The Point Four-ward: Getting Heat

Four points I’m thinking about the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) It’s here: the height of the off-season. In these, the dog days, the long stretch of desert between the oases of competitive basketball, we are to be excused if our attention drifts back to Summer League. Summer League was nice, our attention reminds us. Wasn’t that nice?

Other times, we might find ourselves thinking ahead to the Olympic Games. Wouldn’t it be nice, we find ourselves thinking, if the world had a test or two in store for USA Basketball? Wouldn’t that be nice?

Welcome to basketball limbo.

This is an uncomfortable time for basketball fans — a time when most of the players we follow disappear for a time to work on their games, as well as their lives as, you know, actual, real people. Summer League gives us some fresh faces to focus on and a few of the stand-outs from the league’s summer school are able to roll some of that buzz into this, the NBA’s Dead Zone.

Usually, that means we get a slew of pieces on what to expect from that year’s top picks. Actually getting to see Ben Simmons play with and against NBA (and NBA-ish) talent, for instance, opens the door to a fresh set of projections on just what exactly NBA fans can expect from the 2016 number one overall pick this season and beyond.

Similarly, seeing a 2015 late first rounder stepping up his game can generate some heat around his chances of cracking his team’s rotation in 2016-17. These are the players who average NBA fans may not know yet, so every profile is illuminating, every spin optimistic about this player’s future in the league.

2.) The Cavs had neither a blossoming 2015 pick nor a top pick in 2016, but one of their own is still generating a significant amount of summertime buzz.

[Note: to be fair, the team’s late first round pick in 2015, Tyus Jones, was blossoming just fine this summer, being named Las Vegas Summer League MVP. But Jones was traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves on draft night in a swap that moved the Cavs into the second round where they took Cedi Osman of Turkey. While many Cavs fans were, no doubt, looking forward to the possibility of seeing Osman play later this summer, Osman and the Turkish National Team failed to qualify for the Olympics. Still, following a loss to Greece in late-June, Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks gave Osman a rave review, calling the Turkish swingman “a killer.”]

More has been written about Kay Felder this off-season than about any Cavalier outside of LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. The 5-9 point guard out of Oakland University was drafted toward the end of the second round and into a league that, based on his height, will always view him with curiosity… not to mention a healthy dose of skepticism. The fact that Felder stepped onto the court in Summer League and played like he belongs in the league has only made the stories about Felder keep coming.

Gary Washburn, writing for the Boston Globe on Sunday, was the most recent (and most national) writer to tip his hat to Felder. Washburn writes:

One of the standouts at the Las Vegas Summer League was Cleveland point guard Kay Felder, who emerged along with Jordan McRae to lead the Cavaliers to the semifinals…

He could serve as the team’s backup point guard to replace the departedMatthew Dellavedova. The stocky, 5-foot-9-inch Felder is fearless driving into the paint as well as finishing. He got into an entertaining duel with the Celtics’ Terry Rozier during Cleveland’s 98-94 summer league win.

Felder is the latest in a slew of under-6-feet players seeking to make an Isaiah Thomas type of impact.

“I try to just be in attack mode at all times,” said Felder, who averaged 15.3 points in seven summer games. “I’m just trying to put pressure on the defense.”

Whether Felder can win the confidence of a head coach who leaned on his star players in a big, big way remains to be seen. But, the fact that he uttered Lue’s two favorite words when talking about the point guard position — attack mode — shows that he’s already thinking the right way.

Come training camp, we’ll get a chance to see if Felder is able to keep his hot summer going.

https://youtu.be/lcwGC3BImSo

3.) When the Cavs waived swingman Dahntay Jones earlier this week, they reduced their number of (likely) locks to make the roster to 14, or one below the league limit. The team now has an open roster spot to add to guards Irving, Felder, McRae, J.R. Smith (assuming he does, in fact, re-sign), Mo Williams, and Iman Shumpert, forwards James, Kevin Love, Mike Dunleavy Jr., Richard Jefferson and James Jones, and centers Tristan Thompson, Channing Frye, and Chris “Birdman” Anderson.

The Cavs may decide to play the season (or part of it) with those 14 guys, saving money on the luxury tax by not having to carry a 15th player.

If they don’t go that direction — and they likely won’t — the door is now wide open for another Summer League stand-out, DeAndre Liggins, to make the club. Cavs GM David Griffin has long been in the market for additional depth on the wing and Liggins, the 2015 NBA D-League Defensive Player of the Year who shot 43% from three and averaged seven assists per game last year, might be the Cavs best option to get that.

Liggins, 28, is younger than Jones and, while most of his time has been spent either in the D-League or overseas, he has developed into a quintessential 3-D player (with some playmaking ability thrown in to boot) who is still relatively young. As a member of the Cavs Summer League team in Vegas, he showed the ability to be a positive impact for the game without ever needing plays run for him.

Perhaps the biggest thing in Liggins’s favor though, is his lack of NBA-level success so far. That means that the tax-strapped Cavs will likely be able to bring him in on low-cost deal that won’t kill them with luxury tax bills.

Here he is lighting up the Canton Charge last season:

4.) And this week’s final point is courtesy of CtB’s own Ben Werth.

Ben: The analogies between the theatrical stage and basketball arena are numerous. We frequently discuss what “role” a player should have to most help his team and who is the “star” of the production and how much power does that star wield.

Working in the performing arts, I run across all types of directors. Some prefer to let the actors take the lead in the rehearsing process, some are the dictators or their worlds. I realize that my desires for my own work environment differ from what I had claimed to be the correct NBA process.

I had talked about wanting a “system coach”, but reality, I don’t want that in my own life. Basically, I prefer that a director challenges me to be better, but doesn’t put me in a box. The result of the 2016 NBA Finals has driven us to reevaluate many previously held beliefs. Kyrie and Kevin can, in fact, play defense. It was a good move to fire Blatt, etc. The list goes on.

The Cavs won the chip by doggedly forcing the Warriors into unfavorable one-on-one matchups. Yes, they accomplished that by setting screens to get the desired switch, but in general, there wasn’t a whole lot of “system” or “plays” run to do so. Simple PnR got the job done.

Ultimately, the Cavs put their stars in a position to utilize their supreme individual talents. Tyronn Lue’s faith in those talents superseded any specific system that he may have wanted to run. We, as fans and media, go back and forth between undervaluing X’s and O’s and valuing them too much. Before the Finals, I would have said that the X’s and O’s are more important than any rah-rah-ing that a coach could do. But seeing the Finals and equating it to my own career, I now see it differently.

A “players coach” isn’t just a guy who is easy on his team or doesn’t have great basketball acumen. He is a guy who understands that his players are the driving force behind his production. That they will reach a higher level if they play together, not because they are doing what the coach wants, but because they are respecting each other’s talents and therefore maximizing them. A leader who truly believes in his players is underrated. I’d be happy to work for a Lue-esque director.