The Cleveland Cavaliers are going to be really dominant offensive team, thanks to their newly minted triumvirate of superstars LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving.
But there’s a big problem. The Cavs haven’t shown any sign they can defend after five games of preseason basketball. Moreover, Dion Waiters is surprisingly leading the team in field-goal attempts – a statistical data that certainly alarmed head coach David Blatt.
“I don’t think he should lead the team in shots,” Blatt said of Waiters’ 68 field goal attempts this preseason in a recent interview via Ohio.com. “On the other hand, I don’t really care. I just want to take good shots and make them. But we’ll look at it. It’s something we really should look at and we will.”
Never lacking confidence, Waiters acknowledged to everybody that he’s still going to be an important piece of the Cavaliers’ championship campaign this year, believing he deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as other superstars teammates.
“I ain’t worried about it,” Waiters told reporters on Saturday. “They’re going to say Big Four at the end of the year, or Big Five. I like being that dark horse.”
For all of his ill-advised shots along with his brow-raising shooting percentage (27 percent from the field in the last two games), Waiters shouldn’t be blamed for being aggressive on the offensive end. After all, the Cavaliers took him as high as fourth overall of the 2012 Draft because of his scoring prowess in the first place.
However, it seems the Cavs will soon realize that playing a shot-happy off-guard alongside ball-dominant players like Irving, Love and James is a messy idea. A team as offensively gifted as the Cavs makes Waiters’ existence sort of a surplus.
“You can’t miss a couple shots and stop shooting,” Waiters said. “You’ve got to keep shooting. Unfortunately they didn’t go in, but a guy like myself I’m going to keep shooting.”
Comments like that should really give a feeling of uneasiness to Blatt, who really knows the importance of shot distribution. Waiters, with all his potential to be one of the most explosive scorers in this league, will have no room to evolve into that player in Cleveland.
In his case, it’s either he will be a problem for the opponents or someone who will jeopardize the Cavs chemistry, a direction he’s apparently heading to right now.
For the Cavs front-office, the only possible way to avert this potential dilemma is to send Waiters to a place where his scoring is most needed as soon as possible. Cleveland is a team loaded with offensive weapons, but lack perimeter defender and shot-blocker.
Just weeks after forming their Big 3, the Cavs inquired on the availability of big man Timofey Mozgov on the trading front. There were also rumors about their interest in Iman Shumpert, who has all the tools to be an excellent defensive locker but becomes dispensable in New York because he doesn’t have the goods to be a great scorer in Phil Jackson’s triangle.
These are just a couple of many options the Cavs would have if they start gauging Waiters’ value in the market. Don’t get it wrong, Waiters is going to be ‘helluva’ player in the next 2 to 3 years if he continues his improvement. He’s just not a perfect fit with the Cavs already loaded lineup. That’s all.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
