CLEVELAND, Ohio -- To clinch a playoff spot, the Cavaliers beat Houston, 108-91.
Watching that Sunday night game is a reminder of how easily the Cavs could be Houston, a team with a six -- that’s right, SIX -- of its own first-round picks on the roster.
Houston’s record is 18-57. In the last three seasons, the Rockets have piled up lots of lottery ping-pong balls and even more losses. Their record in the last three years since beginning a Cavs 2019-style rebuild is 55-174.
Houston seems no closer to being a playoff team than when its plan to add draft picks began.
It’s not just Houston. Franchises such as Detroit, San Antonio and Orlando seem lost in the NBA lottery team wilderness.
The fact is, in the NBA you can get bad and stay bad for a long time.
One or two key decisions can do it.
THE BIG MOVES
As coach J.B. Bickerstaff said, “It’s from the top down. That should be acknowledged.”
In Sunday’s postgame press conference, Bickerstaff praised President Koby Altman and and GM Mike Gansey for “finding talent and the right kind of people.”
Consider the 2021 NBA draft. Detroit had the first pick. The Pistons took Cade Cunningham, talented but injury-prone.
Next was Houston. Available were Jalen Green and Evan Mobley. The Rockets took Green. A true all-around franchise player, Mobley fell to the Cavs at No. 3.
We don’t know for certain whom the Cavs would have selected with the No. 1 pick in that draft. After the selection was made, Bickerstaff said he believed Mobley was the best player in the draft. It’s possible he would have been their top pick.
The front office was already buying into the idea of playing the NBA game differently. They were going big, as in big players. Before the Mobley draft, they had traded a future No. 1 pick for Jarrett Allen. That’s really when the revival began. Then they took Mobley. They also traded for Lauri Markkanen.
Cleveland became the one NBA team in love with 7-footers, assuming they were mobile and defensive-minded.
HOW IT COULD HAVE GONE WRONG
Jalen Green is averaging 22 points for Houston. But he’s a young guard running around, jacking up shots and not defending much of anyone.
When Kevin Porter Jr. had personal problems with the Cavs, they traded him to Houston for a second-round pick. That had to be a hard move for Altman/Gansey. In the 2020 draft, they had traded FOUR second-rounders and $5 million to Detroit to move into the bottom of the first round to grab Porter.
But Porter wasn’t buying into defense-first plan of Bickerstaff, and Porter’s off-court issues worried the Cavs. He’s averaging 18.9 points, 5.9 assists and 5.6 rebounds.
Watch the Rockets. They are young, athletic and do play hard. But they don’t play smart. And defense is missing from their basketball vocabulary. It’s doubtful Mobley would be maturing as a player in that setting compared to his astounding basketball growth in Cleveland. He probably would be lost in that undisciplined style that is the current Houston Rockets.
Houston is a long way from the playoffs -- and this could have been Cleveland under a different set of circumstances.
Under Bickerstaff, the Cavs rank No. 1 in defensive efficiency. Houston is 29th out of 30 teams. The Cavs have a clear vision and a real team culture.
“Our guys have bought into something bigger than themselves,” said Bickerstaff.
He talked about young players worrying about their playing time and their stats. The Cavs are a relatively young team with all five starters 26 or younger.
PUTTING IT TOGETHER
After LeBron James left for the Lakers in the summer of 2018, the front office went through three coaches in 1 1/2 seasons: Ty Lue, Larry Drew, and John Beilein, before settling on Bickerstaff during the 2020 All-Star break.
“It was a winding road,” said the coach.
He was 5-6 in his first season, which ended early due to COVID-19. Then the Cavs were 22-50. But in the middle of that 2020-21 season, the Cavs traded for Allen. Then came the drafting of Mobley. Neither of those decisions was automatic.
The NBA was moving away from big men to “position-less” basketball. Bring in a bunch of guys between 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-8 and be more athletic than everyone else. Big men supposedly were going the way of the two-handed set shot.
In the 2019 draft, the front office made Darius Garland the No. 5 overall pick. He’d played only four college games because of knee problems, then had a rocky rookie year. It wasn’t until his second season that Garland began to look like a lottery pick.
Finally, there was the monster trade for All-Star Donovan Mitchell.
The front office had to make five major decisions: The trades for Allen and Mitchell; the drafting of Mobley and Garland; and the hiring of Bickerstaff. They needed all to go right for the Cavs to have a 48-28 record and their first non-LeBron James playoff spot since 1998.
The Cavs did this without having a No. 1 pick in the draft. They did it without bringing in a James-type free agent. They did it with modern analytics, but also old-school team-building through the draft and trades. Finally, they did it with a defense-first-minded coach.
In the NBA, that is very rare.
- Read more Terry Pluto columns here.
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