Is the NEW TREND of NBA team building here & how does it impact the Cleveland Cavaliers?

Is the NEW TREND of NBA team building here & how does it impact the Cleveland Cavaliers?

[Music] good morning everybody it is Thursday Junth and on Junth Tegna says there is no UCSS it is a companywide holiday but we at UCSS still want to give you guys some new fresh content so Jason Lloyd and myself are going to break down some of the Cavs most pressing topics i have a new team building theory that I’m fascinated to see what Jason believes and how it impacts Cleveland we have to discuss some of the Evan Mobley discourse that has gone on this week throughout the show and then we have some wild overreactions to get to but full disclosure we are taping this earlier in the week we are not technically live right now even though you are seeing it live but Jason let’s do a little predictive measure how’s your Thursday going buddy uh since I’m not working I think it will be going lovely and wonderful getting some yard work done maybe even write a little bit uh hopefully the weather cooperates how about you uh we got the Injoku softball game tonight so we’ll be still working in some capacity we’re hoping to get some one-on-one interviews with Injoku Shadore all the Browns guys that are out there miles some celebrities who are not Browns related are expected to be in attendance so that should be fun but let’s dive into the reason we are here by the way we’re back full capacity tomorrow we have a full UCSS on Friday it’ll be Bull it’ll be J it’ll be G 90 minutes on YouTube 30 minutes on WKYC download the WKYC app and the WKYC Plus app if you can’t watch it in Cleveland area you can still watch it on your phone wherever but Jason let’s dive into the meat and potatoes we’re going to give these people a show whether they want it or not on a Thursday morning i have a bit of a theory when it comes to the future of the NBA and how teams are going to start building their teams out in a position to put themselves to win a championship to best position themselves to win a championship and it’s a little bit of a different theory than we’ve seen in the past i had this idea kind of throughout the regular season but didn’t have enough evidence i still don’t know if I have enough evidence but I think my idea has come even more prevalent in the playoffs here and that is with the second apron looming and all the financial restrictions and confusion that it causes it’s essentially a hard cap in certain areas depending on which maneuvers you pull i think the future of the NBA is less and less let’s acquire two or three mega stars pay two or three guys a ton of money and fill out the roster with six seven eight nine guys that can take up 30% of the cap in total and more of a team building philosophy of who’s our weakest link and how do we make our weakest link stronger depth is more important than it ever has been in the past but not just depth in the traditional sense Jason you have to have flexible depth and I’ll give you no better example than both the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers in the NBA Finals isaiah Hartinstein had been the biggest free agent acquisition the Thunder had signed in about a decade $30 million per year this season jason a little bit of a declining contract in the next two seasons but he was a massive free agent signing and he was crucial in their first three playoff series against Minnesota against Denver against the Grizzlies who frankly they could have beat with one hand hide behind their back however against Indiana Jason He’s been their weak link and he’s been played off the floor and at times the Thunder have closed with no bigs at times they’ve closed with one big and that one big being Chad Homegrren and when Isaiah Hartinstein’s been on the court the Pacers have attacked him relentlessly let’s flip to the other side of the court the Pacers how big was Miles Turner in their playoff run to get to the finals the way he dominated New York in certain stretches the way he dominated the Cavs bigs in the second round the way he single-handedly controlled the paid against Giannis and the Bucks do you realize that the Pacers have closed three of these four games with Obie Topphen at the five and Miles Turner on the bench jason that is the flexibility that depth creates to eliminate your weak link in the playoffs it’s all about mismatch hunting finding the weak link and attacking that weak link and it’s not always going to be the same link depend same weak link depending on the situation and the circumstance but I think the way teams are going to go about building their teams out now in an ideal world and once again this is easier said than done is how can we be flexible to feel pretty good about our proverbial weak link against two or three different kind of teams Jason it’s less about having a big three per se and a bunch of fillins i love Mike Miller Shane Badier Mario Chamers Udonis Hlam like the Heedles in the early 2010s and more like a team in the bold of OKC with a bunch of variable pieces that you can mix and match to best counter your opponent what say you i don’t think we have enough data um I hear you i don’t know that I agree with that yet um teams have been exploiting mismatches and forcing guys off the floor for years and and so so it sounds like depth over top end talent is what you’re saying am I understanding that correctly you still need stars like the Thunder aren’t here without SGA and Jaylen Williams playing awesome the Pacers aren’t in the finals without Tyres Hallebert and Pascal Seakkum being incredible but to win a championship I think you need the requisite depth to be flexible enough and that was one of the Cavs issues this year when they missed guys they weren’t flexible enough to change their style of play to adapt to the personnel you actually have available i think it still will always be you want your best guys on the floor um I still think it’s going to always be play seven trust six play eight trust seven type stuff and I think even this finals I think would bear that out in terms of minute production even though these are two fairly deep teams I still think they’re playing their top end guys the most uh I don’t know that we have I just think that it’s such a new world that we just don’t know yet what’s going to work and what’s not um you know when when I look at the you know the Pacers being a team that if they if they were to win a championship would do it on the lowest number of regular season wins in 30 years tells me this is more of an anomaly than the way it’s going to be in the future but maybe that’s not true maybe maybe it is the way that it is going to be moving forward but you know when you look at the number the stat I was thinking about this today the stat that we came you came up with and then I confirmed it on stat head about uh the number of wins and the point mar point margin right what was the what was the exact stat wins nine points per win margin I mean 14 won the championship that to me is telling and I know that we’ve used that as an indict ment against the Cavs but I also actually think that it validates the Cavs as they were a damn good team that had a really lousy couple of weeks and we can get to that in a minute so I still think it’s always going to be star driven and I hear you like you’re not disputing that but the you’re only as good as your weakest link i’m I’m trying to think like 2016 Cavs because obviously that team won a championship and I was there for every single one of those games and I know this is a different world in a different NBA but like what was the weakest link on that team they didn’t have one was it the JR Smith shump I mean J it was probably Shump but Shump wasn’t even a starter jr hit some massive threes in game seven he hit two huge threes in game seven that really sort of allowed the Cavs to hold on to the rope when it felt like it might be getting away from them um you know I mean Kevin Love honestly at times was the weak link they forced him to the bench and he had the concussion and he went to the bench and he and they brought him off the bench because he just couldn’t guard Draymond so I think my counter would be the what does the weakest link provide and does it still help you um you know when we talk about Isaac obviously we talk about you can you can scheme him off the floor and you can and teams frankly I think could scheme Jared Allen off the floor u there’s but those guys who get schemed off the floor there’s also pockets and moments where they can help you uh so I don’t I I don’t know it’s a really interesting concept that I just think we’re too new into this i think if you asked around the league I think a lot of teams would maybe shrug and say “I don’t know come back in three years five years when we have more data in this and then we’ll have a better answer.” But I still think I don’t think having going 10 deep helps you win a championship i don’t think it does because you’re not going to go that deep in a finals and I was looking for box scores off this series just to confirm that um and you know like if you look at total minutes played and again this is we’re only through five games here uh the Thunder have one two three four five six seven guys at 99 minutes or up so let’s call it 100 100 minutes and then it’s a pretty steep drop to Aaron Wiggins at 70 minutes and the Pacers have one two three four five six seven eight guys at 90 minutes and up and then it’s a pretty steep drop after that and they have one two three four five six at 100 and up so even for the depth that we’ve applauded both of these teams to have they’re still not going all that deep into their bench because it’s still all about at this point in the season early in the playoffs yeah early in the earlier in the rounds you go deeper when you get to this point you want your best guys on the floor all that is true but both of these teams Indiana and Oklahoma City despite the fact they’re playing seven and eight guys for the majority these are not the seven and eight guys that necessarily got them to be in this position like I mentioned before Miles Turner isn’t closing games right now for Miles Turner closed every game against the Knicks every game against the Cavs and every game against the Bucks they’re now closing with Obie Toppen at the five and they have decided that the tradeoff and in this case Miles Turner who’s not the worst player on their team but in this particular situation he was their weak link defensively and he’s not making threes so the disparity between what he brings offensively and by the way he’s a terrible rebounder so it’s not like he’s getting boards either I think he has 12 rebounds in the last four games combined he had six in game five which was more than he had seven in the three games prior so he’s got 13 he’s not making shots he’s a liability defensively That’s our weak link we now have to have the flexibility to okay we can’t just survive by continuing to play Miles Turner the same way we have throughout the playoffs we got to make the switch and here comes in Obie Toppin who is not a better player than Miles Turner i am not trust me I’m not saying he’s a better player than Miles Turner in this particular matchup he’s a better fit what OKC wants to do on both ends of the court but I think that’s been going on for years and again I’ll go back to 2016 channing Fry was phenomenal when they played Toronto Channing couldn’t get on the floor against Golden State so I I think that it’s just this is the way it’s always been where some guys are matchup dependent and even like I said Kevin Love is part of the biggest big threes you can have tai brought him off the bench against the Warriors because he was just getting cooked by Draymond defensively they just kept hunting him u and putting him in pick and rolls and and and they just he what he g was giving up defensively was more than what he was giving them offensively so I just think that this is I don’t know that this is any different than what we’ve seen over the last 10 15 20 years i just think it depends on who’s the two teams and what do the matchups look like and some guys are better matchups in some series than others but you know I I think what will be fascinating to see is as we get deeper into this and you talk parody will deeper teams will guys go deeper into their lineups and will that have more an effect uh because I I just I’m really and I mentioned this to you the other day i’ve just got this stuck in my head now about just get hot at the right time the Cavs had an awful two weeks at the worst possible time injuries performance all of that and the NBA playoffs are longer than any other sport nhl but I don’t count NHL because we don’t have a team here almost two months long if not exactly two months yeah baseball’s a month football’s a month like you know football begins in January and the Super Bowl’s early February baseball begins early October and ends end of October early November depending on how long the World Series goes it’s a month so NFL I think is a little bit different because it’s so quarterback dependent i think we have to set that to the side but baseball and basketball I think teams are looking at this as just get in and hope to God that we are healthy and hot at the right time and you saw that with the Pacers i mean that that was an incredible heater that they were on rarely do you see a team play this well for two months frankly yeah yeah rarely do you see a team play this well for two months straight and I think you know when you talk about the Orlando trade and and and Desmond Bane going to the Magic that also strikes me as that type of move as hey why not us you know if if Indiana can do it why can’t we do it uh just be healthy which the Magic were not this year if we’re healthy and we get hot at the right time we can make a run at this thing and I think that may be the more prevalent thought that teams have i think a lot of NB MLB teams think that way and it wouldn’t shock me to see a lot of NBA teams start to adopt that coming off the Celtics dismantling coming off the parody that we’ve seen in the league and coming off what the Pacers are doing now so the Bane trade to me and I think you look at it two different ways but to me that kind of validates my weak link theory when the Magic looked at their roster last season said KCP’s making a ton of money not giving us a ton of production by the way I’m never trading for a player from Denver again because what the player looks like with Nicoola Joic is very different than what that player has looked anywhere else in his career and for all the Ruy Hachimura trades by the way Rury has been terrible in his career without LeBron i’m just telling you I don’t like his perspective outside of playing with LeBron there’s a lot of guys that look good playing next to the greatest players in the world and look very different elsewhere that’s a whole tangent for another day but ask Milwaukee about Matthew Delivadova with LeBron without LeBron and the contract he got but with the Bane trade a they swapped out a weak link for for a strong link here right desmond Bane a significant upgrade he’s a great fit in Orlando we could talk about that but now Orlando if they’re healthy and that’s a gigantic and I I mean control A change font to size 3000 gigantic if they can now close with a giant lineup of Suggs Bane Fran Paulo and Wendell Carter Jr or Jonathan Isaac they could put Anthony Black in there as a more traditional point guard which still gives them size and play Fron and Paulo at the four and the five and just a five out spread offensive attack they have that versatility so maybe the weak link theory isn’t the right way to phrase it Jason it’s the we need to be able to mix and match to attack your weaknesses which you’re right to a sense has probably always been a case across the NBA now I think with some of the financial restrictions of having three or four highly paid players together teams may opt for those two guys that you have to have an SGA and a Jaylen Williams the two max guys let’s call them and then instead of trying to find ways to pay a third and a fourth guy in that 35 to $45 million range that money would be better off spread across five or six guys that give you some more versatility you still need stars to win you you you will never win because your fifth best player was better than their fifth best player that is not what I’m getting at i just think when it comes to building your teams yeah you need those stars but I also think now more than ever you need the versatility to be able to play multiple styles of basketball and by giving yourself different options to be your fifth link your weak link you can counter teams in ways you haven’t in the past and I go back to that Indiana series against the Cavs Jason when Evan was out when DG was out when when uh DeAndre was out they didn’t change stylistically how they played whatsoever not even slightly now they ran a different offense because Donovan was the only guy that could create but from a stylistic standpoint they tried to do the same things and in game two it almost worked game two it almost worked they should have won game two you agree there’s no excuse for them losing that game two game against the Pacers in that horrific collapse in the final 48 seconds but then they didn’t really have a counter punch to figure out how else can we play against Indiana style right indiana dictated the tempo they dictated the pace they made Cleveland play Indiana Pacers basketball and the Cavs did not have the lineup versatility by not having any real backup bigs by not having a secondary ball handler behind Darius Garland that they could trust when Ty Jerome wasn’t there and I understand it’s hard to ask for three legitimate ball handlers but you know what i’m asking for three three guys to be able to break a press on a team they had to play Isaac Aoro and Dean Wade who give you absolutely nothing offensively so they weren’t able to adjust to the style of basketball it takes to beat Indiana so maybe I’ll call it the amoeba theory Jason maybe it’s not the weakling theory it’s that you need to be able to have versatility to adapt and match with your opponent so you don’t get taken out of your game if you can’t be the dictator in terms of pace and style but I do think that as we move deeper and deeper into the second apron era will be more prevalent than ever before well and that I can I can totally get behind that of two stars and flexibility and if I’m being totally honest I thought the Cavs were flexible and I thought they did have versatility when they traded for DeAndre that really allowed them they can play big and long they could play uh with shooters around on paper we were right but what happened I think and we can get to a little bit in this in a minute I mean Darius was hurt and he tried you know whatever you say whatever you want obviously he was hurt and and Tai you were counting on Tai to be Tai and for the first time all year he wasn’t and but up until that point he had been like everybody was singing the praises of Ty Jerome up until that series where he kind of got exposed osed a little bit so he was incredible against Miami too which is the funny part because he was literally the best he had played all season was in that sweep in Miami so yes i mean it’s inexcusable that you can’t get the ball across midcourt as an NBA team in the last minute of of game two and that’s going to haunt them it’s the middle of June that happened a month ago and it’s still haunting them i promise you they’re still just have hangovers off of that game and stomach aches and headaches and everything else off of that game too but I don’t this is this may sound ludicy but I I just think that we’ve swung so far the other way and I know we’ll talk about in a minute i just think we’ve swung so far the other way on on the Cavs that I think it’s lost touch with reality this was a good team and they were versatile and they were flexible they just had the worst two weeks at the worst possible moment to have the worst two weeks so but I but back to your other point I do think two is the way of the future in the NBA uh and if you can if you can find two homegrown guys where you don’t have to trade for them and you have to upend your entire system to go get them if you can have two really strong guys and then supplement those with other pieces I I do think that that’s the way to go in the future and that’s why the Cavs right now are sort of swimming upstream is the anomaly and I understand maybe some of the hesitation to break it up because they feel like they’ve got four really good pieces and and the way that the NBA is headed that’s not allowable anymore so you want to hold on to that for as long as you can because you feel like it creates some sort of advantage now we can have the debate is that really are they built the the best that they can be but just from a a a theory of the league is trying to dispand high-spending teams and the Cavs have four really good players that they feel good about still puts them in the minority so we’re going to get to our next topic here Jason which is brought to us by FanDuel game six of the NBA Finals is tonight the Thunder can close it out or can Indiana force a game seven however you think the game will play out you better be using FanDuel to make your bet if you have a winning ticket by the way make sure you send it into us we want to feature it here on the Ultimate Cleveland Sports Show right now new customers on FanDuel can bet $5 and if that first $5 bet wins they’ll win $200 in bonus bets head over to fanduel.com/uss to get in on the action fanduel is an official sports betting partner of the NBA today’s show is also brought to us by Monarch Money have you ever checked your bank account and wondered where’d all my money go between dining out online shopping and entertainment it’s easy to lose track that’s where Monarch Money comes in it’s your personal CFO giving you full visibility and control over your finances it’s not just a budgeting app it’s a complete financial command center where you can track your accounts investments and spendings all in one place so you stop just managing your money start building wealth take control of your finances with Monarch Money use promo code lockdownn atmonarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year that is monarchmoney.com code locked onn for 50% off your first year okay Jason our second topic of today’s Junth show can Evan Mobley become the Cavaliers best player can he become the offensive force you and I both believe he needs to for this team to take the next level if he’s playing alongside two ball dominant guards in Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland i have some very strong thoughts on this but I want to start with you first yeah he can become number one u now I I think it is a valid argument to make that having two ball dominant guards takes the oxygen away from from Evan i think that’s that’s a valid concern to have i don’t think that’s I would not dismiss that at all i I guess my counter to that would be if these guys are as good as you think they are they can find a way to get him the ball and get him incorporated in the offense and give him opportunities to create just as well as them uh it’s a luxury to have three guys who can dribble pass and shoot i think Evans has worked his way into that conversation as one of those guys who can dribble pass and shoot so you want to take full advantage of it i think it does more harm to your team to remove and let’s pretend that the toe surgery never happened right and and they’re going to trade Darius i think it does more harm to your team to remove that to give him room to flourish when the real luxury is having three guys who can do it so why would you cut off one leg to replace it with another if that makes sense i think the thing for Kenny Atkinson to do I mean the nobody can deny even the strongest Evan Mobley haters nobody can deny he took a massive leap this year in the first year of Kenny’s system so now it becomes okay well now how can we get the ball in his hands even more how can we increase that usage rate uh if that means Darius you have to take a step back that’s not a bad thing i don’t think uh Donovan has already sort of acquiesced and he could probably continue to do so a little bit more i think you can continue to grow that role with Evan uh but it’s on those guys to do it and I’ll go back i don’t mean to keep talking about the 2014 15 16 17 teams but those were really good teams that figured out how to win at a high level i remember when Tai came in he basically told Kyrie “You go last.” Like Kevin eats first you’ve got to feed him the ball you’ve got to get Kevin the ball and LeBron can eat whenever LeBron wants to eat and then Kyrie you figure it out from there but you’ve got to get these other guys involved first and that was coming off a game where Kyrie didn’t have any assists in Utah uh it was a huge deal at the time he had like 30 something points I think it was and zero assists and Ty told him like “It is on you to get these other guys involved.” Now Kevin was not I don’t believe as skilled as Evan is in terms of ball handling and everything else kevin was really reliant on the back court to sort of feed him and to set him up whereas I think Evan can create on his own and facilitate for others at a much higher level but the point still remains you have to get that point driven home I believe to the guards the back court of this is how we’re going to play we are at our best when Evan is leading it and it will be an adjustment for everybody but this is for the greater good this is the this is the best way forward for us to play so I don’t think you remove the guy to do that i think they just have to adjust their style of play and I think that’s a lot easier than removing one of the legs of a tripod is just adjusting the length of of one of the legs i agree with a lot of what you said my first and and foremost thought on this is the Cavs don’t need Evan to be their best offensive player they need him to be their best overall player donovan can still be the leading scorer and Evan can still take that next step forward and the Cavs be good enough to win a championship i want to see Evan average 22 to 23 24 points per game next year it’s about a six-point increase two or three more made buckets than he did this year that doesn’t mean Donovan scoring is going to go down to 21 like Donovan’s still going to score his 25 26 points a game but you need to get Evan Mobley more involved in the offense early the better but don’t go to him early and then forget about him late in the game like we saw in game five against Indiana like we saw in that first loss of the season to Boston get him going early and then play through him throughout the rest of the game evan’s not just a score he doesn’t need to be just a scorer i think he’s an advanced passer for a big man at this stage of his career i think he’s comfortable enough with the ball in his hands to make plays as the driving force and decision maker Jason which he wasn’t ready to do earlier in his career i think that was one of the big areas Kenny Atinson and Jordan not deserves a ton of credit for being kind of the primary point guy on Evans development this summer was making him more confident in those decision-making situations and he got significantly better i’ll go back to the postseason series against Boston last year when he was playing the five after Donovan got hurt in game five when he had that monster performance that got us all excited about Evan for this previous season why do we get so excited because they played through him at the high post allowed him to be the fulcrum of the offense and everything looked good because he was spread around with four shooters he was able to pick and choose his matchups he was able to attack he was able to pass evan can absolutely develop into the offensive player that Cavs need with Donovan and Darius in the back court why because that’s the history of the NBA has shown us that big men and Evan is a little bit of a not a traditional big man but still a big man can dominate when they don’t bring the ball up the court joic is the exception he’s not Joic he never will be Joic but he’s somewhere in between Giannis and Embiid in terms of where he needs the ball to be at his best right like Giannis can take guys off the dribble from the three-point line not much of a shooter embiid likes to catch it in the high post and operate from there he’s not Giannis and he’s not Embiid when Embiid’s healthy i’m not saying he’s that level of player but I’m saying stylistically speaking it’s somewhere between those two and it goes all back to this at the end of the day Jason it’s on the other four guys on the court to get Evan the ball if they run some sort of pick and roll action and a little switches on to Evan Mobley and a big switches on to Donovan i don’t care if it’s game one if it’s game seven if it’s game 25 in the regular season anytime a guard switches on Moy I want mouse in the house throw it down low let him work i’m I’m dead serious because the the Cavs don’t have to win 64 games next year if they win 53 and make the playoffs so be it it’s all about getting Evan and getting Donovan and getting Darius in the best position for postseason success and what puts them in that best position is making Evan Mobley as comfortable as possible at every spot on that court to attack mismatches evan is the Cavs mismatch by the way it’s not Donovan it’s not Darius it’s not Jared it’s DeAndre in certain situations it’s Evan he’s quicker than most bigs and he’s too big for most wings like that is your mismatch use that to your advantage if they switch mouse in the house feed him in the post if you got a slow big on him ISO let him go let him work one-on-one let him use those moves as someone who played division three basketball which is not the NBA but you had to work on a lot of stuff in D3 and I wasn’t smart enough or good enough to do it i had three moves why because I wasn’t confident enough to try the other 17 that I thought I could do in an actual game situation i could do it in practice but you put me in a game i was going back to the two or three I know I could execute and by the time I graduated the scout report was out that’s why I turned into a three-point shooter i couldn’t get past people the scout report was out there evan has more opportunities you got to do it in a game to get that confidence and it comes down to Darius and it comes down to Donovan and it comes down to the coaches to make a concerted effort to get Evan the ball yes he needs to be more assertive it’s 100% that part of it is true he needs to be more assertive but everyone else has to make a concerted effort to get him the rock too Jason they go hand in hand all right I want to take just a second here i said a lot i think I just tossed for four minutes straight i’m sorry no no no no you’re you’re fine i don’t know where the yelling at Bull fits in but this feels like a good spot to yell at Bull perfect and I’m going to yell at Bull we’re We’re recording this Tuesday i’m going to yell at Bull Wednesday so some of this may be redundant if you saw UCSS on Wednesday because I’m going to yell at bull on Wednesday i’m gonna make you full screen here Jason you ready we’ll cut we’ll cut a short out of this i’m going to drop my Well here’s the thing about I saw a clip of Bull on the show today talking about uh our you and I our obsession with Evan Mobley and how it it pisses him off uh the thing about it is I am not obsessed with Evan Mobley it’s just Bull keeps crapping on him and saying that he’s not a good player and I have to keep correcting him and going “No Adam he’s actually really good.” So now it has become this obsession adam I’m not obsessed with Evan Mobley i tend to think he’s a pretty good player and the numbers back that up and the accolades he’s gotten tend to back that up but the fact that you keep killing him and trying to degrade what he is and dismissing everything that he can do forces me to then come to his defense so that I am obsessed with him do I think he can be the best player on the team yeah I think he can be the best player on the team as soon as next year i think he better be the next player the best player on the team next year or it may probably will end the same as this season ended so they have to continue to grow him i am not obsessed with him i just think he’s a pretty dog on good player and you keep killing him if you would stop killing him I would stop defending him ran over i’m not as good at it as Bull is but I just laughed when I saw today that you and I are obsessed with Evan like “No I’m not obsessed with him you just keep killing him and we have to keep correcting you.” Yeah it’s it’s an unhealthy obsession by Bull and I love Bull i love Bull he’s lost in the soup on this one he tried telling me Tyrese Hallebertton’s a better player than Evan Mobley hallebertton’s on an incredible heater he’s not a better player than Evan Mobley right now i I saw you kind of I texted you it’s recency bias he’s not a better player yeah and and we might as well segue right into we use that unless you have anything else to say because that’s a perfect segue into the wild because I have one one last thing to say go ahead on Evan Mobley because I we I told this to bowl after the show and I should have said it on air he’s 23 years old has won defensive player of the year made an allNBA defensive first team and has made an allNBA def uh all NBA second team now like he’s 23 years old like is he a super superstar no no is he a damn good player with an incredibly bright future uh yeah so we’ll uh we’ll leave it at that i got one more read Jason and then we can get into some of the crazy overreactions and our last read of the day is brought to us by Epicor guys every team knows the value of hard work of taking pride in what you build and practicing every detail to get the best results but no one player no matter how amazing can do it all alone working together makes getting the win easier at Epicore the allstars are the hardworking manufacturers and distributors who create and deliver the things we all need from aerospace to electrical to medical devices from small businesses with big dreams to growing enterprises with global visions we’ll equip you with the right tools to move forward think ahead and lead the way because as the clock ticks down you need to make the most out of every hardworking minute easier doesn’t cut corners easier finds the lane discover your success at easier with epicore.com jason since the Cavs have been eliminated from the playoffs we have seen some wild takes some accurate some incredibly unaccurate about the Cleveland Cavaliers and when we were thinking of a third topic for tonight’s show you said “Let’s address some of the overreactions since they’ve been eliminated since it’s been a month now that the Cavs have not been playing basketball.” So with that Jason the floor is yours which of these wild overreactions would you like to react to first well I just think it’s just the the overall tone of how the Cavs are talked about locally and nationally for that matter uh and we’ve sort of touched on it at various points in this show but and you know the the whole thing with just crapping all over Evan being part of it and his disdain and disgust for Darius you know I I said earlier in the show I think the Cavs had a phenomenal season and a horrible two weeks at the worst possible time to have a horrible two weeks and you can blame injuries on it you can blame uh not playing well in in the case of Tai there’s a lot of reasons that went into it but I and you know they they deserve stinging criticism for how it ended don’t don’t twist what I’m saying like it was an a disaster of a collapse it was an awful end and I know that they’re hurt by it too but that doesn’t mean that they’re a lottery team or that they should blow the whole thing up and some of the trade proposals we’ve seen most of them don’t even work under the cap rules and the ones that do don’t really make them a better team the Cavs are a really good team and I think that’s kind of been lost in all of this did Orlando get better yeah Orlando got better and Indiana’s really good and I probably didn’t give them enough credit early on for how good they really are but that doesn’t mean that the Cavs are suddenly bad because they’re not and I just I just it’s just funny to me how the view of them has swung uh so wildly and again I’ll go back to the stat that I can never remember that you always have to help me out with i got to like write it down on the on the palm of my hand they before this year 14 teams in the history of the NBA had won 64 or more regular season games with an average margin of victory of nine points or more prior to this year 12 of those 14 teams had won the NBA title 13 of those teams reached the finals the one team that reached the finals and lost were the Warriors when the Cavs beat them in 16 the other team that didn’t reach the finals was the Spurs that same season who lost to the Thunder in the second round now when you add OKC and Cleveland into the mix Cleveland obviously did not reach the finals which makes it 12 of 15 teams that didn’t win the championship and OKC as we record right now is one win away from making it 14 of 16 to reach the finals and 13 of 16 to win the finals so you can use that as you can point I guess you can use that to point to the Cavs and say they were frauds i actually the more I think about it I think it’s the other way that’s an unbelievable list that’s an unbelievable list to be part of and I think that’s really an a indicator of success now they didn’t have success and that’s why I said like they had a horrible time to have an awful two weeks and injuries played a part of it and all that and I think you do have to have a conversation about are these guys mentally tough enough to play through injuries you can have that conversation but on the whole they had a you know I don’t want to say they had a great season because they lost in the second round but this is a really good team capable of really good things and I just think that part of that has been lost in some of the discussion here over the haste to trade guys i’ve written it i’m not going to run from it i don’t know how you bring Jared Allen back said it the night they lost to me that if you got to break this up that would be the piece where I look but I also don’t think you trade them just to trade them just to shake things up you don’t make a trade just for the sake of making a trade you make a trade to make the team better and because of where they’re at with the cap I it it really hamstrings a lot of what they can do and we’ve talked before you got to trade Oko in a way just to get out of the second apron just to make moves a little bit more tenable and feasible and when they went into the second apron when they made the move for DeAndre Hunter they knew the consequences of that and they knew where it was going to put them and they were comfortable doing it anyway because they felt like they had a really really good team now will this one playoff loss in a really bad two-eek stretch force them to change their minds on that there are some teams that probably would and I but I don’t think it’s all 30 teams i think there’s other teams that would say we’re going to we’re going to hold on to what we have and I know it’s not just one playoff series i know you can go back and they haven’t been able to get this far i tend to think it’s more about when you’re counting on Donovan as your best player we know now how it ends it is a second round team and that’s not a knock on Donovan it’s not a criticism of him he is who he is he can’t help how big he is he can’t help the load he can carry at times he’s given this team everything he’s got i’m not trying to be critical of Donovan it’s just time for somebody else to pick up the load and carry the load and I guess that’s where my obsession with Evan comes in is I think it has to be him as this team is presently constructed you’re not going to trade for somebody better than Donovan and Evan no you’re not you don’t have the assets to anyway now no so it has to come from within you can make moves on the edges you can make moves on the on the periphery and they can have a massive impact look at Oklahoma City and Alex Caruso look at Boston and Drew Holiday and Porzingis like you can make moves that have major impacts on the edges but Alex Caruso isn’t why the Thunder are where they are it’s because of Shay Gil Gilgus Alexander and and Jaylen Williams and Boston didn’t win because of Drew Holiday you know it was Jason Tatum and and Jaylen Brown so it’s the dudes at the top that have to do it and I just think this team has reached its as far as it’s gonna go with Donovan pulling the sled and that’s why it has to be Evans turn yeah i think two things can be true at the same time it was a historically successful regular season and a a historically epic playoff failure like they both they both can be true at the same time you don’t get historically epic playoff failures without crazy expectations and where do those expectations come from from going 64 and whatever and having an average margin of win a victory of nine points or more which puts you in that elite category so yeah the Cavs aren’t a bad team are they perfect no are they flawed absolutely but they were able to overcome a lot of those flaws and win a ton of regular season games i think part of the reason they were so successful in the regular season Jason was they were incredibly healthy this season that’s something you can’t predict that’s something that’s very very rarely uh repeated if you go injury then you’re usually healthy then you’re usually injured again then you’re usually healthy and they were incredibly healthy this year i mean name one of their big-time key players that missed more than like a week at a time at any given point they didn’t suffer any major injuries and they were a lot healthier than the teams they played that’s just part of the reality of going 64 and 16 by the way OKC was incredibly healthy too except for their two bigs they were just so good it didn’t matter that Chad Holgrim played 30 games this year and Hartinstein missed about 25 to 30 as well they were healthy they ran into a bad matchup that has proven to be a terrible matchup for literally every team in the NBA indiana plays this crazy unique style that even OKC at times has struggled against okc’s defense was the best defense the NBA had seen compared to the average defense of the league that season since the turn of the century and they have not been able to contain Indiana in the way we thought they would now they forced a ton of turnovers and I think part of that is Indiana’s just kind of running out of gas down the down the stretch here but Indiana’s had success at different times in the series against this Thunder defense in the fourth quarter of game one scored 60s something points in the second half in game three when OKC got it close and they needed a few stops in a row Indiana scored backto backto back buckets so they they’ve had their stretches of success i do think you can make the case it’s a flawed roster some of the issues with the roster have become prevalent in not just one playoff series but in back-to-back playoff years and in some cases in three consecutive playoff appearances and that to me is a bigger concern and I’m going to do something that may never been done in the history of humanity jason I’m going to give you a double tease at the same time you ready i’m ready i’m going to tease a topic for tomorrow that if you’re watching when this airs had already aired the day before i don’t think you can pay 20 million or more to a guy who’s not an offensive initiator in the NBA today and to me I was on the lane of eh if you find the right Allen trade make it he’s the first piece to go and now I think you actually have to trade Jared Allen and we’re going to discuss that on UCSS in more depth on Wednesday so when you watch this on Thursday go back and watch yesterday’s clip if you’re listening to this now which only Jason Lloyd is you have to wait till tomorrow to hear my full thoughts but they do have some roster flaws and they’re not nearly as flexible as I think they have to be to win a championship but I also don’t think they’re on Pluto having to get to the sun they’re somewhere in like the Earth Venus Mars my planets are I should have used a way better example because I don’t even know where the planets are listen if you’re trying to get to New York City they’re not in Los Angeles they’re somewhere in Hershey Pennsylvania area like they’re close enough that you can make it on a one-day drive if everything goes right but you also would love to start that trip in Philadelphia how’s that for an example Jason i don’t even know that was the right example but you get what I’m trying to say they’re a lot closer than I think the people are giving them but they aren’t there right now and frankly I think they could have beaten Indiana if they were fully healthy i think OKC would have blown the doors off them in the finals so they were they were close to getting through the East i don’t think they’re close to the best team in the West right now that’s interesting because OKC hasn’t blown the doors off Indiana i think I think styles make fights and you want to talk about the physicality that gave Cleveland fits not just in that playoff series but in the regular season that’s like fighting Abdullah Mason than fighting Mike Tyson i do think OKC would have beat the Cavs you’re not going to get an argument out of me on that i think OKC would have won the championship uh but I I I’ve always maintained if the Cavs were healthy they beat Indiana i still believe that to be true now could they have gotten through New York i don’t know i think they would have blown the doors off New York that’s that New York like it’s such such a sport about matchups yeah it goes back to the first topic they match up incredibly well against New York and they matched up incredibly poorly against Indiana and I know they beat OKC that one time at home in that awesome awesome January game where ironically Evan and Jarrett had one of the best big man tandem games in the history of the NBA it was the first time a pair of bigs had 2010 and six assists or more in the same game since Duncan and Robinson in 90 like it was that good of a performance but I don’t think they could have done that four out of seven times against OKC like they needed a historic performance and you know what I’m going to say that it’s not even worth saying at the end no I’m just gonna gonna shut I get myself in trouble if I said one more thing so we’re going to leave it at that uh Jason any final thoughts as we wrap up this Junth edition of the Ultimate Cab Show uh no thanks for watching and uh I’m out doing yard work while you’re watching this hopefully enjoy your Thursday we are back in full force Friday full show 11 to one we’ll have you recap from everything you missed over the last two days with Jay Bowl who are never on the show at the same day anymore so that’s fun and G it’s the big three on UCSS for Jason Lloyd i’m Mikey McNuggets and we will see y’all tomorrow peace [Music]

For a long time, the NBA was all about acquiring stars.

LeBron, Wade & Bosh in Miami. Big 3s. Superstar tandems.

But is that still the case anymore?

With the second apron looming, will teams still try and acquire multiple stars or is it more about depth and versatility?

Mikey McNuggets & Jason Lloyd dive into the new trend in NBA team building and how it relates to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Can Koby Altman adjust the roster to fit this new narrative or is Cleveland behind the 8-ball already?

Plus, can Evan Mobley become the Cavs best player alongside Donovan Mitchell & Darius Garland?

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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.