What discourse about the Cleveland Cavaliers is LEGIT & which is NON-SENSE this offseason?

What discourse about the Cleveland Cavaliers is LEGIT & which is NON-SENSE this offseason?

[Music] good morning ladies and gentlemen mikey McNuggets and it’s not Jason Lloyd joining me this morning it is Justin Rowan from the Chaseed Down Podcast coming to us from beautiful somewhere up near Edmonton Canada somewhere Ontario i It’s up north of the border justin I know you like hockey from Canada and you like the Canadian Football League i see a tweeting about the gray skies and all that stuff so uh where what part of Canada can are you from actually Manitoba i’m directly above uh you know North Dakota if I go south I’m going to hit Oklahoma City i’m going to hit Houston i’m I’m I’m square in the middle of you know the the continent i’m honored to be filling in or or you know taking the place of Jason Lloyd this this is a it’s a true treat thank you so much for having me on listen Jason gets paid for one show a week and we had to do an emergency DG stream on Monday so I was like “Hey the people want a cab show on Wednesday i got to give him a CV show on Wednesday who can I call upon?” I called upon my good friend here Justin and Justin we got a lot to uh a lot to get to there’s been some just call it wild discourse among Cavs Twitter since the end of the season i think some of it is 1,000% fair i think some of it is 1,000% outrageous so I want to give you the floor first Justin since the season has ended what has been your take or what have you made of a lot of the back and forth the ins and outs the debates we have seen online in terms of what are valid talking points that we should be focused on verse what’s the nonsense that isn’t even worth our time i I might surprise you a little bit here because I I don’t really distinguish a whole lot of it as nonsense like when you’re coming up with fake scenarios that aren’t even legal under the CBA that maybe it’s nonsense right like I don’t think people understand you know they they think there’s a lot of loopholes right like they they think when they negotiated this collective bargaining agreement hey we can dump a couple salaries we can just sneak under then all of a sudden make all these types of maneuvers and then we’ll shoot right back up over the second apron um you know I think people are used to collective bargaining agreements that are a little more flexible where you are able to you know kind of finesse some of the stuff hey if you’re willing to pay enough you can do whatever you want that sort of stuff i I don’t think that there’s a lot of use for just because it’s not you know feasible it’s not possible i don’t think people realize if you do dip on under you’re going to be hardcaped at that Sebin Apron might mean you can’t even finish uh you know fill out a roster but the rest of it in terms of kind of team building philosophy I don’t I don’t want to be sitting here policing that because if you had preconceived notions about the viability of what this roster is what their ceiling is as a team nothing that happened last season is going to change your mind on where that team is at as much as you know we understand the context of what happened last season it’s not like there there’s been new information that’s going to change people’s minds and basketball is such a subjective sport you look at the last seven champions including whether OKC or Indiana wins you look at the last seven champions every single one of these teams has been built differently like I I think we are just adjusting to a new world and you know I I think all kind of perspectives when it comes to team building and how far away the Cavs are it’s understandable and I’m not going to sit here saying just because someone disagrees with me you know I I don’t think that their point of view is valid yeah when I look at nonsense I don’t mean in terms of that opinion or or that take is crazy more of just the overall arching opinion to me that the Cavs are so far off to me that’s nonsense because they weren’t that far off now it was an incredibly disappointing finish to the playoffs Justin i don’t want to sugarcoat it but to say they are eons away from being able to compete with Indiana and Boston and the other top teams in the East I just don’t buy it i don’t think they were that far off so when I hear people say hit eject for the sake of hitting eject because this as currently constructed could never work mhm i don’t buy that i’m willing to make changes and I we’ll get to the changes keep whatever in a sec to me that’s part of the nonsense that I I don’t think they were that far off they weren’t ready but I don’t think they were that far off i don’t think so either and you know people can feel free to disagree with me on this i think even in their injured state I think they had enough to beat Indiana i I think if they had the kind of composure the the maturity to do what was necessary to win that series i think they could have beat the Indiana Pacers even with the injuries that they had i think the injuries level the playing field that we saw the team that was able to maintain its identity at a higher level and play with that level of maturity that the Cavs are not at yet at i I think the injuries brought it to that level where that became a conversation obviously game two you know that that’s a really that’s a brutal loss that’s a brutal way to lose well coming back from that the the the aspects that they could control incredibly frustrating uh the aspects that were out of their control you know Garland Moy and Hunter being out of the lineup Donovan Mitchell pulling his calf in the fourth quarter and not being able to create separation on inbounds that’s tough right like th those parts are out of your control two blown lane violations that if a single one of them is called properly it’s a Cavs win all of that you know is difficult but I I still think when your ultimate goal is to win a championship the data points we got in that series are important i think if the Cavs went up against the Oklahoma City Thunder because I don’t think they would have had a problem against the Knicks if they were fully healthy if we’re going down hypothetical lane here I don’t think they would have had a problem against the Knicks i think the Thunder would have smoked them because I’m so glad you said that Justin the issues that we saw against Indie OKC is going to pressure you yeah to to a much much much higher level indie’s able to play better than their some of their parts on the defensive end oklahoma City does that with much better parts that’s the best team in the league right now so the other part of the nonsense I wanted to hash out was while I don’t think the Cavs were that far off in the East I don’t think comparing them just to teams in the East is a fair comparison if the Cavs want to be a legitimate championship contender OKC is now the bar and I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves game three is tonight it’s 1-1 indie came back and won game one okc is the barometer I think the Cavs have to be looking at and when you’re building what they feel is a championship core you have to ask yourself does this championship core give us a chance to beat OKC and OKC right now can play 13 different styles indiana wants to play this frantic frantic excuse me chaotic pace on offense and pack the paint on defense and OKC says “Okay we’ll play that style too.” And if they want to play with two bigs well they have Hartinstein and Chad Homegrren and if you want to play with more guards well they’ll take out one of their bigs and go four guards and they have legitimately three alldefensive caliber guards and then their worst guard is SGA who is one of the best steelmen steel artists whatever you want to phrase it as in the NBA to your point Justin Indiana showed the blueprint in terms of how to disrupt the Cavs offense oklahoma City would have taken that blueprint and and drawn the Mona Lisa and built the Taj Mahal against that Cavs offense i don’t think they’re built and my biggest complaint coming out of that Indiana series Justin I don’t think you and I have actually talked about this no we haven’t was the the Cavs didn’t have a counter punch like what worked so well for the Cavs in the regular season was their ability to beat guys off the dribble get in the paint force a rotation and then attack close outs and attack a defense in rotation they were the best three-point shooting team in the NBA on uh corner threes they got and generated a ton of wide openen looks by attacking the rotation and then Indiana said “All right we’re not going to help off guys we don’t think because of the injuries Evan DeAndre Darius they’re not going to be able to beat us one-on-one.” So we’re just not going to help you got to beat us one-on-one and Cleveland still tried to run the exact same offense in my opinion i know Kenny Atkins said they tried to tweak things up my eyes didn’t see that but Kenny’s smarter than me i’ll defer to him they didn’t really have a counter punch Justin they tried to run the exact same stuff and Indiana was playing a defensive style that that played right into their hands they had no counter and to me that was the most disappointing part of the playoff layout yeah like they they baited Mitchell into being a scorer right and and they they basically said if we don’t send help to Donovan Mitchell we are not giving him playmaking reads that he’s going to make right like I Donovan has improved so much as a playmaker but he’s still not passing guys open the same way that Adarius Garland does right like there is a difference there and you know it it’s one of the things with this Cass build when I look at their top three guys they all need each other like I think this is a little different than than some of the other teams where you know the the star players are a little more independent if Donovan Mitchell wasn’t in a series I don’t think Darius is able to score at the level necessary in order for the Cavs to have a great playoffense if Darius Garland isn’t himself or if he’s out of the lineup I don’t think Donovan Mitchell is a playmaker at the level to have you know a top 10 offense or have a successful playoff offense he can get his own as a scorer but we’ve we’ve seen time and time again that the overall offense suffers in those scenarios we’ve also seen it’s really difficult on his body then without Evan Mobley like you’re just not going to have a good defense with with him on the court and you know I I I think Indiana really did push them outside of their identity that felt like Indiana Pacers basketball and I I think that’s one of my biggest things when I look at the Cavs is they need to establish what that identity is and they need to dictate the terms of engagement when you’re in a playoff series against them and that doesn’t always mean hey we’re going to play this one specific style cavs basketball might mean hey we are going to change it up a little bit we’re going to throw different looks at you i think that’s true of you know the Oklahoma City Thunder like they can pull Isaiah Harstein out of the starting lineup and play a different lineup one that they’ve gone through you know to throughout the regular season from a calf standpoint I think they really stayed in a lot of base coverages on defense and offense throughout the regular season thinking hey we’re going to throw some wrinkles in the playoffs we saw them go fullcourt press against Miami and I don’t know if they still had that kind of stuff planned for Indiana and then the injuries made that so it just wasn’t feasible that’s you know kind of one of those great unknowns but it didn’t feel like Cavs basketball and you know as much as you can say they tried running the the same stuff it varied from what we saw in the regular season to some extent because Moy wasn’t getting the same touches and can you recall a single game where in a playoff setting or in a big game we just keep going to Evan Mobley and he doesn’t deliver like it’s a five of 20 game i I I I’ve seen like you know three of 11 games but I’ve never seen him you know go out swinging and I I think some of that’s on Moley some of that’s definitely on both of the guards some of that’s on Kenny it’s a shared responsibility but I would like to see us you know particularly when both guards are are so limited like I look at Darius and and Donovan game five they were playing their asses off i don’t think they had another series in them like even if they beat the Pacers Donovan looked like he did against Boston i think he would have had to be shut down at some point darius obviously needed surgery you know I they they were both playing so hard in in those games and you know from Darius’s perspective I was actually surprised he was moving so well in the defensive end like you know Nemhard couldn’t turn the corner on him and had to stiff arm him out of the way like I thought they were giving it their all but part of why like some I’m I’m not watching the finals being like ah it should have been us there is because they just did have another round in them like the and and the Knicks weren’t going to beat them if healthy but they were certainly going to beat them in the state that they were in i mean we can go back to it it is crazy Justin how a final 48 seconds of game two changed everything changed the trae i mean you win that game it’s 1-1 going to Indie who knows how it pans out now they used all their gas like they were rung dry however being down 02 and having two days to sit on the collapse that you just Yeah you know I don’t even know what the right word is the collapse that you just witnessed firsthand and went through and to have that gut punch knowing you had given that level of fight without three of your top six guys to then come up short in the like there is no coming back from that but something to mention on Moy Justin is where I wanted to get to in a sec let me first mention that FanDuel is the official sports book partner of the Ultimate Cleveland Sports Show game three of the NBA Finals is going on later tonight if you want to bet on game three of the NBA finals whether it be player props the spread overunders individual team props you think of it you can find it on FanDuel if you use promo codefanuel.coms as a new customer place a $5 bet you can win $200 in bonus bets if that first $5 bet hits or to fanduel.coms to get it on the action today you mentioned Evan Mobley’s usage here Justin and you never want someone to get hurt obviously we hope Darius makes a speedy recovery hopefully the toe is completely healed whenever he gets back on the court but the one silver lining to this injury update we got on the Darius Garland front is there is a chance it could force the Cavaliers to start the 2526 season without him on the court which means you get real live legitimate not preseason not training camp real live game reps of running an offense that significantly features Evan Mobley more than we have seen in the past i will die on this hill i won’t die alone because I know there’s some other people out there but I will die on the hill that for the Cavs to win a championship evan Mobley has to become their best overall player doesn’t mean he has to be their leading scorer but he has to be their best overall player and he made a tremendous jump from year three to year four this season second team AllNNBA is nothing to scoff at but I think there’s still another gargantuan leap he can make as an offensive player the three-point shot made significant improvements he get a little better as a three-point shooter but he only took like 38 mid-range shots all last season i want to see him operate more in the high post i want to see his usage rate go up run offense through him pass it into the high post where Evan Mobley can either take a guy off the dribble hit a mid-range jump shot he’s a good enough passer to facilitate offball action get it to Donovan and Darius or Max Drew or whoever coming off some backside doubles pin downs you name it they run it he can facilitate and make those passes and when Darius comes back whenever that may be let’s just call it December 15th for the sake of our discussion here the day is arbitrary that could be 10 or 15 games where you can get a little preview but a big enough sample size to not say it’s just one game of some of the things that Evan can and can’t handle in that increased role and then when Darius comes back he’s still going to work his way back into the offense he then learns how to play off of an offense where he becomes more of the third option as opposed to being the second option and I’m not trying to take shots out of Darius i think there’s enough balls that sounds weird there there’s enough opportunities and possessions for everyone to still get their fair share of the pie but I just want to see Evan and particularly the usage rate going down in the playoffs to me Justin made no sense he was dominant in the first quarter of game five and then he was MIA for quarters two three and part of quarter four you mentioned it’s on him it’s on the guards it’s on the coaches like you got to make a concerted effort to get him the rock but the one silver lining of the DG injury to me though is you’re going to get 10 to 20 games of a real regular season sample size to let Evan have a chance to run the offense that I think eventually will be their best offense in terms of giving them a shot to win a championship absolutely and I I think people don’t realize like in the regular season Moy actually led the team in front court touches so you know touches that are established in the front court playoffs that dropped down to like fourth like it it was just such a dramatic shift in how they approached the regular season and for for me I just want to see that true usage go up for Evan Mobley great great stat that Seth Parkbound came out up with it’s available on uh Bball Ball Index basically true usage is tracking not only your usage which is does a possession end with you taking a shot or having a turnover it also factors in how many possessions end with you creating a shot opportunity for someone else i want offense to be running through Evan Mobley you know Kenny last off season they they had in in training camp a shot clock that was down at 18 seconds right like that’s how they were playing because they wanted them to get into their sets quicker they wanted the tempo to be up this year it should be no one gets to take a shot until Evan Mobley touches the basketball yes like I I want to touch on every single possession for Evan Mobley and you know I I think that’s going to be really important too because I think what you’ve seen these last couple seasons is when Darius has missed stretches Donovan it has not gone well for him physically right like they went I think it was 12-4 in the games with with Donovan and Jarrett right like there was that stretch where even Donovan was out and and they managed to win some games but they went 12-4 and I think the only winning record team that they played was the Orlando Magic and then Donovan missed the entire post all-star game stretch you see him play you know a couple games against Miami without Darius and then a couple games against Indiana and you have one of these wear and tear soft tissue injuries coming up i want Donovan honestly I probably if fully healthy I want Donovan to be third in touches but I still want him to be the leading scoreer i want him to be that leading play finisher i I want to conserve you know his possessions and have him be you know that great offball weapon that we have so that Moby can get those touches i think Darius you know as a playmaker he’s one of the best in the league you you look at that assist to turnover ratio in terms of usage it’s Jokic and Brunson brun they’re the only guys ahead of him right um so I want that to kind of be that natural hierarchy but I do think that there’s a real opportunity for Moy to take on that larger playmaking role and I I we’ve been saying it for three years on on our podcast because the only teams you see that win with a smaller backcourt that plays you know consistent minutes together uh on a regular basis know everyone focuses on starting but there are teams like the Toronto Raptors that won with Fred Van Lee and Cal Lowry at what 5’11 playing consistent minutes together steph Curry and Jordan Pool i know Jordan P’s an inch taller than Donovan Mitchell if you’re really going to tell me that’s the difference I I Donovan Donovan’s bit like a linebacker i know he’s considered a small guard but Donovan doesn’t get bullied defensively he just gets picked on it’s different levels of he falls asleep off off ball a little bit regular season effort on the defensive end is probably on the weaker end but we know that he can elevate when it’s important right like the teams that you see that win with smaller guards always have front court initiation whether it’s Draymond Green and Kawhi Leonard Marcusaul that you can run offense through and honestly you know how I mentioned that the last seven teams to win a championship including whoever wins this year are all built differently the one consistent thing that you all of these teams share is they have at least four players that you can count on to initiate offense and usually it’s balanced between the back court and the front court right we saw that with Indie right seakum can do that even Miles Turner has turned into you know an intelligent passer nem hard right n Smith can run uh you know actions on the weak side and stuff like that uh obviously OKC has that even though Shay’s kind of the only true engine there they have intelligent passers hernstein’s able to do that uh like all their their wings Caruso they’re able to to provide those types of possessions obviously that’s true you know the the teams that have won the last few years the Cavs need to have that balanced playmaking approach because I think the reason why their offense keeps failing in the playoffs is because too much of the burden goes down on the guards both you know Donovan and Darius have been broken down the last few years in the playoffs that’s had an impact on it but whether it is a lack of execution and not getting the ball to Evan Mobley or a lack of options when you look back at that Knicks series where you know Mobley wasn’t doing well in the short role he wasn’t making those playmaking reads and they had nobody else that lack of balance playmaking I think is one of the biggest things that’s gone wrong with the Cavs because as much as people talk about the defense it’s been the offense that’s failed them more it’s been the offense that has consistently failed them the starting lineup had a 107D rating against Indie that’s that’s the same as OKC in the regular season and and honestly here’s the best example chris Finch after the Wolves lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder the Wolves had a worse defensive rating against the Thunder than the Cavs did against the Pacers and they have great defensive personnel up and down the lineup what was he talking about it wasn’t how we need to step up defensively it was we need ball handling and we need playmaking that’s how you beat these switching defenses that’s how you beat this press that’s how you beat this pressure and when you score better on the offensive end it’s going to have an effect on your defense you’re going to allow you’re going to make it harder for a team like Indie to get out in transition to get those easy buckets to get that momentum they’re pulling the ball out of their own basket they’re not going to be playing with that same level of confidence i found the stat I was looking for the Cavs offensive rating in the regular season versus the postseason the last three years justin you ready for this uh yeah I’m ready for this one it It’s painful in 2223 they had a 116.7 offensive rating that was seventh in the NBA in the playoffs it dropped to 101.9 which would have ranked 30th in 2324 they had a 115.3 offensive rating in the regular season that was 18th in the NBA it dropped to 111.7 in the playoffs that would have been 25th this year number one offensive rating in the league 122.5 second best offensive rating the NBA has ever tracked it fell to 112.6 this year which would have been 22nd in the league their defense in the playoffs going even back to the JB era has been great but they have lost because they can’t score and I thought against Indiana partially due to injuries if you had blindfolded me and said what kind of offense are you watching it it felt a lot like those JB Bickerstaff level offenses that we got so frustrated with because it all fell on Donovan to be your lone creator and that’s why when we talk about is there a move to make should you trade Jarius should you move Jared Allen I I’m open to anything at this point Justin but if you’re going to get something back you have to get playmaking back the one the one deal and I got an ad read that I’m curious what you think but the one deal with the Timberwolves that involves Jada McDaniels and like Mike Connley sure it like Yes you help fix one issue with a big three and D wing jada McDaniels doesn’t offer you any offensive creation if you rewind and also the three is a little generous he’s about a 33% shooter he’s at least the three and the arc you know what I’m saying yeah but like where’s your offensive creation coming from do you want You’ve seen what happened year after year when Donovan has to become your only primary backcourt playmaker and I know Tai had a terrible playoff series you would hope he gets back and has at least a little bit more confidence in his second go round of the playoffs but like who else is creating and you could say well Evan has to take a big step forward we all agree on that already but you know what’s awesome donovan Evan and Darius or another legitimate playmaker who when healthy is a top 2530 guy in the league so I’ve seen a lot of those trades Justin i want to do a read and I want to ask you about the future of the core four but when we’re looking at any of these deals you got to get back playmaking because playmaking is what wins in the playoffs it’s not shooting it’s playmaking and as Chris Finch said in that same press conference we have guys that can shoot we don’t have guys that can get them open shots you need playmakers to generate those open looks our next topic is brought to us by Buckeye Credit Union if you guys don’t know Buckeye State Credit Union let me introduce you to your newest financial best friend they have five locations across Ohio including one in Cleveland that location is in Shaker Heights if you can’t get to a store in person they make banking easy and convenient online they have all the things you need auto loans lines of credit you name it buckeye State Credit Union has it their core principles simplify adapt make them innovative cutting through the clutter making it the easiest banking and credit situation you can find anywhere particularly in Ohio for more information head to buckeyatecu.org buckeyecredit union your money simplified so Justin that brings us to the last portion of today’s show we’ll do this quickly but if it was up to you if you were sitting in Kobe Alman’s shoes would you lean more towards running it back and keeping the core four together or are you seriously listening to offers from teams for anybody mainly Darius and Jared because those two seem to be the most likely to be moved in the case of an offseason deal yeah what we’ve been kind of saying all offseason is you owe it to yourself to do your due diligence right and I think that’s what Brian Windor has been saying as well right like when you’re going into the second apron which functionally they have to operate like one now even though that doesn’t start until July 1st your options become very very limited you owe it to yourself to find out what those options are but the realities of you’re only really able to swap you know those core guys for either a one for one or one for two kind of situation mean that you have to look at those salaries below those guys right and you know as much as Jared gets talked about as a core four player from a salary cap perspective you’re talking about like an Alex Caruso type slot right like for for another year he doesn’t get up to that Hornstein level for another year and you know that’s certainly not on the Jay Gildus Alexander Jaylen Williams Chad Homegrren level right like it there there is a difference there and when it comes to Darius when you look at players around him it’s Jaylen Suggs it’s Drew Holiday like we’re we’re talking about role players so it’s not like you can even get a real plus in addition to those guys um because they make just as much so with that I am skeptical that those options are available but you still need to find out what is there i I do think you know when you’re evaluating kind of the importance of the core what I said before about the top three kind of even though there’s some redundancies in terms of of two guards there they still do different things and they’re better together donovan has said he needs to play with a point guard he is not a point guard right by the way Anthony Edwards has said the same thing and look at the Anthony Edwards numbers when he’s playing with Mike Connley versus playing without Mike Connley some guys are natural ones some guys are natural twos donovan can play the one he is very much a natural two yeah and I I think you know there’s just some limitations as a playmaker there but like both of them again Darius doesn’t have that same aggressiveness and assertiveness as a scorer to do what Donovan does those three to me it’s just a different discussion because you have two AllNBA players and someone that finished 19th in all NBA voting right like you’re talking about kind of that top 20 range there and when you don’t have a bonafide top five player you do not win by changing allstars out for role players in fact you know as much as people say “Hey there’s only like a handful like five six examples of smaller back courts that won a championship you cannot find me a single example in you know modern NBA history of a team that traded an allstar for a collection of role players like a current all-star for a collection of role players and that was the move that got them over the hump you certainly can’t do that for a team you know wi with uh without a bonafide top five player the Cavs their issue isn’t talent it is getting that composure getting that maturity and I I still think the most important thing about when Kobe traded for Donovan Mitchell is it put them in position for them to have these types of failures and to learn from these experiences you know one one final thought because you ask what nonsense drives me nuts when people say you know this was the same thing what happened against Indie is exactly what happened against the Knicks it was different like the type of toughness they’re talking about is that maturity and execution right like knowing how to read and react and still play your style no matter what it’s not physicality the Cavs actually beat Indie on the offensive glass by a larger margin than the Knicks beat the Cavs in that series they beat Indie in points in the paint by a larger margin than the Knicks beat the Cavs in that series those type of physical markers that everyone looks at it swung the Cavs way versus Indiana they lost for completely different reasons and to me it was because they did not maintain their offensive identity if you want to go and and look at a historical list of teams that traded an all-star for pieces we did that topic on UCSS last week justin the closest example I could find of a team in the same situation Cleveland was was when the Rockets traded James Harden to the uh the Thunder traded James Harden to the Rockets for Kevin Martin Jeremy Lamb and two first round picks one of which turned into Steven Adams obviously James Harden went on to have a much better career than the collection of those two and the Thunder never made it back to the finals until this year when James Harden is now seven teams removed from basically where he was i’m It reminds me of when the discussion was trade Kevin Love for Jay Crowder and Avery Bradley like the Cavs just need defense they need some wings on the perimeter nonsense that that that went to beat the the the Warriors what are we talking about here the Cavs should be listening whenever I hear report Kobe’s listening of course he’s listening that’s his job as the general manager kobe set this team up to win a championship he made the deal for Donovan Mitchell by pushing all his chips in on the table you think now he’s going to sit back and just be like I’m good c I’m good cash out i’m up a little bit but no like that’s not how GMs operate when you’re in the business to win championships they should be listening they should not make a move for the sake of just making a move they need to make a move that makes basketball sense that makes financial sense and puts them in a better position to win their overall goal which is hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy when it’s all said and done and based on all the trades that I’ve kind of concocted myself for UCSS based on all the trades I’ve seen float around Twitter I’ve seen very few if any that I agree with for Darius Garland and I’ve seen a couple for Jared Allen that I say kind of like that so I’m more open to hearing deals for anybody but I’m not just saying yes for the sake of saying yes because I think the Cavs need to blow it up if it’s a deal that makes them better on the court or severely uh not severely uh seriously impacts their financial situation moving forward I’m all ears but I can’t stand people who say we got to make a move for the sake of making a move it almost never works when that’s the case yeah you got to figure out how you can make changes to make it feel different to play against the Cavs right and some of that might be rotation right like you look at it Sam Merrell played about 73% of his possessions at small forward if you’re going to have a small back court maybe you don’t want a 64 you know small forward a and you know that’s basically a function of having Donovan Darius and Tai playing so many guard minutes together right so those are the types of decisions that they have to make obviously evaluate with Jared if we’re going to play a soft switching defense is Jared Allen really the type of big man we want next to Evan Mobley like all of these discussions need to be considered but ultimately talent is what really matters we know that we have fifth it’s just going to be what opportunities are out there and and I’m sure that Kobe’s looking at all of that that is Justin Rowan from the Chase Down Pot if you don’t listen to the Chase Down Pot with Justin and Carter you are missing out they are two of the best Cavs podcasters out there would highly recommend it and Justin we really appreciate you making some time here on a Wednesday morning to talk some calves with me man thank you so much thanks so much for having me appreciate it we’ll see you on UCSS in about two hours and 32 minutes peace

There has been no shortage of discourse surrounding the Cleveland Cavaliers this summer.

Keep the Core 4 in tact or break it up by trading either Darius Garland or Jarrett Allen?

Can this team become a legit title contender if Evan Mobley doesn’t take that next step?

How does Darius Garland’s surgery impact his future with the team?

Justin Rowan from the Chasedown Podcast joins McNuggets to break it all down and more.

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The Ultimate Cleveland Sports Show is your daily source of the best conversation about the Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Guardians, Cleveland Cavaliers and Ohio State Buckeyes, as well as sports throughout Northeast Ohio. Produced by Mike Lucas, Anthony Antonelli, and Earl Mauldin. Hosted by Jay Crawford, Adam the Bull, G Bush, Jason Lloyd, and Tyvis Powell.