Let it all out. The Cavaliers Rant Thread

[Rich]

Can't take much more of the injury excuse.


There's teams out there who expected to be competing for a title this season and have been missing star players for basically the entire season and they don't bitch as much about injuries as us.

I see the fans go "who else has suffered these types of injuries??"

The Nuggets and Clippers have now had not 1, but 2 seasons of prime title contention taken away from them because of injuries to star players.

 

[buzzdog]

Can't take much more of the injury excuse.


There's teams out there who expected to be competing for a title this season and have been missing star players for basically the entire season and they don't bitch as much about injuries as us.

I see the fans go "who else has suffered these types of injuries??"

The Nuggets and Clippers have now had not 1, but 2 seasons of prime title contention taken away from them because of injuries to star players.

The converse argument is, it's kind of stupid to act like our injuries had no adverse effect on our level of success. How about just looking at reality? Our injuries hurt us in a serious way, and we're just not good enough as an organization to overcome the effect the injuries had. We had a nice run when things were going our way and we outperformed expectations by a lot. When the sledding got rough we didn't have either the coaching talent nor the player talent to overcome.

 

[David.]

First half of season against injured teams: "deep playoff run!"


Second half: "it's the injuries!"

 

[Omar The Horse]

The universe did not like Cavalanches.

Mother Earth please let us live.

 

[Rich]

The converse argument is, it's kind of stupid to act like our injuries had no adverse effect on our level of success. How about just looking at reality? Our injuries hurt us in a serious way, and we're just not good enough as an organization to overcome the effect the injuries had. We had a nice run when things were going our way and we outperformed expectations by a lot. When the sledding got rough we didn't have either the coaching talent nor the player talent to overcome.

I think people need to go back and check out some those early season wins against good teams and how many dudes those teams were missing.

Brooklyn, Chicago, Utah etc.

We feasted off of banged up teams.

What I don't want I'd the organization from top to bottom to chalk this up to injuries and nothing else.

We have MAJOR systematic issues that have been creeping up for months. It's bled into effort.

 

[David.]

I think people need to go back and check out some those early season wins against good teams and how many dudes those teams were missing.

Brooklyn, Chicago, Utah etc.

We feasted off of banged up teams.

What I don't want I'd the organization from top to bottom to chalk this up to injuries and nothing else.

We have MAJOR systematic issues that have been creeping up for months. It's bled into effort.

Ah no no no, littlemisssunshine.jpeg, and doomerrrr

 

[BigZ94]

First half of season against injured teams: "deep playoff run!"


Second half: "it's the injuries!"

This

Everybody seems to forget we were beating teams missing half of their players due to covid and injuries.

 

[Heat Check]

This

Everybody seems to forget we were beating teams missing half of their players due to covid and injuries.

I don't buy that. That's not how it works in the NBA. Everybody else was playing those same teams too.

Plus, we had our own injury problems and covid absences early on as well. Didn't matter that much.

The fact is that we were legit good for a while, playing against teams that didn't know how to handle us. Yet. But then they adapted and we didn't, Allen and Mobley went out, and that was that.

 

[BigZ94]

I don't buy that. That's not how it works in the NBA. Everybody else was playing those same teams too.

Plus, we had our own injury problems and covid absences early on as well. Didn't matter that much.

The fact is that we were legit good for a while, playing against teams that didn't know how to handle us. Yet. But then they adapted and we didn't, Allen and Mobley went out, and that was that.

If you look at our most successful stretch of the season which was around November/December before Rubio went down, look at those games, who we beat and who didn’t play for them.

I agree that the Rubio injury was huge for us, but in a normal even level playing field of a season with this head coach we get like 35 wins max imo

Which is still a massive improvement of course

 

[Heat Check]

If you look at our most successful stretch of the season which was around November/December before Rubio went down, look at those games, who we beat and who didn’t play for them.

I agree that the Rubio injury was huge for us, but in a normal even level playing field of a season with this head coach we get like 35 wins max imo

Which is still a massive improvement of course

We were still winning a LOT without Rubio. His absence was and is more of a slow thing eating away at us, like a cancer. It's taken a while to really break through to how the guys play and think about their team.

 

[buzzdog]

Ah no no no, littlemisssunshine.jpeg, and doomerrrr

So, you seem to be consistently saying that the Cavs were never any good this year, and this year was never anything more than a mirage?

 

[Dr No]

The comment was also made in the first few weeks of the season (I don't remember by who) that we were winning with superior energy and there was some concern about whether the team was capable of sustaining that over the course of 82 games. Injuries certainly have played a part, other teams figuring us out has certainly played a part, but I wonder how much of our decline is about running out of gas. We look psychologically and physically spent. There is a reason veteran teams and veteran players pace themselves.

 

[CavsKermit]

We were still winning a LOT without Rubio. His absence was and is more of a slow thing eating away at us, like a cancer. It's taken a while to really break through to how the guys play and think about their team.

There were 30 games between Rubio and Allen's injuries. We went 17-13. We played .566 ball, but it was the easier part of our schedule and there were some loses against bad teams in there that we certainly would've won had Rubio been available. This is especially true of the two loses against bad teams when Garland went down.

There were ten games between when Allen and Mobley got injured (11 if you count the game in which Mobley got injured). We won 4. We played .400 ball.

We're 1-4 without all of Allen, Mobley, and Rubio, but that's three of your best four players. Wade has also been out. Teams are averaging 120 points a game against us during this stretch. We're not built to outscore opponents at that threshold. In fairness, I'm not sure any team is built to do so when you're relying on two starters and a bunch of guys much further down on the depth chart.

Aside from injuries, the thing that's different is that Love and Cedi were shooting above their career averages from 3 for the first half of the season, and they've come back down below their averages since. . We badly need more reliable outside shooters. I don't know that teams figured us out so much as played the percentages and our role players haven't been able to make them pay the price. We need an assassin from outside.

We also clearly need an upgrade at backup PG. That has hurt us badly. Garland is playing way too many minutes and being asked to do way too much. Not only is it ineffective, it's dangerous. A serious back injury could alter his career.

 

[foucault87]

There were 30 games between Rubio and Allen's injuries. We went 17-13. We played .566 ball, but it was the easier part of our schedule and there were some loses against bad teams in there that we certainly would've won had Rubio been available. This is especially true of the two loses against bad teams when Garland went down.

There were ten games between when Allen and Mobley got injured (11 if you count the game in which Mobley got injured). We won 4. We played .400 ball.

We're 1-4 without all of Allen, Mobley, and Rubio, but that's three of your best four players. Wade has also been out. Teams are averaging 120 points a game against during this stretch.

Aside from injuries, the thing that's different is that Love and Cedi were shooting above their career averages from 3 for the first half of the season, and they've come back down below their averages since. . We badly need more reliable outside shooters. I don't know that teams figured us out so much as played the percentages and our role players haven't been able to make them pay the price. We need an assassin from outside.

We also clearly need an upgrade at backup PG. That has hurt us badly. Garland is playing way too many minutes and being asked to do way too much. Not only is it ineffective, it's dangerous. A serious back injury could alter his career.

I actually think you are underrating how much we miss Sexton too. He is a good innings eater when we are down other players, can score like a machine and carry the offense by himself, and is a much bigger upgrade on the backup PG slot than the likes of Rondo or Goodwin. At worst, he was the fifth best guy in our lineup at the start of the year.

Garland has been great, but this isn't the same situation as another team like Denver which has been missing their 2nd and 4th best guys all year. Their remaining best player happens to be in the middle of the single greatest season ever and on his way to a 2nd MVP. Injuries have absolutely been brutal for us.

There was also a nice stretch in Nov/Dec where we were just blowing out every team and had the 2nd best net rating in the league. Most of that was without Garland, all of it without Sexton. That version of the Cavs was looking like a real threat to the league. We where on pace to be where Memphis ended up.

 

[CavsKermit]

I actually think you are underrating how much we miss Sexton too. He is a good innings eater when we are down other players, can score like a machine and carry the offense by himself, and is a much bigger upgrade on the backup PG slot than the likes of Rondo or Goodwin. At worst, he was the fifth best guy in our lineup at the start of the year.

Garland has been great, but this isn't the same situation as another team like Denver which has been missing their 2nd and 4th best guys all year. Their remaining best player happens to be in the middle of the single greatest season ever and on his way to a 2nd MVP. Injuries have absolutely been brutal for us.

There was also a nice stretch in Nov/Dec where we were just blowing out every team and had the 2nd best net rating in the league. Most of that was without Garland, all of it without Sexton. That version of the Cavs was looking like a real threat to the league. We where on pace to be where Memphis ended up.

Here's the game log for Garland. I think you might be imagining things. https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/garlada01/gamelog/2022

He's missed 15 games. We lost 7. Those wins came against Atlanta (3rd game of the season), Indy (four times), the Pelicans, the Wizards, and the Hornets (where we got very lucky). There was no stretch where we were beating good teams, let alone blowing them out, without Garland. We lost to Charlotte, the Wizards (badly), the Pelicans, Atlanta, the Rockets, the Pistons, and the Wolves without Garland. Almost all of those are loses against bad teams.

With Sexton, if he's shooting from outside and making his shots, he'll help. If he's driving on 75% of his possessions, then it's going to look a like a slightly better version of LeVert on offense and worse version of LeVert on defense.

But the reality is that with Rubio, Allen, Mobley, and Garland, we were a .600 team during the tough part of our schedule even without Sexton.