The NBA has always been a star-dominated league. In a sport with limited roster size where the best seat in the house will place your feet on the hardwood, the team’s star players are more visible in basketball than anywhere else. It’s not a novel point to make even the NBA knows it, centering their marketing around stars since the 80s when the association’s marquee matchup became Magic vs. Bird not Lakers vs. Celtics. Now in a league where stars are constantly on the move and many exercise their influence to force their way into trades and out of contracts, elite players have never had more power. In many organizations this has caused an alteration of their method of player acquisition, focusing first on acquiring big-name stars and then hoping to create some type of production with the rest. For the #1 seeded Cleveland Cavaliers, however, this is not the case.
The Cavs have extended an initially hot start into the best start to a season in franchise history after last night’s 131-122 win over New Orleans pushed the team to 9-0. Game after game the Cavaliers have continued to find new ways to win, creating comebacks and mitigating the shooting slumps and off nights that can come with an NBA season. While Cleveland’s starters have performed admirably this season, the real surprise has been the depth of a bench which has flourished in its role in coach Kenny Atkinson’s system. Not only that, but the Cavaliers bench has been an integral part of the overall game strategy of the team with Cleveland ranking 3rd in the NBA in bench minutes at 173.0, behind only Memphis and Golden State.
Cleveland currently has nine players averaging 20 minutes per game or more on the floor and six averaging 10 points per game or more. The bench has offered much more than offense however as Isaac Okoro has become a defensive staple for the team, truly coming into his own this season and providing key defense on some of the best players in the league such as Damian Lillard. It’s evident that coach Atkinson’s strategy in the early season has centered around creating open shots for players that often don’t garner the attention of Donovan Mitchell or Darius Garland. Sam Merrill exemplified this in the Cavaliers’ come-from-behind victory in Milwaukee last week, raining down threes to the tune of 15 points from beyond the arc. Merrill’s performance even garnered attention from Bucks coach Doc Rivers as he addressed the media saying, “I thought Sam Merrill in a lot of ways won the game for them,” following the game.
When teams start a season with a bang and rattle off a few games, it’s easy to blame it on just a simple hot streak. Maybe the team is just lucky, or maybe it’s just too early in the season for their opponents to have developed a game plan. Often times this is the case, but the depth of this Cavaliers team may allow them to be an exception. The Cavs have not run away with every single game they’ve played, they have faced adversity and had to claw their way to wins even in this early season. Having a deep bench has allowed them to do this, executing their offense and keeping them in games even when their star players aren’t on the court. It’s a strategy that speaks to the viability and success of coach Atkinson’s scheme and one which will also reduce the wear of a long season on key players as they don’t need to score every single point to create a win. As fans of the Cavaliers, we will remember the teams consisting of LeBron and no help. Though those days have long since passed it seems we’ve finally found an abundance of help for our young stars in a system that knows how to capitalize upon it. With this help, as the Cavaliers continue to win each additional game, we distance ourselves from the narrative of this just being a hot streak and draw closer to this being a tone-setting standard for Cleveland Basketball.
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