I thought about it after the game, but the Cavs will need to build a team around Mobley sooner rather than later.
And my benchmarks are firstly:
Do not use him as a band aid defensively like you are using him now to cover for the other player's deficiencies. Build a team around his defensive playmaking. There are a lot of good defensive big man... you have the rim protectors like Gobert who's main team philosophy is to funnel players towards the rim and not switch too much and you have the capable players who can switch on the perimeter and there are the players that can do both at an adequate level. But you never, almost never have guys that can do both at an elite level. Scratch that, not only is he able to excel in these areas, but also in a zone, help defense and basically every fucking thing. You take advantage of this shit.
The team's philosophy should have to create defensive mismatches, not offensive ones. I wanna talk about the the big lineup we are currently rolling with -- it's pretty useless if you are sooo undersized and defensively inept in the back court. What's the point of it if you are getting killed on the boards, players still over-rotate and you can't switch effectively because the backcourt is incapable of rebounding or defending the post? Meh, even offensively none of the front court players is good in the post so one of the main advantages of such lineup goes to waste.
I was advocating for this lineup before it was official, but I had Okoro in place of Sexton and Mobley guarding the perimeter. Mobley should always start guarding the perimeter to start the defensive possession imho. But that should not be the long term answer, obviously.
Anyways, m general idea is that the Cavs will want to aim towards a combination of what Toronto and GSW (2015-6 ver) were trying to do, but on steroids. Both of these teams had/have defensive weaknesses though. Toronto while very switchable team, lack great shot blocking. GSW could cover for a lot of Curry's deficiencies with Klay, Green, Igoudala, etc and could block shots as well as switch when needed. But Bogut was still a weakness when he was targeted on the perimeter and Curry was still a target in the post and on the perimeter against good players. They were great at incorporating a double switching (guard that was switched towards the big man roller immediately switched back with the big not involved in the play from the opposite corner). Later with Durant they changed their philosophy into hedge heavy, double team heavy PnR defense with constant defensive rotations and Durant hanging around as a rim protector. They adopted to their personnel which was incredible and impressive.
I'm rambling, but the first move should be separating Sexton and Garland. Trying to incorporate Windler once healthy to more lineups that feature the starting unit.
Just fucking try to figure out how to find that two way wing and sorry, according to this philosophy Markannen is not the long term fit at any spot as a starter. You want to be bulletproof defensively at the 3-5. And one switchable player at the 1-2.
Anyways, it's just an idea as in reality finding two way players and not just specialists is an awfully difficult task, but Cavs have done the harder part, finding the player, now they need to figure out the identity they want to take on, and I don't believe they should just find players for the sake of just being better. Mobley gives you a very good idea of where you should go and what you should be doing. Even before he is molded. GSW built a team to hide Curry's defensive deficiencies and maximize his offensive prowess, and the Cavs should do the same.
It's easy to build around a guy like Mobley..in theory it makes you avert to overpaying players because you know what you want to be looking for. Like compard to a guy like Jalen Green even if he becomes a great player will always have deficiencies and at the end of the day is still purely a scoring guard with below average defense. With those guys things are less clear and defined, which may result in some weird roster construction just for the sake of being better. With Mobley teams can take their time and keep the checks blank for the time the proper fellas come along.
We should fire up the draft thread.
