2024-25 Regular Season Thread

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The Cavs' biggest problem is defending the 3-point shot. Here are the opponents' 3-point shooting percentages in the nine games the Cavs lost, rounded off: 31, 34, 41, 43, 44, 46, 46, 48, 54. That comes out to an average of 43%. In 7 of the Cavs' 9 losses the opponent shot 41% or higher on 3's.

The game where the opponent shot 31% was the loss to Indy by 108-93. The problem in that game was offense; Okoro and Strus were returning from injury and not 100% and I believe LeVert was playing with a wrist problem. The three of them combined to go 2-for-14 and scored 8 points in 63 minutes. Just a bad shooting night by almost everybody.

The game where the opponent shot 34% was against OKC, where SGA went 18-for-21 on 2-point shots and the Thunder as a team were 35-for-52 on 2's. OKC scored 75 points in the first half and had 119 by the end of the 3rd quarter. Mobley scored 5 points and Mitchell had 8. It was a nasty beatdown across the board.

Any trades the Cavs make should be with the idea of improving their perimeter defense without hurting the offense. When they lose it is almost always because the opponent lit them up from deep. The Cavs rank 25th in the NBA in opponents' 3-point percentage, so even in a lot of wins the opponents are hitting 3's.

In non-garbage time the Cavs rank 1st in defending shots at the rim, 20th in defending mid-range shots, and 26th in defending 3-point shots. Only four teams are worse at defending 3's. Only three teams defend a higher percentage of 3-point shots. Opponents know the Cavs are elite at rim defense and among the worst at perimeter defense so they shoot a lot of 3's. And make a lot.

I think when everybody is healthy and we're in the playoffs we'll see a reduction in playing time for Niang and Merrill along with an increase in playing time for Wade, LeVert, and Okoro, all of whom are injured right now. That should improve the Cavs' perimeter defense somewhat. Niang is slow and Merrill is 6'4" and can't jump. I'm not saying it's all their fault; Garland, Jerome, Strus, and Mitchell are not both long and athletic either. But I don't know if Houston and Philly shoot 44-46% in those three losses if we had Okoro and LeVert.
Thing is, it's kind of been like this for a little while now:

2022-2023: 5th best in 3PA frequency but 8th worst in season average vs actual 3P% against Cavs
2023-2024: 10th best in 3PA frequency but 9th worst in season average vs actual 3P% against Cavs
This year: 5th best in 3PA frequency but 6th worst in season average vs actual 3P% against Cavs

The Cavs have consistently done a really good job of limiting threes but team's continually shoot better against the Cavs then they do on their averages --- why?

I know it might be a simplistic answer but considering this team has been the same for three years and perimeter length has been at a disadvantage for the last three years, I really do wonder if their lack of length when closing out and contesting is impacting their ability to mitigate the higher than average efficiency teams have against the Cavs at the three-point line.
 
So Okoro should be traded for length.

That's trying to turn a 50 cents into a dollar. If you get a guy with more length for Okoro, he's going to be worse at other things.
 
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After starting 0-for-8 on 3's after missing 8 days with a calf injury Mobley hit 2 of 3 against Dallas. Hopefully he's back on track. His season average is still 39.8% despite that 0-for-8 patch.

Sam Merrill shot 26% on 3's in January before starting February going 9-for-13. Maybe Sam has finally broken his 3-point slump and found his rhythm and confidence.

Caris LeVert missed two weeks but in his first game back had 10 points and 5 rebounds in 23 minutes. Not a bad start.

With LeVert back and Mobley and Merrill starting to hit more 3's the Cavs are poised to go on a run. Max Strus is rounding into form. Ty Jerome shot 57% from the field and 46% on 3's in January. The Cavs just crushed Detroit, Miami, and Atlanta. I'm not counting the blowout of the Mavericks' second and third stringers.

At some point Okoro and Wade will return, giving Atkinson even more options. Garland and Mitchell are in mid-season form and both averaged nearly 25 ppg in January. Garland shot 52% overall and 42% on 3's while dishing out 7 assists. Donovan is 32-for-60 in his last four games (53%).

This team is in position to dominate the rest of the regular season if they can avoid injuries to key players. They're only going to get better.
 
From Fedor on the podcast after the Mavs' game:

I’ve had a lot of conversations with a lot of different people over the last couple of days. And one of the things that smart people around the NBA, my sources in the NBA, have been talking about is the possibility of the Cavs salary dumping Sam Merrill to get below the luxury tax threshold. Now that move in of itself gets them really, really, really close to that, but not where they probably would want to be. But there’s a lot of conversation that the most obvious path to the Cavs ducking the tax is by dumping Sam Merrill, who just isn’t needed on this team. And I had also been getting a sense that Sam had been getting a feeling from people in the organization that he was going to be on the outs of the rotation.

When Isaac Okoro comes back and when Dean Wade comes back and this team is at full strength once again. Caris LeVert came back this game, Everything that I’ve heard is that Dean Wade is progressing really really well and he’s already close to 100%...

[Merrill] can’t take Ty Jerome's minutes, right? Or you can’t cut his minutes significantly. And it just becomes harder to envision who’s going to get their minutes cut [when Wade and Okoro are ready to play]...

[Merrill is] here to bring continuous movement. He’s here to bring gravity and that spark and that scoring punch off the bench and stuff like that.

And he just hasn’t been doing that at a consistent level this year. So it just became a lot easier to envision a situation where he was going to be the one most in jeopardy of having his minutes trimmed because he just wasn’t performing the way that the other guys were...

He needed a game like this [Dallas]...He just needed this kind of game to show that he can be a value. He can be an asset to this team beyond just the contract that he has that would be easy for the Cavs to move on from...

...around the NBA there are a lot of people that believe the Cavs desire to get out of the luxury tax is a real thing and it’s something that we’re gonna have to monitor here over the next couple of days. But happy for Sam that he was able to have this kind of performance with all of that stuff kind of swirling over him.


My comment: So will the Cavs trade Merrill for a 2nd round pick? How does he stay in the rotation if Strus, LeVert, Okoro, and Jerome are all healthy and playing great? Also, in the playoffs the number of players in the rotation are reduced. If the Cavs don't anticipate Merrill being in their playoff rotation, why get saddled with the penalties and restrictions that come with having him on the roster?

The NBA rules have changed. Ordinarily I’m like, spend it - you’re trying to win a championship. What are you talking about, duck under the luxury tax? Well, it’s a little trickier now because there are real, real punishments as we have discussed for going over the luxury tax now. And there’s a clock to these things; you have to pick your contention window a lot more carefully now.

You have to be very strategic about it. Because the Cavs are so young with their core, I understand why they might want to sneak under it again for another year and push back some of the more punitive measures of the luxury tax, particularly if it only cost you (no disrespect, Sam) the 12th man or 10th or 11th man on your roster.
 
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That's why I mentioned Merrill upthread. Shooting is always valued around the league, so maybe we can get a second rounder or something for him. I suppose packaging him with someone else to get a higher quality return is always possible as well.
 
Only makes sense. I do like him, and he's doing other stuff well this year, but not shooting above 40% so far has been tough to swallow, especially since others are catching up and do the other stuff way better.
 

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