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The Cavs got their starting small forward represented by Klutch Sports… just maybe not the one most fans thought of at the start of the offseason. It took a while, but late offseason trades have become a bit of a Koby Altman staple – Lauri Markkanen in late August, Donovan Mitchell in early September and now Peyton Watson in mid-August. If Watson pans out like the previous two, the Cavs will be in good shape. LeBron James escaped from Altman’s grasp, and two of the Cavs best perimeter defenders walked out of the door as a result of the pursuit – Dean Wade and Keon Ellis. The James move to Philly, along with Wade, left Altman needing to dig out of a Cleveland sized pothole after putting all of his eggs in the LeBron basket. But, the...

They say sequels are never as good as the original, and the Cavs are hoping they're wrong. After a six year lay off from the NBA, bouncing around Europe from Panathinaikos, UNICS and finally Real Madrid, Hezonja got his bounce back from his first NBA stint and is hoping it carries over across the Atlantic... because his first stint wasn't so great. Mario Hezonja was drafted 5th overall in the 2015 Draft by the Orlando Magic. (That is the same year the Cavs traded away Tyus Jones in the first round and were left with the infamous Sir'Dominic Pointer in the second round.) And one year into the NBA, Hezonja quickly learned it was a business when Scott Skiles was fired and Frank Vogel was brought in. That, along with a slumping shot...

In his press conference following their selection of Arkansas freshmen guard Meleek Thomas at 34, President of Basketball Operations Koby Altman feverishly shook his head when asked if the Cavs would have considered Thomas at 29. “Yes. Yes.” Competitiveness. Confidence. Shot making. Three-point shooting. Is that worth the 34th, or 29th, pick for this Cavaliers team? Koby certainly thought so. “When you’re picking at 34 you don’t have the luxury to pick for fit. We pick for a player that has the skillset that we see every day in the NBA and that skillset is very transferable," said Altman. While the fit may be in question, the skillset is not so much. The Cavs drafted a former top-15 recruit who comes from the long lineage of John...

As each Cavalier contract is up the question always is: What are they worth? RealCavsFans has developed a methodology over the years to project contracts based on comparable players and their deals on the open market. Next up: Keon Ellis Previous Years Evaluating a new Caris LeVert contract Evaluating a new Ty Jerome contract Evaluating a new Sam Merrill contract Evaluating a new Isaac Okoro contract Evaluating a new Dean Wade contract Head coach Kenny Atkinson really wasn’t lying when he called Keon Ellis a “unique player”. Projecting a player’s value in free agency is predicated on finding similar profiles and comparing the contract they received on the open market. The struggle with Ellis, to Kenny’s point, is he’s such a...

Game Summary The season came to an end much in a way it started -- a team that had the potential for more, leaving you wanting more but also wanting to watch less based on their inconsistent ways and bad habits. Being down 3-0 was a tall mountain to climb for any team, let alone this team, so there was a sense of finality to this season. But the way in which that came was as disappointing as any of the other games. They came out looking ready for a fight only to be knocked down upon the first punch. Shotmaking. Points in transition. Turning the ball over. Offensive rebounding. If you ask how we got here, the answer is in margins as much as it is in the star column. By The Numbers 40: Knicks point differential the rest of the game after...

Game Preview Only question left is will this be a sweep or a gentleman’s sweep. The Knicks are clearly the better team and the more rested team. In the first two rounds the Knicks played 10 games to the Cavs’ 14. Prior to Game 1 the Knicks had a week off to the Cavs one day. They were the more physical team. We couldn’t get to their level to combat it…Their physicality and energy level was much higher than us. - KA after Game 3 The Knicks had a 17-4 transition advantage in Game 3. They were fast breaking after made baskets and getting easy shots. For the series, the Cavs are shooting 29% on 3-pointers after shooting 35.5% during the regular season. Tired legs could be part of the reason. Against the Knicks the Cavs are shooting 32%...

Game Preview The pressure is squarely on the Cavs to win these next two games and to put themselves in the same position as they were against the Pistons at 2-2 and give themselves a chance if they can steal a win in New York. The Cavs have been talking about the “process” being good, meaning they are generating high percentage shots, but in Game 2 they failed to make them. We had a lot of open shots…our process was right. I don’t know if it was tired legs, whatever the case going to be, but we had a lot of really good looks…offensively we got basically every shot we wanted. They just didn’t go in. - James Harden Our process was right tonight. - Donovan Mitchell The Cavs were 5-for-10 on 3’s in the first quarter. For the rest of the...

Game Summary Not a good night to not have a good shooting night. The Cavs managed for a half, thanks to leveraging their bigs, but the Knicks offense turned up, the Cavs shotmaking continued to trend down and they continued to turn their bigs down. As has been the case all playoffs, getting the Cavs all in sync is a rare and special occasion -- the three legged playoff stool is often like a Red Panda act trying to find their balance. The good news was the Cavs found a way to limit Jalen Brunson offensively. The bad news was the Knicks role players stepped up to fill the scoring void while the Cavs role players could not match. By The Numbers 44.4%: Cavs eFG% -- their second lowest eFG% of the postseason. They're now 0-6 with sub-50%...

Game Preview So what happened Tuesday? Was it the Choke of the Century or was it a combination of running out of gas, Kenny not doing anything to help, and an incredible performance by the Knicks? The magnitude of the collapse can’t be understated. Entering Tuesday, teams trailing by 22 points in the fourth quarter of the playoffs held a record of 1-594…With 7:52 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Cavs had a game-high 22-point advantage…At that point, the Cavs had a 99.9%-win probability. - Chris Fedor Those are the numbers for teams trailing by 22 points at ANY time in the 4th quarter. The Cavs were up by 22 with only 7:40 to go. The Knicks scored 30 points in under 8 minutes. Was it fatigue? The Cavs played seven games in the...