Biggest Early-Season Storylines for Cleveland Cavaliers
Pressed under the microscope by LeBron James' return and Kevin Love's arrival, the Cleveland Cavaliers have produced some of the NBA's most compelling narratives.
The extra media attention might have magnified some of these storylines, but there still seems to be enough drama inside the Forest City to fill a Hollywood script.
There have been tales of soul-searching and resulting internal growth. There have been atypical struggles by some of the game's brightest stars. There has been a collective effort to solve a defensive problem that was initially as bad (or worse) as we all thought it would be.
This story even has a walking wild card in reserve guard Dion Waiters, who may well leave his fingerprints all over this season's conclusion—for better or worse.
The Cavaliers have the most fascinating stories to tell in basketball. These are the biggest to have surfaced through the early portion of the 2014-15 season.
Dion 'Wild Card' Waiters
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Outside of Cleveland's superstar trio of James, Love and Kyrie Irving, this roster doesn't have a more talented player than third-year scoring guard Dion Waiters.
Explosive, creative and supremely confident, the 22-year-old can consistently create and finish his own scoring chances. His 15.9 points per game was the highest among all Eastern Conference reserves last season.
He obviously has a lot of ability, but the importance of what he brings is no longer the same with this revamped roster. A moderately efficient, mid-volume scorer doesn't serve a great purpose alongside three perennial All-Stars who all do their best work on the offensive end.
Waiters' fit has been a curious one for the Cavs, both while he opened the year as a starter and after his subsequent move back to the bench. He is putting up only 8.5 points per game while connecting on career-low percentages from the field (36.8) and from three (25.8).
With so much defensive attention paid to the Big Three, Waiters should be feasting on open looks. Instead, he's shooting a woeful 25.0 percent on catch-and-shoot field goals. And he hasn't exactly embraced his new responsibilities.
"That's not my game," he told Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal when asked if he was focusing on his spot-up shooting. "I can do it, but you what I'm effective at: pick-and-roll and things like that."
If Waiters and his anemic 8.5 player efficiency rating don't come around soon, the Cavs may be forced to see what he could fetch on the trade market.
Kyrie Irving's Steep Learning Curve
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Kyrie Irving isn't new to this sport, but this season still might feel a bit foreign to the two-time All-Star. He isn't the No. 1 option on offense anymore, and the opposite end of the floor is no longer an optional place to visit. His performances greatly impact a team that actually measures itself by wins and losses.
Not surprisingly, it has taken some time for the 22-year-old to adjust to his new reality.
During Cleveland's first three games, Irving tallied 54 points, 49 field-goal attempts and 15 assists. He converted a whopping 34.7 percent of those shots from the field.
That stretch led to Irving and James exchanging words just three games into the season, sources told ESPN.com's Brian Windhorst, and Irving leaving the locker room without addressing the media. The conversation was described as "healthy," and it was supposed to remind Irving about the offensive changes he needed to make.
Irving responded by playing nearly 45 minutes the following night without an assist. "Irving's statement through his play was clear: He isn't about to automatically back down his aggressive approach just because James speaks out against it," wrote ESPN.com's Dave McMenamin.
Irving may have felt the need to send a message, but it seems James' original statement still had an effect. In the 12 games since Irving's zero-assist night, he has averaged 21.3 points on 14.2 field-goal attempts, 5.3 assists and only 1.4 turnovers while compiling a picturesque .512/.468/.803 shooting slash.
He is staying within himself and adapting his game however his team needs. He is quietly becoming a really good leader, not merely a really good player.
Kevin Love's Search for Offense
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The offensive end has never been much of an obstacle for stretch forward Kevin Love. While leading the Minnesota Timberwolves last season, he finished the year ranked fourth in scoring (26.1 points), third in PER (26.9) and third in offensive win shares (10.6).
No one expected him to produce the same type of volume season. But the sacrifices he made in quantity were supposed to be paid back and then some in terms of quality.
So that's what made it particularly puzzling when the career 45.1 percent shooter opened the campaign by converting only 38.8 percent of his attempts over his first 11 games. His scoring average over that stretch was a forgettable 15.9 points.
"It's come to a point where I'm just trying to find myself in this offense," Love told reporters after a 10-point performance in his 10th game with Cleveland. "I'm just trying to find different spots in the offense. I'll just say we're 10 games in, we're looking at different stuff. I need to find myself."
The Cavs were leaning on Love's ability to stretch the floor, undoubtedly one of the most potent weapons in the 6'10" scorer's arsenal. The problem was Cleveland leaned on it a little too hard. He attempted 139 field goals over those first 11 games; 60 of them (43.2 percent) were threes. Entering this season, threes accounted for only 23.6 percent of his career field-goal attempts.
Cleveland has backed down his three-point demands considerably in the five games since. He has taken 66 shots during this stretch, with only 15 triples (22.7 percent). Not coincidentally, he has averaged 22.2 points on .591/.467/.813 shooting over these five games.
Learning how to share the offensive load could be a season-long challenge for the former one-man show, but he has started to take a significant step in the right direction.
LeBron James Looking (Relatively) Human
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LeBron James has been christened the "best player on the planet" for so long now, it feels like his official job title. Engineering a six-year stretch that included such spoils as four trips to the NBA Finals, two titles and four MVP awards apparently has that effect.
Back inside the friendly confines of his home state, James seemed poised to tighten his grip on the basketball world. He had a pair of young, productive All-Star sidekicks and a deep, experienced support staff to help him back down the championship path.
Expectations were hard to put into words. Whatever existed beyond greatness, that's what James was going after.
Suffice to say, he hasn't hit that mark. "I stink," he told reporters after a recent four-game losing streak. "I'm not doing my job."
It's important to keep his larger-than-life standards in mind. Most players can only dream of a stat line like his: 24.9 points, 7.4 assists and 5.8 rebounds. For the record, two players have had a 24-point, seven-assist and five-rebound season in any of the last 10 years: James (this would be his sixth) and former teammate Dwyane Wade (once).
So it's hard to say James is struggling. However, his field-goal percentage (47.1) is as low as it's been since his rookie year. Ditto for his scoring, rebounding and PER (24.2). His 107 defensive rating is on pace to be a career worst.
Maybe James' basketball odometer is starting to show. Perhaps this is just par for the course after such a dramatic change in scenery and supporting cast. Maybe he's using this time to teach his teammates, or he's saving some of his reserve tank for the postseason.
Something has kept him from dominating the way he has in the recent past. If this team grows around him, that might not be a bad thing.
'No One Is Untouchable'
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Maybe it sounded better inside the head of Cleveland Cavaliers general manager David Griffin.
"No one is untouchable," Griffin told Northeast Ohio Media Group's Chris Haynes just nine games into the season, "and you're never done building a team, so we're always paying attention to what opportunities are out there."
Really, Griffin was expressing a sentiment shared by most, if not all, of his executive peers. Griffin wasn't actively searching for trades, only saying that he planned to keep his eyes and ears open in case anything intriguing was placed in front of him.
But the timing could have been better. The Cavs' rocky 5-4 start had some rushing to judgment, and Griffin's words, if taken at face value, seemed to follow the same lines.
Besides, it's not as if this roster was completely lacking "untouchable" talent.
"Short of Love declaring his intent to sign elsewhere this summer, Irving publicly professing his love for Utah and James displacing Griffin from his post in order to become a player-general manager who trades himself to the highest bidder, all three players should be considered untouchable," wrote Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
The Cavs might need to take the trade route at some point to find some rim protection or more defensive help on the perimeter. But none of those deals will involve this team's untouchable Big Three. So, if Griffin's comments put any unnecessary heat on those players, they would have been better left unsaid.
Slowly Committing to the Defensive End
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The Cavaliers knew the defensive end could be problematic this season.
They brought in the 36-year-old Shawn Marion over the offseason to try to make use of whatever versatile skills he had left. There was talk of throwing some minutes at Brendan Haywood, who missed last season with a foot injury and hasn't posted an above-average PER since 2009-10. The Cavs were one of several teams linked to Emeka Okafor, per ESPN.com's Marc Stein, despite the shot-blocker being unlikely to sign until midseason.
Stein also reported the Cavs were on the heels of Minnesota Timberwolves swingman Corey Brewer.
Cleveland hasn't imagined these defensive issues. The Cavs rank 18th in defensive efficiency. Their 46.4 field-goal percentage against is the eighth-worst in the league.
This is an ongoing challenge, one that could play the largest role in determining how this season ends for the Cavs. And despite the overly generous start, they are starting to show signs of improvement.
During their four-game winning streak, they are holding teams to 42.8 percent shooting. After allowing seven of their first nine opponents to score 100-plus points, they have held five of their last seven to double digits.
Barring a radical roster overhaul, the Cavs will not be a defensive power. But with so much offensive firepower, they don't have to be. Simply giving a consistent effort on that end of the floor can go (and has gone) a long way toward combating this group's defensive limitations.
"Just taking pride of it," James said of Cleveland's defensive improvement, per McMenamin. "Guys are taking their individual tasks very high, and that’s helped us."
If this plot twist has lasting power, the Cavs should continue forcing their way up the Eastern Conference ladder.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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