Mozgov excited.

“He said I’m going to play a lot,” Mozgov told Southern California News Group. “I really like it. The only thing in the world I want to do is be with my family and play basketball. Those are the two things that are most important for me.”

2.) While Cavs fans may roll their eyes at the thought of Mozgov impacting the Lakers as much as Walton’s sales pitch suggests, it’s not all that far-fetched.

Yes, Walton is coming off a successful stint as an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors, the team most responsible for whipping up the league’s pace-and-space fancy to the point of revolution. And while Walton will certainly try to find in D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance Jr., Julius Randle and rookie Brandon Ingram some approximation of the devastating smaller line-ups Steve Kerr employed by the Bay, it’s important to remember that those Golden State teams still had a roll for a big, defensive-minded center. During the Warriors’ reign of the last two seasons, Andrew Bogut, when healthy, was the Warriors starting center.

In those two years, Bogut averaged 5.5 points, 7.5 boards and 1.5 blocks in just over 20 minutes a game. While Mozgov is not the shot blocker that Bogut is, projecting a similar role (and similar impact) from the former Cav isn’t such a huge stretch. The Lakers need their new center to do the dirty work: to rebound, protect the paint and hit the few shots that come his way. If Mozgov is fully recovered from the knee surgery he had last off-season, he should be able to be a capable defensive anchor for this young Lakers team.

3.) It’s probably safe to say that the Cavs team store hasn’t been buried in requests for Mike Dunleavy Jr. jerseys since the team acquired the veteran sharpshooter from the Chicago Bulls last week. Still, as good as it is to maintain a healthy amount of skepticism regarding a soon-to-be 36 year old combo forward, the back surgery that sidelined Dunleavy for all but 31 games in 2015-16 is the kind of injury you’d rather have a player further from, not closer to.

So, what might a healthy Dunleavy bring to the Cavs?

Writing for Bleacher Report in February 2015, Kelly Scaletta discusses what the Chicago Bulls defense lost when Dunleavy went down with a foot injury:

…Dunleavy’s is not a lockdown one-on-one defender who is going to stay in front of Kyrie Irving and shut him down, but he’s a very disruptive team defender. And that has value.

If I could coin and measure a term on the defensive end, it would be “defensive radius.” Having length and using length are not the same thing. Dunleavy is always using his full wingspan. His arms are either out by his side to disrupt passes or over his head when he’s guarding a shot. He plays with “radius.”

Per NBASavant.com, Dunleavy is 30th in the NBA in field-goal percentage against when he’s within three feet of the shooter. That’s in large part because he consistently has his hands up when guarding a shot.

Offensively, the 6-9, Dunleavy is capable of playing both forward spots, allowing head coach Tyronn Lue the option of more aggressively managing the minutes of James and Richard Jefferson (though he’ll have to watch them with Dunleavy too). Imagine the Cavs rolling out a three-point death lineup of Dunleavy, a 38% career three-point shooter during the regular season, beside Kyrie Irving, J.R. Smith, Kevin Love and Frye.

The last time he was in the playoffs, all Dunleavy did was shoot a blistering 48% from beyond the arc. If he can stand and run (even a little), Dunleavy should fit in perfectly with this Cavs team.

4.) Back to the Finals…

BBall Breakdown has an excellent new video that tracks Steph Curry’s performance in the 2015 championship round compared to that in 2016.

Watch the whole thing for yourself, but here are a couple of take-aways:

First, it’s clear that Curry, after suffering a knee injury in the first round of the 2016 playoffs, doesn’t have the same spring in his step that allowed him to create additional slivers of space to get shots off, especially once the Cavaliers’ switching defense pitted Curry against one of the Cavs bigs. While many of us remember Tristan Thompson getting abused when switched onto Curry in the 2015 Finals, Curry’s decreased explosiveness (and, I’d argue, a better overall job done by Thompson) turned the momentum-shifting three-pointers of last year into the well-defended misses of this year. If the Cavs and the Warriors end up meeting again in the 2017 Finals and Curry is healthier than he was this year, that could erase what was a big Cavalier advantage in 2016.

Cavs fans need not hang their heads, though, because the source of another of Curry’s big headaches in the 2016 Finals — Kyrie Irving — could be even more effective. After two subpar games to start the Finals, Irving found his footing and feasted on Curry’s suspect defense the way… well, frankly the way that opposing point guards are used to exploiting Irving thus far in his career.