The Cavaliers already better than expected 6-10 record has brought me to an interesting realization about this team. We were playing well, had our struggles as every team does, but in my brief (for too brief) window of actually getting to watch this team play, I have come to the conclusion, we aren’t going to win a title this year. Obviously. But, if our young guys keep progressing, I’d say this team is 3 years, and a true Shooting Guard and a true Sixth Man away from being a contender. Now this might be all my optimistic fan talking, but hear me out. With what we have seen so far from Kyrie Irving I am not only impressed by his talent and determination, but by his potential. Tristan Thompson has shown (me at least) that he is going to be a really good NBA player, maybe even an All-Star some day, yes he needs polish but what 20-something doesn’t? He has shown an ability to score around the basket and can (if he keeps working) can develop that mid range game to be quite the weapon. There isn’t much to be said about these guys that hasn’t been said before, so I won’t go into it in great detail. I’m more going to focus on the things I said we need to be a contender. 3 years, that one is really easy since time is going to pass, and these guys are going to develop into NBA players the more time they spend on the floor. The two positions we need to improve at, shooting guard, and sixth man. Yes that is vague but the guy on the team that gets the sixth most minutes, it doesn’t matter his true position because it is all about just having six quality guys. Everyone knows Anthony Parker is not the future of the Cavs. And after this season (perhaps even before then some people may argue) he should not be a starter for the Cavs. We need a lights out shooter to come into the fold and give us that consistent scoring option on the catch and shoot. Perhaps through the draft, perhaps with some of that money that we should have in the offseason. Preferably via draft in my opinion, a good young core is the way to go in the NBA it would seem these days. From there its a little bit of addition by subtraction, no more Casspi, the ship has already sailed, he’s not who we were hoping he would be. Less Jamison (or no Jamison),and less (or no) Parker.
The final things the Cavs would have to do, is slightly better backup Center, Erden just doesn’t do it for me, he’s just not quite good enough. And then the position I see as being the biggest question mark remaining is that 6th man role. For my money, my thought is draft a small forward and give him the starting role and let Alonzo Gee come off the bench in a big way to spell the younger guys at the 2 and 3 spots to allow them all time to develop and if the core group can stay together and improve this team could really do something. So heres to a couple more nice draft picks and in a few years a (hopefully) OKC style rise to the top. Just without the alpha dog issues they have.
The Lake Erie Soldiers 