What areas can Kenny Atkinson improve on in his second year as the Cleveland Cavaliers head coach?

What areas can Kenny Atkinson improve on in his second year as the Cleveland Cavaliers head coach?

basketball. Kenny Atkinson, 2nd year coaching. What you got for me? Yeah, Jason and I did a cab show this morning and we had a whole rundown planned and then during the first portion of our discussion, Jason said something that sparked this idea in my mind, and we discussed it a little bit. We’re gonna elaborate on it now, but Jason, for anyone who didn’t see the ultimate cap show this morning, you should go check it out first and foremost. We always talk about the year 1 to year 2 jump for players. After your rookie season, you learn the ins and outs of the league. You learn what worked, what didn’t work, where you have to work on, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, all the above, and we often see players not just in basketball but in football and baseball make the biggest jump from any year to year in their career from year 1 to year 2. So the question I had was, can a coach make a similar jump from year 1 to year 2? Is there such thing as a coaching jump similar to a player jump? And if so, would it apply to Kenny Atkinson in this situation, even though he does technically have prior head coaching experience in Brooklyn? Yeah, you know, we were talking about this morning. I’ll just sort of simplify what I said uh I don’t think there is a big leap for him to take because he does have a ton of experience. He was. Head coach at Brooklyn, I think he learned a lot of just having gone through that in Brooklyn about how to manage stars and so then he carries that over to Golden State where he learned quite a bit under Steve Kerr, I think on culture and how to relate to players and uh building the type of mood and vibe that you want within a team. The big thing that I think he learned from last year going into this year was just. Postseason series to series and and how to manage lineups and rotations and within a series and last year was the first time that he had a chance to coach a team that could win a championship and that comes with a different set of expectations and pressures than a team that’s just trying to compete you know he had a massive rebuild in Brooklyn. There’s not a lot of pressure on you in Brooklyn to win. Uh, when that where he walked in that franchise had been gutted and they were really starting to, to rebuild the whole thing so he went through that and he learned that and I think he learned probably. About himself as a coach from going through that, but then when you take a leap and you take over a team that’s trying to press the button, OK, it’s time to go and it’s time to win right now when you’re going against Erik Spoelstra in a playoff series when you’re going against Rick Carlisle, two guys who have won championships who have been there, and now it’s on you to how do you adjust your rotation, how do you bench guys, um, how do you. Move away from certain things that aren’t working where you don’t, you have more time in the regular season than you do in a postseason. I, I think that’s the probably the nuance that he learned last year coming into this year and also the other point was he didn’t have a lot of time here last year because he was trying, he was coaching Team France and trying to get ready for the Olympics and he was flying literally across the world multiple times. He was only in Vegas for a couple of days, so he didn’t have a chance to really get to know guys and really dig in with guys, whereas this offseason he’s been able to go to various places across the country and spend time with Evan Mobley and spend time with different guys. And, and I think that there’s more layers to the playbook now that he can get into because he’s not trying to compete in the Olympics and I think he’s just gonna be more refreshed because what a grind that was for him if you go all the way back last summer and then going through last season and then the playoffs and everything else, I’m sure he needed time to just recharge emotionally, mentally, all that because it was such. A demanding position that he was put into, so for all of those reasons I think he’ll be better. I think you’ll get a better version of Kenny this year than you had last year and you had a pretty good version last year, but I don’t know that there’s any big year to year leap that he will take because he’s not a young coach. He had quite a bit of experience by the time he got here, you know, I’ll say this for for Kenny this year it’s gonna be different because last year, I mean it was, well, I feel like the pressure was more on like Kobe last year because you’re bringing everyone back to, you know. You run the the thing back right with the same big three, core 4, you know, and, and now they got so far they fell short. And like the guy said yesterday, Bull says this all the time, like, you know, talk to me in April. And so now Kenny’s gotta get, get to this coach through an entire season where really he’s not even gonna be judged until May. Nothing he does in the regular season matters. They’re going to make the playoffs, we know that, but how they perform in the postseason is what his legacy is going to be and will he be the coach of the Cavs long term? Well, we’ll find out in May and June. It is crazy that there’s going to be an 82 game slate of Kenny Atkinson that is basically. It’s not irrelevant to fans, but it’s irrelevant to how we’ll judge this team, whether they win 65, I’m, I’m a season ticket holder. I’ll still be there at games and I’ll be loving it and having a ball, but it in at the end of the day it’s like, well, you know, when I talk to my buddies who I’m traveling around doing college or whatever and they know I’m a Cavs fan, it’s like, OK, well. Are the Cavs good? Yeah, they’re good. They’ve been good for the last several years, but are they good enough? Are they, are they playoff tested? That, that’s the that’s the question. They’re good. Are they good enough when it comes to a year to year jump for a coach, I do think if you’re a first time head coach, if you’re 38, 39 years old, like when Will Hardy, the Jazz coach, got hired. He had been an assistant for a few years, but it’s his first time ever being in charge of a team regardless of the overall structure and, and how long, what he, what like what what you’re doing in that role. Kenny’s been a head coach in Brooklyn for 4 years before he came to Cleveland and even though it’s a different circumstance, you kind of know how it works at that point. It was his 5th year as a head coach. It’s not like anything caught him by surprise. What I do think there is a, a, a level of a jump to be made is in how and when he utilizes certain switches. When it’s your first year with the team, you’re not exactly sure when it’s like, OK, Dustin. When do I pull this card in the locker? When do I have to use my. All right, you guys f’d up gigantically. I gotta go off in, in, in, in the postgame speech to make sure they get the reaction I want. Coaching millionaires that you don’t know personally, you need to develop rapport and and that’s still what you your thunder here, but like, yeah, you do. It takes time to understand how far you can take a player or what, how, how you push this guy’s buttons versus that guy’s buttons. How do I, how do I, you know, be hard on Spida. And maybe you know not as hard like you gotta learn to to learn that you can’t coach every guy the — same and
— you have to learn — the
— guys and to Jason’s point last year between the coaching in the Olympics, getting this job, flying back and forth like there wasn’t a lot of time for that preseason bonding which you know you talk to the players in the Cavs locker room like. They all like Kenny. They get and, and at least that’s what the impression I get is maybe they hate him behind closed doors. I, I, I don’t know that level, but I get the impression they all seem to like Kenny. So I think knowing how to coach those guys is a jump you can take. And then I mentioned this on the Cav show we did this morning, Jason. The Cavs didn’t have a counter to a lot of things last year, especially in the playoff series, and I know injuries play a part in that when they lost Mobley and they didn’t have DG at full health and, and DeAndre wasn’t the same player after the thumb injury. When Indiana countered what the Cavs wanted to do from an offensive standpoint, Cleveland didn’t have a counter to the counter. Like they, they played their way when it was taken away, they, they struggled to score at times. Now that Kenny has guys in the system for another season and the players are even more comfortable in what Kenny wants to do from a baseline standpoint on both ends of the court, you can start adding in little wrinkles to build upon your counters to what teams are going to want to take away and frankly I think one season by by a postseason is enough that the guy should know more and I was disappointed that in last year’s playoffs against Indiana they didn’t have a counter to Indiana’s defensive adjustments. So in year two you better have the answers to the answer or you better have the counter to the answer to the adjustment because these guys are at a level and you’re competing for a championship to where you’re not gonna win just being able to do what you want to do. I do think this is the first year where there’s going to be. Considerable amount of pressure on this organization because they make the coaching change last year they get off to an unbelievable start and they are the darlings of the league. At no point did they really feel that pressure until it was the Pacers series until you get injuries, guys go down and, and now the building’s on fire. It went from everything is great to oh crap and and it happened like that. So this is really the first time where they have to sort of manage that like the pressure is on them now and. How do you as a coach navigate that because the way that this team is structured, they have 2 years with this group and then they’re gonna have to make some really hard decisions. It doesn’t mean they can’t win beyond that, but with this group, with the way that this team’s constructed, they have at most 2 years. So if it doesn’t happen this year, now you’re going in with one year left, so just having to to navigate first of all, keep them motivated. Keep their attention, keep them focused because Dustin you said nobody cares about the regular season. Well these guys still have to build good habits through the regular season. They still have to put themselves in position for April, May and June. You use the regular season to build for April, May and June, and then when you get there to be able to manage the pressure and handle the pressure of the situation. So it, it’s just, it’ll be fascinating to me from that standpoint of like how do they how do they manage the expectations, how do they handle the pressure, because they went from. Uh, a team that no one expected this to happen as quickly as they arrived last year faster than anyone thought that they would, so they explode onto the scene is this top team in the league and championship contender, and then it fell unraveled on them so quickly they didn’t have to really deal with that pressure — throughout an entire season and into a postseason
— that I mean if this team. Does not make the NBA finals this year. It’s a disappointment. I don’t think they gotta win the whole thing, but with no Tatum and and um. And, and, yeah, no Halliburton with Pacers. I mean, dude, I mean those teams are not gonna be the same. They’ll still probably be playoff teams, but they’re not gonna be contenders. I think it’s gonna be tough to beat OKC. I’ll say that, but the Cavs better, they better be, be, be, you know, — right there going to
— the finals. There could not be a better runway for Cleveland than than in the Eastern Conference right now than the situation Cleveland’s in. They bring everybody back, essentially, essentially the same of the finals that won 64 games last year. Your number one team that you would say this probably is our biggest competition. The Celtics is now without their best player for if not the entire season, majority of the season. He won’t be the same if he comes back at any point. Indiana, the team that just made the finals, is without the engine of their entire team, — and they’re actually going
— to the guy that single-handedly beat us, yeah, and they lost Myles Turner too in free agency. The Bucks are a mess. The Sixers have all the health issues. There’s some upstart teams. The Knicks are still good. Magic should be better with Desmond Bay. The Hawks have a chance to be pretty frisky, but like. The Cavs are the clear cut best team in the Eastern Conference right now and should be the prohibitive favorite to come out of the East, but all the questions of. Hey, this team isn’t performed in the playoffs. Is this team capable of being mentally and physically tough enough to win a playoff series against a, uh, uh, a New York or an Orlando or a team like that? Like, until we get an actual answer to that question, Jason, they’re all incredibly fair, but the runway and the path to what they wanna get to cannot be better situated than it currently is. Yeah, I think the Cavs are the best team in the East. I think they’re better than the Knicks, but do you think the Knicks are scared of the Cavs? Not even slight chance you think Orlando is scared of the Cavs? Not even a little bit. No, so that’s. That’ll be, that’ll be interesting to watch because I do think Orlando could be one of those teams that really merges this year, they got to stay healthy, uh, they had a ton of injuries last year, if they stay healthy. The Cavs should beat all of them. I think on paper they’re the most talented team in the East, but those two teams in particular have pushed the Cavs around in the past. They’ve had success with them in physicality in playoff series. I don’t think either one of those teams would be scared to see the Cavs in playoff series. Or they wouldn’t look at that and go, oh man, we don’t want any part of that team. No, when you look at the OKC run to the finals last year in the first round series against Memphis, you could tell Memphis was terrified of OKC. They wanted nothing to do with it. Second round, Denver’s not scared of anybody, and they ended up forcing a game 7 against, uh, Oklahoma City, and that was a back and forth series, and they were an Alex Cruso defensive showing against Nikola Jokic away from losing in the 2nd round for the 2nd consecutive year and had that happened, Jason, they’d be facing the exact same questions that Cleveland’s going through right now because that would have been two straight years as the 1 seed that they got bounced by the 4 seed and and a team that probably would have made the finals. But that’s not reality. They ended up beating OKC and they ended up beating Denver in game 7. They beat the Minnesota Timberwolves and then they end up going 7 against the Pacers in the finals, and they are now a team that looks like on paper could win 3 or 4 titles in the next half decade. They are built for a long, long run of success, but weird things happen, man. Injuries only takes a couple of injuries and things can unravel quicker than it seems, but OKC has done an incredible job of building that thing. When you look at the rest of the Cavs going back to the the jump question. We know Mobley, we’ve talked about Mobley enough making another jump even though it’s not year 1 to year 2. What cat players do you see making a pretty big jump this year, Jason, in terms of what kind of player they were last year versus what kind of player they’ll be this upcoming season? I mean, Jalen Tyson is the easy answer I think that comes to mind only because we didn’t get to see a ton of them last year, but what we saw I think was really encouraging. And he’s the type of guy I think when you put him with all the talent around him like this, he could, he could, he’s gonna have an impact on this team he’s gonna have a much larger role uh just based on. Losing Ty Jerome, there’s a spot open in the in the rotation now and and I think he’s probably the favorite right now to grab it. So I think a lot of these guys are established we’ve we’ve had the Evan conversation. Donovan is who he is. Darius has returned, we saw him return to the type of player that he’s capable of being. I think Jarrett, you know what you have in Jarrett by now, so there’s not a lot of contenders for that. I mean, Sam Merrill could take another leap, certainly the organization believes in him. look at the contract they just gave him, but because Jalen is still quite a bit of an unknown, I think he could really emerge as a as a player that this team relies on. Did you like Tyson last year, Dustin? I know it was limited time, but yeah, I mean, in the limited role he had, I thought he, he showed some signs of, of something. Uh, I mean Ty Jerome came out of nowhere last year, you know, maybe this kid kid can do it, you know, this upcoming season for the Cavs what similar to what Ty Jerome was last year. I think Sam Merrill is the guy that has to do it. If they paid him to make that jump and give them more than just spot up shooting. I think he was kind of miss you don’t know if we ever talked about this, Jason, but he played a lot of 3 last year, like a lot of the. I, I know they mix and match, but he defended threes. He’s not a 3 by any means. He’s a 2. like he, he is a 2 and with the departure of Ty Jerome, the addition of Lonzo Ball, I think it’s gonna give them some more lineup versatility to put Sam back in his natural position, even though he made steps as a defensive, uh, or made steps towards being a better defender last season. He’s still a 65. A semi athletically challenged, is that a fair, fair way to put it, uh, undersized 3 guarding some much bigger wings, and they didn’t shoot the ball that well last year, Jason, for all many guys on the Cleveland that shot the absolute piss out the basketball last year. I mean they, they, they had essentially the best percentage. The NBA scene in 4 or 5 years except Mera was below league average was 35, 36%, and they had 4 or 5 guys, 40 plus. If he starts making a couple more of those threes, and I think he’ll have some more opportunities to run off ball and utilize his shooting ability off the catch next year. Uh, he could be a guy that wouldn’t surprise me averages 1112 points a game. He went on some absolute heaters at times, you know, he’s capable of doing. Uh, the combination of Evan and Jarrett gives them the flexibility I think to do to play really small, but I still don’t think that’s advisable. Uh, we mentioned it briefly last night. We got plenty of time to get into it. I think with Darius being out they should start max at the 2 and bring DeAndre back at the 3 and, — and really sort of bulk up the lineup
— the start it’s a jumbo lineup, by the way. We, you, you talk about the Cavs and we’ve talked about the small backcourt in the past. You wanna go from small backcourt to jumbo size lineup. How about 6’2 Donovan, who is not a little guard? I mean, he’s short but he’s got long arms and and physical. Struce is legit 6’5. Hunter 6’8, 6’9, Mobley 6’11, Jared Allen with the fro 7 ft without the fro 6’9, 6’10. Like that, that, that’s a big ass starting line if they wanna go that direction. Yeah, I, I they’re gonna, I mean we got plenty of time we can talk about that as it gets closer to camp. Uh, but they’re gonna have some options, I think they’ll have an opportunity, obviously you want your best players available. It’s you’re better with Darius on the floor than without him, but his absence will give them, I think, opportunities to sort of experiment a little bit, see what works, see what doesn’t. Uh, I don’t think Max is a 3. I think he’s much better served as a 2 in the league, and I think Hunter should be a starter. I thought when they made the trade for him, he should be in the starting lineup. Yeah, why, why, why didn’t they make like push him more that role? I, I think he was, he was coming off the bench in Atlanta. It’s a role he was comfortable in. Playoffs were so, so close around the corner. — Playoffs
— were close. The advanced numbers were great with Max in the starting lineup. Like all their metrics were really, really good, and they felt like why disrupt what’s already working well. But now with an entire offseason of sort of reset, I think Hunter should be a starter. Uh, especially with Darius being out, Mike mentioned, you know, on the, on the Cavs pod that it leaves them a little thin on the bench, and I, I guess it does, but I, I still would rather go. Starers are starters for a reason, and I know that they tried to limit minutes last year, uh, but I, I just, I think you put your best starting five out there. I think Hunter deserves to be in the starting lineup. Last, at least last year, I think part of the reason he came off the bench was it is tough to just insert a guy midseason to a team that had as much success as Cleveland. And say, all right, you’re now gonna just play in the starting lineup, but when Struth, and I, by the way, I agree with Jason. I’m actually, uh, last year I didn’t think it made sense to start Hunter. This year I think it makes perfect sense to start Hunter. Strus needs the ball less. He’s more of a motion guy that can use the, the screening of both bigs. He plays better off screens. Hunter’s more of an isolation guy stand in the corner, so they’re different stylistically. And last year off the bench he was playing with Ty Jerome, who was his best friend, and they had that built in chemistry and it’s kind of tough to build chemistry midseason when they traded for Hunter. They had 3 practices in his 1st 45 days in Cleveland. So like, like, where, where are you building the chemistry other than games? So I thought, I, I just thought it made sense for him to play with guys he had had previous relations with and, and obviously he won a national championship with Ty Drummond College, so they were friendly but to Jason’s point this year like. What, what, what you’ve done in the past has worked in the regular season. It hasn’t worked in the postseason. You have to try other things, and I think DeAndre is one of their 5 best players. I don’t think you necessarily have to start your 5 best players, but he gives you the versatility, the length, the size, the athleticism on the perimeter to where from the start of a game from the opening tip off, he could match up with the. I was gonna say Tatum, but he’s obviously not healthy this year, but a Jalen Brown or someone like that and try to stop them and prohibit them from getting off to a hot start and taking over a game. I think Strus and a bench role when this team is healthy is perfect. I think it’s, it’s almost a luxury to have at that point if if Darius is back and healthy and you start Darius and Diamond in the backcourt, DeAndre the 3 and bring Max off the bench to run to run that second unit. I, I think that’s ideal for this team. Yeah, and he could run. You could run stuff for for stroops too. And with with Lonzo as the point guard who’s a traditional pass first guy like you forgot we have Lonzo. You could, you could run a lot more like motion offense. I just hope he’s healthy. — I know
— he’s gonna be so because he’ll be so much fun — if
— Lonzo is healthy, — exciting
— he’s going to be. Everybody’s favorite player, — I’m telling you he’s
— an energizer bunny, man. He’s, he just makes everyone else around him better too, such a good athlete, so you could do stuff with him running the show and imagine you had Lonzo at the point, Jason. Struce and Merrill, this is a bench line up, so it’s in smaller minutes and then Larry Nance Jr and and Mobley or Larry Nancench Junior Jarrett one of those two. They get a the spacing you have on the floor and then B, how, how much you can run and move Struce and Merrill to kind of. It’s almost like a two backfield set, Dustin where you have opposite motions or they split to put the defense. What the hell are you gonna do? Imagine running struce off of down screen coming this way, Jason, and you’re running Sam off a floppy screen coming that way and you got the big in the middle who’s guarding mobile you could also shoot looking around like. I, one of these three is gonna be wide ass open like who am I, who am I just gonna let get open? This could be fun. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.

Why Kenny Atkinson is obsessively rewatching Cavs-Pacers series. One of the biggest questions of this offseason for the Cleveland Cavaliers is how much they would attribute their second round playoff flameout to injuries, and how much to poor roster construction. The answer was apparently the former, as the Cavs look poised to run things back with the same core as last year, give or take a few transactions including adding Lonzo Ball and losing Ty Jerome in free agency. Recently, Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com took to the Wine and Gold talk podcast to detail some of the things that head coach Kenny Atkinson has been up to this offseason. | https://cavsnation.com/news/cavs-news-why-kenny-atkinson-obsessively-rewatching-pacers-series

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