Cavs playoff exit is due to seven years of compromises and half-measures

Injuries weren’t the reason the Cavs flamed out. It was the only possible outcome given each decision that came before it.

The Cleveland Cavaliers weren’t expected to win the championship this year. But the season still ended in disappointment. It didn’t have to be like that.

Despite pushing through injuries to put up a decent fight against the Boston Celtics and beating the Orlando Magic, something felt off. When healthy, they were worse than the sum of their ill-fitting parts. How you make those parts fit better is an open question that hasn’t been solved the last two summers. Maybe this upcoming one will prove to be different.

The root cause of everything is how this group was constructed. The team is simultaneously too big and too small. They have the disadvantages of both and the benefits of neither. There’s no bridge to connect the two disparate groups nor will there ever be.

Half-measures don’t lead to victories in the NBA – it’s just the path of least resistance. They’ve been going down that path for seven years now. This is the result.

The second LeBron James era officially ended on July 1, 2018. Unofficially, it did on June 19, 2017, when Dan Gilbert decided not to renew David Griffin’s contract. A move that wasn’t popular at the time.

Griffin was in the process of trying to get Paul George to Cleveland. No one knows what would’ve happened if Griffin stayed. We only know what happened afterward which is something the franchise hasn’t entirely recovered from.

Kyrie Irving requested a trade a month later. Koby Altman was acting as interim general manager at the time and decided to grant Irving’s demands. He sent Irving to the Celtics in a deal that, theoretically, helped them in both the present and the future. They got “win-now” pieces in Isaiah Thomas and Jae Crowder with the centerpiece of the deal being the 2018 unprotected Brooklyn Nets first-round pick. Ante Zizic was also in the deal.

This was the initial half-measure. They tried to split the baby and be successful on multiple timelines. Instead, they failed on both.

There was a problem with Thomas’s physical. Instead of calling the deal off or holding Boston’s feet to the fire, Altman opted to get things done with just an extra second-round pick. After all, if you’re in for a penny, you’re in for a pound. Or in this case, in for a half penny in for a half pound.

Altman clung to the Brooklyn pick through the trade deadline and selected Collin Sexton on draft night nearly a year after Irving’s original request. James bolted nine days later.

Instead of immediately rebuilding, the Cavs tried to hold onto whatever they could of the championship era. They re-signed Kevin Love to a contract extension a few weeks later and Larry Nance Jr. before the ensuing season.

More half-measures that led to nowhere.

Head coach Ty Lue was fired six games into the season. Prioritizing the vets over the young players seemed to be the issue. At least Lue picked a path during the six games he had.

The team was forced to select a new coach the following off-season. Former Michigan head coach John Beilein was the choice. NBA lifer J.B. Bickerstaff was interviewed for the top spot but ultimately became one of the highest-paid assistants to shepherd Beilein through the professional ranks.

Instead of deciding to go all-in on a different viewpoint, the Cavs chose to split the difference. Beilein didn’t provide a unique perspective, just one that conflicted with the rest of the coaching staff that has been around the league for some time. This led to Beilein giving up midway through a disastrous season with Bickerstaff taking over.

The Cavs chose to pair Sexton, who was struggling as a traditional point guard, with one in Darius Garland. The Garland pick proved to be correct, but pairing both together wasn’t beneficial for either’s development.

Instead of moving Sexton to the bench or trading him away to make room for Garland, Altman tried to make it work with both. He traded for Andre Drummond at the deadline to try to overcome the size deficiency in the backcourt by pairing him with Love and Nance.

It was just another half-measure used to address a problem everyone knew the correct answer to but were too afraid to admit.

Instead of looking at the backcourt, Altman decided he didn’t have the proper big to make it work. He bought low on Jarrett Allen in a move that ultimately changed his team’s fortunes. However, the initial motivation was to avoid ripping off the band-aid that had no business still being there.

The same issue cropped up the following season when the Cavs selected Evan Mobley. Instead of throwing a skinny seven-footer into the center position and forcing them to figure it out, like the San Antonio Spurs have done with Victor Wembanyama and the Oklahoma City Thunder have done with Chet Holmgren, they allowed Mobley to come along slowly by playing power forward — a position he was never suited to play in the NBA.

Mobley showed what he could do at center during the playoffs against the Celtics. He also showed that the simple things a center needs to excel in like screen setting and rebounding are still issues despite having three years to work on them. Likewise, he still doesn’t have the skillset of a power forward either as he’s been the starting forward and backup center. Being forced to develop at two positions has resulted in not being polished enough at either.

This brings us to where we are now. The culmination of a team whose foundation was built on the path of least resistance will be forced to make difficult choices they’ve been putting off for years. The only time this front office stuck their neck out was to trade for Donovan Mitchell. His lingering contract status is the only thing that can force them out of this problem. They will need to definitively decide to optimize the lineup around him and Mobley if they want any chance of extending Mitchell’s contract. Trying not to rock the boat won’t get it done.

Altman has brought the Cavs back to prominence after what could’ve been a long rebuild. But taking the step from good to great is the hardest to make and one this team certainly hasn’t done yet. For them to do so, they will need to do something they haven’t done in seven years: pick a direction and go with it.

It’s easy to say that overhauling the roster or coaching staff is a knee-jerk reaction for a team that fell partially due to injury. In many cases that might be correct. This isn’t one of those situations. The entire premise of this team was built on compromises. It’s time to make a decision about what works and go that way. Nothing else can break them out of this cycle.