During the broadcast of the game tonight, Omri Casspi said in a lead in back from commercial that one reason he's excited to be in Cleveland was because "we have a lot of scorers."
Not to get on his case too soon because he's the new guy but that is a description of the current Cavalier team that couldn't be more far fetched.
The unquestioned best three players on the team, Anderson Varejao, Ramon Sessions and Kyrie Irving aren't exactly at this point light it up scorers. Varejao is a stud because of his endless work on the defensive end, Sessions struggles to make anything other than a layup or free throw and Irving is bound to have an up and down season since he is a rookie.
And while the team has little to nothing other than those guys in regards to consistent every night scoring I definitely really believe they have a solution to this staring them right in the face. Find out what that is after the jump.
If you didn't already know, the 2010-2011 Cavaliers finished 29th in both offense and defense. With stalwart center Varejao returning I am expecting a massive leap in the defensive standing of the team this year. And that still accounts for significant minutes being give to noted non-defense like Anthony Parker, Antwan Jamison and Sessions.
By far the biggest question to me is how are the Cavs going to consistently produce offense for all 48 minutes?
I'm a big proponent of ignoring all the traditional 1-2-3-4-5 lineups for the entire game and essentially throwing your best players out on the court for significant minutes, especially late in both halves.
Sessions and Irving are clearly the best offensive weapons right now on the team and seem most likely of leading the team in scoring. The problem is their best position is both point guard.
Coach Byron Scott should use his two assets to build the strongest potential lineup he can. With the talent level on the team still slightly below average for an NBA squad we don't need to be worried about always trying to be conventional.
Sessions and Irving should be given a bulk of minutes together every single game at the guard spots. Ideally, Kyrie will guard the point while Ramon will handle the two guard. This lineup actually also plays to their strengths defensively as well since Sessions is miscast as someone who can handle defending the point but surprisingly does well guarding the two.
The team couldn't do a thing offensively for a large stretch of the second half against Detroit. They were dreadful and pitiful offensively. Both Irving and Sessions bring things to the table that can cure these ails. Both of them are at their attacking best when charging hard off ball screens into the middle of the lane to suck in defenders. They also project to both be elite again at getting to the charity stripe.
Playing a lineup built around those two with a combination of Parker, Casspi or Jamison playing the forward spots and Varejao in the middle could actually be a fairly solid, for our current standards, scoring lineup.
As defenses have to account for both Sessions and Parker charging hard to the rim it is going to be hard for them to not only to cover the forwards standing in the corners on the wing waiting for an open three but Varejao with his patented hard roll to the rim.
On a team with potential for awful droughts every game the ability of Sessions and Irving to get baskets with their speed and court vision in transition is another positive of this lineup.
It's simply not a best use of our players to basically rotate Irving and Sessions for most of the year. I certainly believe Scott understands this and I expect to eventually see this lineup trotted out quite often this season.
The wing scoring on this team may at times look worse than putrid and with hardly anybody on the team who can space the floor by hitting shots routinely I think this is a key factor in whether the Cavs can really actually push up towards 10th or so in the East.