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Episode 58: Cavs roll into the Off-Season
12 Plays4 years ago
Alex attends the Cavs final home game, wears a Wild Thing wig, and hilarity ensues. Corey plays GM and ponders the future of the Cavs roster. We discuss the recent episode of the Cavs' The Road Back featuring Kevin Love, talk about the NBA Draft Lottery coin flip tie-breaker, and do a wrap-up of the season. Do the Cavs give Jarrett Allen a max contract?? Let us know Cavs fans!
Email: CavsPickandRoll@gmail.com
Facebook: Cavs Pick and Roll Podcast
Twitter: @CavsPickandRoll
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Transcript
Offseason Blues and Streaming Challenges
00:00:14
Speaker
Hey Cavs fans, welcome to another episode of the Cavs pick and roll podcast the podcast for diehard Cavs fans Cory and Alex here with you as always and Alex We are now in the offseason
00:00:29
Speaker
Does that make you sad? Happy? Do you feel relief? How are you feeling right now, man, with no Cavs basketball here? You know, I've already transitioned to watching some Cavs games on YouTube. You did send me a message today at work. Was that where you were watching it on YouTube?
00:00:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I was, you know, going down that YouTube black hole and I started watching the 2007 Eastern Conference Championship Game Five against Detroit. Nice. Went into double overtime. You know, it was that Detroit team with Sheed and Prince and. Mr. Big Shot. Billups and yeah. Yeah, it was a good series.
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah, that was a good series. And it's funny you brought that up because I thought for sure you were watching that maybe on NBA TV.
Classic Cavs Games and Streaming Frustrations
00:01:32
Speaker
Surprise, that's on YouTube. It always seems to be one of the games that always gets played, like on NBA TV and on like NBA hardwood classics when that would be on and stuff like that. Yeah, it is a classic, man. That's a classic Cavs game. It's just so good.
00:01:50
Speaker
That cast team, you know, they had, they had Verjow. I mean, your boy, Eric Snow. Eric Snow, yeah. Oh, God. That takes us back, man. Sasha, Big Z, Daniel Marshall, I believe was on the, yeah, yeah, Daniel Marshall and who's the dude that had the little bit of hair in the, oh, Drew Gooden, Mr. Gooden.
00:02:19
Speaker
a little bit of a patch of hair in the back that went right under the headband. The little goatee on his neck, basically. Yeah. So weird. That is a good time. LeBron went off. He scored 22 of the Cavs, 23 at the end.
00:02:37
Speaker
Man, just took Detroit to town. It was awesome. Yeah, that's a classic for sure, man. And I'm good with watching it. And if I had a chance to watch it, I definitely would. But man, every once in a while, I just want to watch a random game of Bobby Sura.
00:02:54
Speaker
It feels like it always is the same five to seven games that air for the Cavs whenever there's a classic game somewhere, or a full game footage-wise. We've talked about this before. I just wish the Cavs library would be extended a little bit as far as full games you can get access to.
00:03:15
Speaker
How cool would it be if there was a service like Spotify, but it was NBA games, and you could go to the Cleveland Cavs playlist and just click randomize? Any game. Yeah, any game. And just have it randomly play some game from the beginning, like 1970 Cavs all the way to current, just a random game anywhere, anytime, and just watch it. I mean, that'd be amazing.
00:03:43
Speaker
It's got to be in the vault, man. And my hopes are, Alex, we got kids, man. Disney did this with Disney Plus. Whoever would have thought that five years ago, a service like that would exist. Here's hoping that one day I can go back and rewatch Terrell Brandon, or whoever the heck I want to watch, Bobby Sura, you know what I mean?
00:04:05
Speaker
Yeah, I'd be all over that. I'd also get nothing done cause I'd constantly be watching it. Yeah. I think we're asking a lot here because right now I can't even watch the calves, my local NBA team on a streaming service. It's not on Google TV. It's not on Hulu live. It's not on anything. Nope. So that's a BS, man.
00:04:27
Speaker
It is. It was tough watching Cavs games for both of us because we both got out of the cable game a while ago and we both kind of got screwed of having no streaming service even to pay for to watch games. So that was frustrating and that's one thing I would like to see change next year. I'm not going back to cable. I know you're not too, but I would love to see easier access to watch Cavs games.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah, I'm still doing YouTube TV. And I did notice the Fox Sports Go app became the Bally Sports app. So that transition is happening. But when I go in the Bally Sports app, I still can't watch Cavs games. It asked me to log in with my provider, you know. I log in with my YouTube TV account and it just doesn't let me watch any of the Cavs content.
00:05:13
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully that's something that changes too because they're supposed to all you know, supposedly they were supposed to offer their own kind of individual service to allow you to watch Cavs games and stuff like that outside of your your cable provider. So
00:05:28
Speaker
Which is, again, something I'd give me. Give me that for seven bucks a month. I'm all over that. If I could watch Cavs games legally and on my TV again about having to worry about streaming and or casting it from from some jaded website or something like that. I'd be all over that again, because that's something I did miss was just being able to legitimately watch Cavs games.
00:05:49
Speaker
Yeah, it would be Cavs games and Indians games. Indians, right? Yeah, Indians games are both part of that. Well, Indians are on Sports Time Ohio, but it's also a Bally station. Hey, I just got your text.
00:06:05
Speaker
You texted me like 10 minutes ago. Hey, I'm ready to record now. Luckily, when you called me, I was good, even though you didn't get the message yet. Hey, real quick, so you were talking about Bally Sports, you'd pay seven bucks a month to watch the Cavs. Is that what you think it'll be? Is that how much you would pay? No.
00:06:28
Speaker
It'll be more. They'll somehow hike it up to around that $9, $10 mark, which is ludicrous when you think about, you know, I pay six bucks right now for Hulu. Just the regular Hulu, not with TV and all that crap. And I get hundreds or thousands of movies and TV shows at my disposal, right? For seven bucks a month now. You know what I mean? So paying much more than that to watch a Cavs game a couple of days a week.
00:06:58
Speaker
to me would be a little bit too expensive, but who knows? I don't know. There's a market form. There's a market form right now. And unfortunately they can kind of take advantage of it because I would see a lot of people online complaining about the same thing. Hey man, give me, give me ways to watch the calves. Give me ways to watch the Indians and to avoid that cable bill. Who knows? You might get a lot of people that are willing to pay that eight, nine, $10 range to, to watch their, their, their home sports teams.
00:07:23
Speaker
Yeah, I bet it's going to be at least 10 bucks. I just feel like, yeah, they're going to milk it. I mean, they got a monopoly on it, right? It's the only way to watch a Cabs game legally unless you have, what's it, AT&T? One of the AT&T's, or Spectrum, one of the cable services still has Cabs games, but there's only one or two. It's not a lot of choice in the matter.
00:07:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's something I'll be paying attention to, but who knows? What if it's like the annual thing? Well, I would prefer to do annual. Give me annual for- A hundred bucks a season, $99 for the season. Yeah, I'd do that. I'd be all over that. That averages out to seven, eight bucks somewhere around there. I'm good with that. All right. I would do it.
00:08:11
Speaker
All right, so let's transition here a little bit, Alex. I wanna go back a little bit into the past before we talk a little bit about the future now that the Cavs are in the off season.
Game Experiences and Fan Interactions
00:08:21
Speaker
So you got to go to the very last Cavs home game,
00:08:27
Speaker
against the Boston Celtics, which should have been fan appreciation night, man. I'm curious about that and what your experience was like for that because I think it was probably a little bit different than when you and I went a few months ago. Capacity was a little bit different. The team was a little bit in a different place. Different players were playing then versus now. Kevin Love wasn't around. Kevin Love played in this game and had a great game. But just what was your experience going to that last home game of the Cavs season?
00:08:54
Speaker
You would think it would be a different experience, but it really wasn't. It was very, very much a similar experience to when we went. It seemed like capacity was the same.
00:09:05
Speaker
I didn't notice that there were any more people there than normal. Did they say they increased in capacity? I don't think they did. I don't think they did maybe a few hundred at most. So that means you had good parking and short bathroom lines at least. Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the row in front of us was empty. The row behind us was empty. I mean, there's just, you sit, you know, your seat is like blocked off by a whole bunch of empty seats. It's nice.
00:09:34
Speaker
We went downtown to the Southern Pier Brewery before the game. I had a couple beers. When we got to the game, they were doing the Anderson Bear Jow tribute. They gave them a little tribute, which was cool. Nice, nice.
00:09:50
Speaker
I was wearing my Anderson Vergeau wig that... I gotta pause you right there, I'll give you props because the last episode was right after the Andy thing happened and you kind of bashed like what, you know, why does everybody love Andy so much? And then you go to this game and you text me, probably before you went in the arena, it was like you were outside still, but you're wearing an Anderson Vergeau wig and I had to give you... I did a little head nod and gave you some props for that because you're still in, had the good spirits to rock the wig which,
00:10:20
Speaker
probably I'm guessing not a ton of people were doing at that game. No, I know, you know, I only saw maybe three other people wearing the wigs. So it's kind of funny. And, you know, I had multiple people at the, you know, we went to a bar after the game, too, that's like right across the street. And it was just packed with people, mostly Boston fans, you know, like people in town from the drove from Boston or, you know,
00:10:44
Speaker
actually a group that we sat next to at the bar where they were from buffalo and they were all wearing tatum jerseys and and whatnot but they were they were good sports
00:10:55
Speaker
You know, the Cavs did win the game, which was awesome. Finally got to see... Depends on who kind of Cavs fan you are, but we'll get into that in a second. Yeah, well, yeah. When you go to a game, you want to see them win. Don't give it, you know. I know it affects the draft odds, but you always want to see them win when you go to a game.
00:11:15
Speaker
And yeah, it was a great game. But the people at the bar, multiple people asked me if my hair was real, if it was my real hair. At least three people. Two girls came over and asked if they could touch it. And they're like, is that your real hair? I'm like, yeah. And she's like, oh, man. And I'm like, yeah, go ahead, touch it. And she's like,
00:11:37
Speaker
felt one of the curls and then another girl came over, you know, they were trashed. It was after the game, they were wasted. And this girl likes, another girl comes over, she starts feeling my curls and then she like tugs on a curl and I go, ow. She like jumped back.
00:11:52
Speaker
Oh, my God. That's awesome. I'm so glad I was hoping you I was hoping you're going to say you mess with some people and told them it was your real hair. Oh, yeah, for sure. And my buddy I went with he was wearing the the Moscow hat that winner Russian winner hat. Right. Yeah. And when we were at the game, I think it was like third quarter, we went and
00:12:14
Speaker
go check out Phelps and Campy Russell because they always do the broadcasting right in front of where the trophy is at and the championship ring is at.
00:12:24
Speaker
were kind of like in between you know doing their broadcasting so they like turned around and they were talking to us and Mike Phelps is asking me where I got my Virgil wig at and I was like well I got it at a you know at a Cavs game like 10 years ago. He's like you kept it for that long. It's too bad you didn't have the like the Cavs robe too. I don't know if you remember the
00:12:47
Speaker
I don't know if it was a Verjow night thing, but there's a picture somewhere online of Verjow wearing a calves, like a red calves robe. Are you talking about the Snuggie, the calves Snuggie? Yeah, the Snuggie. I have the Snuggies, man. Why didn't you wear it? We went to the calves Snuggie night. It was actually, the reason they did that was to set a Guinness world record of most people in one place wearing Snuggies. And so we were, me and my wife went to that and we were part of that. That was a great time.
00:13:14
Speaker
you totally should have wore that because it was still kind of cool enough. You could have justified it and maybe taken it off when you got too hot. But that's awesome. That's the way it is. And Campy Russell was asking my buddy Josh about the Mosgov hat. We were talking about how it was like the greatest Cavs commercial ever if you haven't seen the Mosgov Cavs commercial where he's wearing that hat and riding a polar bear. You got to check it out.
00:13:37
Speaker
Look it up. It's on YouTube. It's it's hilarious. I think I don't know if it was you shared it with me or I shared it with you just a couple of months ago. Laughing my butt off. I think I shared it with you and then you sent me a pic of you wearing the mascot hat. And again, I just died rolling over laughing my butt off once I saw that. You actually had that. I keep all that stuff. Yeah, you got you got to, man. You're a Cavs diehard fan.
00:14:02
Speaker
So here's some advice, Cavs fans. If you ever go to a game and you want to get campy or Phelps attention, go there wearing some really like older retro Cavs gear, and that'll sure enough get their attention. Yeah, the game overall is a great game. It was really dominated by three Cavs players. You had Kevin Love, who had 30 points. Colin Sexton went off for 28, and even Okora had 15. So really, between those three Cavs, I mean, they dominated the game.
00:14:32
Speaker
Yeah, they did. It was a nice kind of unexpected game to see, kind of an unexpected win. Boston definitely wasn't the game I had circled as a potential win in the remaining games since the last time we recorded. So yeah, that was good. And then I wanted to ask too, so it was fan appreciation night. Usually, you know, Kaz fans get a lot of goodies and they're giving out good stuff.
00:14:53
Speaker
Did you get anything at all? No. I didn't see anything. I didn't see them giving anything away at the gate like they normally do. Usually they got the little bags with some fat heads in it or something. That's weird, man. I didn't see anything. They were giving away stuff at the end of the game. Players were throwing jerseys and shirts and taking their shoes off and signing them.
00:15:21
Speaker
They were having people come out onto the court to get them, so I don't even know how people signed up or registered to be able to get that stuff.
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's too bad. I was very surprised when you told me that, that they didn't give anything out because, yeah, it's fan appreciation night. Everybody gets a little goody bag and then there's chances to get, you know, extra stuff. Or like you said, the players are throwing stuff out in the crowd. And with it being such a small, like, you know, there's only 2,000 to 3,000 people there, I thought for sure they would do it. I mean, I wonder why they didn't. That's kind of disappointing because that's kind of the whole point of fan appreciation night.
00:15:58
Speaker
yeah yeah well i didn't get any swag swag that game but you already had the swag man you had the hair swag yeah you had you had the hair you had you had people fooled at the bar
00:16:11
Speaker
girls touching your hair. I mean, sounds like you got a rockstar night, man. You got to see Tristan, man. People boom. Did people even acknowledge him? Did people even care? Nah, not really. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody is. It wasn't his first game back, I guess. So it's kind of like whatever, but. Yeah, it's true. I did. I did get a cool picture of, I think it was Thompson, Kevin Love, and Andy.
00:16:37
Speaker
Yeah, all standing on the court talking together, which was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. That is, that was, I saw that pic. That was pretty cool.
00:16:48
Speaker
So it sounds like overall, yeah, you had a good experience. And yeah, I totally agree. I mean, when you go to a game, you pay to go to a game, take time, sit there for three hours and stuff. You don't want to see them get hammered, right? You want to see a win.
Draft Hopes and Kevin Love's Story
00:17:02
Speaker
But kind of segueing here into what that win kind of did was yesterday or mid this week, there was a drawing.
00:17:16
Speaker
to see who was going to land the fourth spot versus the fifth spot as far as the potential standings for the draft lottery. The Cleveland Cavaliers were tied with the Oklahoma City Thunder and they did a drawing and as a result we lost that drawing and were once again for the third year in a row at least for now sitting in the five spot and CAS fans went pretty
00:17:44
Speaker
I think over the top, in my opinion, a little bit silly, but kind of blame that Boston win for dooming us on losing that coin flip. I don't know, what's your kind of your reaction to that? Do you have any kind of reaction? Does it even matter? I mean, it kind of changed the odds a little bit now as far as the odds of the cows moving up or moving down.
00:18:11
Speaker
But did you have any kind of initial reaction when you kind of learned of that? Yeah. Let's see. I'm refilling my glass of bourbon here. I could just picture you with the wig salon, you're refilling your glass of bourbon, but now it's your wife curling your hair. Oh.
00:18:34
Speaker
getting the perm. Yeah, man, you're just living the life, man. You know, the camps still have a 40% chance of getting a top four pick and really losing the coin flip. All that really means is that they're going to be one pick behind Oklahoma City.
00:18:53
Speaker
if they fall out of that top four, you know what I mean? So if Oklahoma gets the fifth pick, the Cavs get the sixth pick. If Oklahoma gets the sixth pick, the Cavs would get the seventh pick. So that's all that coin flip really means. Yeah, people just, I think just flip out and overreact. I think the Cavs are gonna get a top four pick, so I'm not worried about it. Yeah, I think the Cavs are due. I hope they're due. That's my hot take.
00:19:22
Speaker
the worst thing that can happen is another year of sliding back in the draft. And what jumps out to me is, yeah, overall they have a 40% chance of still moving up, but that's not, you know, that's each one of those picks ahead of them, you know, broken down into percentages. Like they have an 11.5% chance of winning the overall pick. It's not like they have a 40% chance, right? What's most alarming to me with where they fell
00:19:48
Speaker
is they now have a 25.5% chance of moving back to the seventh seed. And that 25% is the biggest percentage out of any potential movement they can have, right? So that's what scares me a little bit is, you know, their largest percentage now is having them moving back. We've seen sillier things happen, especially since the MBA has kind of restructured how all this works.
00:20:16
Speaker
it seems like every year somebody bounces up that shouldn't right somehow makes it into the top three and one of those top three teams slides back we know that we've done it the last two years right so here's hoping that this year we don't we don't we have some good luck we don't slide back we we slide up maybe we get into the top three this year or shock everybody and win the whole damn thing
00:20:39
Speaker
But I'm with you sitting in the four versus the five spot. I don't know how much that really changes things. It's just people kind of lose their minds when they see anything negative happen. And they kind of run with it. And again, they were kind of pointing back to that Boston win and the hate for Kevin Love because he finally showed up for a game and dropped 30 points that game. You know what I mean? Just all the hate comes out. It's because I was at the game wearing my Kevin Love jersey.
00:21:08
Speaker
That's why he did it. We've moved up in the draft before. It hasn't been all gloom and doom for the Cavs when it comes to being fifth, sixth pick in the lottery at that spot.
00:21:27
Speaker
You know how it goes, Alex. Fans always, it's all hindsight, but it's easy to go back and look and say, well, the Cavs drafted Colin Sexton instead of drafting or making the trade they needed to make the trade to move up to get Luca.
00:21:41
Speaker
Nobody know who the hell, I mean, did anybody know Luca was gonna be Luca at that time? Well, Luca got traded, right? Yeah, I mean, yeah, they did a swap, which, right, it was a draft night swap. So it's like, again, it's very easy to go back and play, you know, the redraft game.
00:21:58
Speaker
And that's what happens here whenever you don't land the first overall pick or you don't nail that pick. And I just think the Cavs fans see that we lost that coin flip and now it's gonna be doom and gloom no matter what. And really, that's not the case. We don't know what's gonna happen and you just gotta wait and see at this point.
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, do you know what date they decide their draft order? It's in June, right? June 22nd is sticking out to me. 22nd, 23rd, somewhere around there. It's the end of June. So we got a little less than a month to kind of find out our fate. And that's where the real draft lottery will happen. But we got about three and a half weeks before that happens. And I think the actual draft is sometime in July.
00:22:49
Speaker
not mistaken. Yeah, that sounds about right. Just side note, this woodenville bourbon is really good and they should probably sponsor us. Just throwing that out there. Yeah, I'm excited for the draft lottery to see where we fall because it's such a deep draft. As long as we get in the top five, I'm kind of rooting that we draft Cade Cunningham.
00:23:11
Speaker
We can go into that on another episode. Yeah, we'll get into all that. That's been the most popular name I've seen too. And I think it's simply just because fade for Kade kind of rhymes and all that stuff. So I feel like every bottom feeder team fan base is kind of hoping for that guy. But yeah, no, we'll cover all that in future episodes. We got to do our homework as always on college players as we don't pay too, too close attention.
00:23:38
Speaker
But I wanna go back real quick, Alex, before we move into some other topics, sticking with that Boston game and Kevin Love real quick. And this isn't to bring any hate on him or anything like that, but today the Cleveland Cavaliers released episode five of their road back documentary. You almost kind of forget that exists because they tend to go a couple months in between episodes. I was like, oh yeah, I kind of forgot about this. It feels like it's been since like March, since the last episode.
00:24:06
Speaker
But episode five came out today, Alex, and I sent you a text with the link a little bit before we started recording. And it was all about Kevin Love. The whole episode was Kevin Love kind of talking about his injury, the mental state that it put him in, and how he kind of struggled with having another season of being injured and not being able to contribute like he know he can.
00:24:33
Speaker
And I felt he came off very genuine as far as, you know, kind of having remorse and not being able to be out there. And at one point he even mentioned having like imposter syndrome and felt guilty, like he needed to apologize. So my takeaway was this is that, and that's great, you know, all of that still doesn't lobby for
00:24:56
Speaker
me wanting to keep him around and keep paying him 30 million dollars. But I also feel like, you know, he came off well in that I felt I do think Kevin Love is a good dude. I do think he wants to be out there and play. I don't think he's one of these guys is laughing behind the doors and collecting his money and not caring, you know, what anybody thinks about him. I do think it kind of gets to him a little bit that
00:25:18
Speaker
Again, he's that guy that has one of the largest contracts in the league that isn't really justified because of how much time he misses. But I thought he came off kind of well and just very genuine. Did you kind of get that take as well?
00:25:32
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you 100% after watching it. He just talked about how frustrated he was. And like you said, he felt like an imposter and felt like he needed to apologize. And he just wanted to be on the court with the team and be that veteran presence and show that veteran leadership on the court. And he wasn't able to do that because he just struggled with the... He talked about the calf injury specifically and how it was
00:26:00
Speaker
the most difficult injury that he has dealt with in his career. He said not the worst injury, but just the most difficult injury that he's had.
00:26:13
Speaker
I think he knows, I think he understands that he's supposed to be the leader of the team. He's getting paid like one. He's getting paid to be the best player on the team or right around there, right? And again, I do think it gets to him that he, you know, he kind of wasn't able to do that yet again. You know what I mean?
00:26:31
Speaker
So again, it won't go very long. I think with with some Cavs fans, I kind of just have already made up their mind on Kevin Love, and that's fine. But again, I do feel like, you know, he came off well. And like I said, it could be different. It could be Kyrie man.
00:26:47
Speaker
Right. It's like, you know, Kyrie leaves Cleveland and it goes to Boston where there's real fans and, you know, just pulling weird stuff like that. At least Kevin Love isn't like doing the weird card guy stuff where he's kind of just feel like you're getting dissed on top of it. You know what I mean? Adding insult to injury.
00:27:03
Speaker
So it's worth a watch cast fans. I would say he did talk about, you know, being excited about the young core and he talked about to like in years past, you know, he, when he would have an injury, he, he might let it get to him a little bit more mentally and kind of hide in the shadows to where this year he still tried to be a voice for the young guys and
00:27:25
Speaker
He said he spent a lot of time just being around the coaching staff during flights and dinners and that kind of stuff. Like I said, he could have just been off doing his own thing, collecting his paychecks. And it felt like he still cared and tried to make an impact any way he could. And the way by doing that this year was just trying to be a vet in the locker room from a voice standpoint. Yeah.
00:27:52
Speaker
I was a little disappointed that it didn't show kind of more behind the scenes of maybe, I don't know, him in the locker room talking or him talking to some of the other players or the video is mostly him sitting in a folding chair, looking at the, you know, talking, giving a monologue directly to the camera. I just wish it showed more, you know, him being maybe being worked on by trainers.
00:28:19
Speaker
for his injury or maybe doing some rehab or you know just those kind of things. I just wish it showed more things that we wouldn't normally see.
00:28:31
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Let's see some scenarios where he's giving a pep talk to one of the young guys, or like you said, doing some rehab, you know, kind of on his own when practice is over and everybody else isn't, you know, hitting the showers, he's out there still working to come back. You know, I'm sure that stuff happened. And like you said, it would have been nice to kind of be able to see some of those cut scenes. But outside of that, I thought it was a good episode. And I would say it's worth a watch for sure. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:29:01
Speaker
All right, Alex, so let's transition into something else now.
Management Silence and Roster Speculations
00:29:04
Speaker
So the Cavs are in the off-season. The first thing I gotta call out, man, I feel it's very weird. Maybe I'm just overthinking it, but it's been about, I think we're on like day 10 since the Cavs season has officially ended as we're recording this.
00:29:20
Speaker
And there's been no public comments made by anybody in the Cavs organization, no press conference from Colby talking, kind of recapping about the season. And, you know, we didn't achieve what we wanted to, but we're looking forward to the future. Yada, yada, yada. You know, there's been nothing yet. Maybe some player exit interviews.
00:29:40
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't know if that's strange or not. Like I'd almost have to go back and look like, well, in years past did the GM, whether it was a good year or a bad year, once their season ended, you know, that they come out and publicly speak after a week's worth of off season. I feel like that probably happened in LeBron days when you're trying to make championship runs.
00:30:01
Speaker
But I don't know if I'm overreacting to this. It just feels quiet right now. And I don't know what to think of it. Is that because Colby really is on the hot seat? I don't know. I don't expect Gilbert to come out and talk. It has to be ultimate that would come out and say anything at this point, right? Yeah, I don't know. I agree with you. It is strange. And then they released this video about Kevin Love. And that's all that has really been released.
00:30:28
Speaker
So that's something to keep an eye on. I remember saying in the last episode, you know, if something does go down, it's gonna go down sooner than later once the off-season starts. If they do make some sort of move, you know, like at the GM level, and I don't wanna go into whether they should or not, because we kind of already talked about that. But I feel like it would happen soon because, you know, you gotta get the next guy in there to prepare for the draft and off-season moves and all that kind of stuff. So I feel like the next,
00:30:56
Speaker
you know, the rest of this month of May and very early into June will kind of be telling. If something's going to happen, I would say it's got to happen by the first week of June or so. If something doesn't happen by then, then I would expect, you know, there's not going to be any kind of changes at that GM level.
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah. I don't see there being any changes as far as the front office is involved. There's a lot of people arguing it online. I know. And articles. There's always a lot of negativity, though, man. Negativity gets the clicks.
00:31:29
Speaker
It does. No one's going to click an article that says Kobe is safe. No, they won't. They won't. How about you and I play GM real quick? I want to bounce this off of you. The only kind of
00:31:46
Speaker
I don't even know how good of a rumor this is that has come out so far, was the Jared Allen thing and the contract. He's a free agent. He's due for a big payday. And I think we saw Alex that the rumors were he can get, it sounds like $100 million plus contract.
00:32:05
Speaker
Assuming that's over five years, right? And we kind of started talking about that a little bit through work or whatever and kind of what's your take on that? That would average out to about 20 million a year around that range. If you were the GM, would you give them that deal?
00:32:20
Speaker
Oh man, I gotta put me on the hot seat like that. This is why I'm not a GM. Play GM, man. Everybody else is playing it online. You gotta remember the circumstances. You traded for Drummond, you traded Drummond away once you brought in Allen, because you were clearly at that point banking more on Allen than you were on Drummond.
00:32:43
Speaker
You can't tell me now the Cavs aren't gonna pay him to secure him, because there's gonna be plenty of other teams that I'm guessing are gonna be willing to line up and pay him that amount of money. Yeah, I mean, you know, realistically, I think they have to. I don't think there's any way around it. I think they have to, other teams are gonna offer him that, so. Right, but I guess my, I'm trying to fill you out here. Do you wanna pay, are you comfortable paying him back because you have to,
00:33:11
Speaker
because it's Cleveland, it's a small market, other teams are gonna offer him that, you need to match it or whatever. Or are you comfortable paying him that because you are comfortable in the player he is and what you feel he can grow into? Like, do you feel that contract is validated? Nevermind the work Cleveland, nevermind we're a small market, nevermind other teams are gonna offer him that.
00:33:32
Speaker
Like just off of his basketball abilities, he's 23. This is the first year he's averaged double double numbers, has plenty of room to grow. Do you feel he's just kind of justified in that contract? I'm gonna say yes. I think he has a higher ceiling than we've seen. He's got lots of potential. I think he'll grow into that player.
00:33:58
Speaker
So yeah, I'm comfortable giving him that money and that contract. I mean, look at what we gave Kevin Love. I think I am too. I think I am too. And there's some fans arguing this too. And again, you're not going to please everybody, right? But again, he's 23. He's athletic as hell.
00:34:21
Speaker
can do a lot of things, and I don't see why he wouldn't continue to grow and improve. Toria, I'm with you. I feel he's worth that money. Never mind the other teams offering it or whatever. I don't know what my dollar threshold is. We get to around $25 million a year.
00:34:40
Speaker
26 million a year, like, ah, okay. Now we're getting up there a little bit more than what I wish we could. But if you can get them for 20 million a year for five years, I think it's going to be a steal. I really do. Yeah. It's Dan Gilbert's money. So I'm good with it. Exactly. So outside of that, that's probably the most kind of
00:35:02
Speaker
that'll probably happen, one of the first things that'll probably happen, maybe the draft happens first, I don't know. That's one of the, probably the number one move the Cavs want to get done on their offseason check board, write a checklist or whatever. And then you have the draft and all that stuff, that's great. But is there anything else that you want to, like, what do you think this Cavs team is missing at this point? Or what is their biggest need at this point?
00:35:24
Speaker
Um, cause you're going to add another 18 year old and 19 year old to the team and that's fine and dandy, but even if he's a stud, he isn't saving your franchise, not in year one, at least. I think it's got to be a wing. I think we got to be looking, uh, small forward. Um, you know, Hasman is not, has not, uh, proven that he is a starting small forward. Um, we let, uh, Kevin Porter Jr. Go.
00:35:51
Speaker
Windler has not panned out yet. No, he's always hurt. So yeah, I think we're hurting at the small forward position. There's a hole there that could be filled. So that's what I would be looking for.
00:36:07
Speaker
So Akuro was kind of slotted into that position this year. And I thought he did a good job, but I've seen some people argue he's a he's a tad bit undersized. Yeah, he's a shooting guard. Yeah, he'd be probably better slated at a shooting guard position. So I can see that argument. A wing is definitely needed.
00:36:32
Speaker
It's time to move on from the cheddies of the world. Because like he said, he's not going to be a starter. He's a rotational player best. We talked about that a thousand times. And I'm going to give a little bit of a different take of what I feel is needed just overall for this team. This team needs
00:36:52
Speaker
I think they need veterans. I think they need people that, players that know how to win. We are a very young team. I think Kevin Love's our oldest player now and Kevin Love's only 32. I can't think of anybody older than him. I think Delhi's younger yet or right around that same age. McGee was up there like a 33 or 34, but we let him go, right? So we're a very young team. I think you have your core four.
00:37:16
Speaker
Um three or four guys to build around with alan akuro garland and suction and and whoever you bring in through the draft and that's fine But I think the biggest thing this team needs to do to be able to make a jump next year Is add some veterans and I want to use two quick examples Look at the new york nicks in the atlanta hawks. They're currently battling right now in the playoffs as the four and five seat
00:37:40
Speaker
And it's not like they drafted some amazing player last year. They didn't draft LeBron last year that escalated them into legit playoff teams this year. Instead, they did things like the Hawks added Clint Capella and Gallinari and Lou Williams to their team, veterans that have been around for a while. And the New York Knicks did the same. They added Derrick Rose.
00:38:06
Speaker
We know what he's capable of. Alec Burks is killing it right now. We had him. They've added guys like Nerlin's Noel and Taj Gibson over the last several seasons. Those are all veteran guys and those aren't even superstar veterans. Cause I think the other thing that CAS fans or fans in general get hung up on is, is we need another superstar. If we can't get Paul George, we're screwed. You ain't getting Paul George. But the thing is, is you don't need Paul George. I think you just need to add,
00:38:35
Speaker
two or three more veterans to this team, swap out the cheddys of the world. I love deli, but it's time to move on from the delis of the world and bring in another guy like a Torian Prince. I think he's great. I think you need to bring in one, two, three more veterans like that, along with drafting smart and re-signing Allen. And I think, why not? Why can't you make that big jump like the Knicks did, who are the freaking four seed this year?
00:39:00
Speaker
It's crazy. And their draft pick, Toppin, right? Obi Toppin? It's not like he's the reason why. He's playing 11 minutes per game right now, averaging four points per game. He's not even the centerpiece. You know what I mean? Don't get hung up on whoever we draft is going to be the savior of the franchise. Yeah. At least not for a few years.
00:39:23
Speaker
Right. Even when we drafted Kyrie and LeBron, who were both the best players in each one of their drafts, look how long it took before a championship actually came.
00:39:32
Speaker
It took a lot of years of honing it, adding veterans, having the right group of players. And I think the Cavs just need to add a few more players to this roster that have some league experience, know how to win. And no, it's not gonna put them in championship contention or anything like that. But you could be that team next year that has that jump, like the New York Knicks who've been out of the playoffs for what? 10 years since like Mellow was there, I think.
00:40:00
Speaker
Well, I mean, we had the sixth man of the year, Jordan Clarkson, and we traded him for XM and a couple second rounders. Is that a Colby Altman blunder? That is, but...
00:40:14
Speaker
I was happy to see that, by the way. And good call, because I did want to mention that. Happy for Jordan Clarkson. He's in a good scenario. He got paid. He's on a good team. And he's contributing. And I just wish he was able to do that when he first came here. We were making the championship run.
00:40:30
Speaker
It was a weird thing. He came in mid-year and it was just a weird mesh of players that you were trying to put together to go for a championship run. But that's the kind of player I'm talking about, right? Like Jordan Clarkson isn't a superstar by any means. Lou Williams is not a superstar, but they're both one and the same. They know how to play the game. They know how to get buckets. They know they're veteran players. They know what they're doing. They're not still 18, 19, 20 years old and trying to figure things out.
00:40:58
Speaker
And I think that's what the team needs the most right now. It's just two or three more of those guys added to the roster. Hell, you had one with McGee last year, right? It has to be a smart veteran too. Like McGee, and he kind of just knew his role, right? And he just came in and he was very smart and just contributed for his 10 to 15 minutes a game and it made an impact. Yeah, McGee surprised me. Yeah, I enjoyed having McGee on the team. Same here, man. Same here.
00:41:24
Speaker
We've had some of those guys over the years, and we just let them go because of rebuilding or it's a contract thing. Going back to Clarkson, the Cavs, we didn't want to pay him what it was going to take to keep him around when we knew we were going into rebuild years after LeBron left for the second time.
00:41:43
Speaker
So we kind of had to let him walk. And McGee kind of the same thing, right? I understand why the Cavs traded him, but those are the guys that you got to get on this roster and keep at some point if you're actually serious about winning.
00:41:58
Speaker
Yep, totally agree. Simple as that man, simple as that. So yeah, it's gonna be an interesting off season.
Playoff Disengagement and Excitement for Offseason
00:42:06
Speaker
Gotta get through these playoffs. Have you even been paying attention to the playoffs at all? A little bit. Sometimes when I'm flipping channels and I see a game on, I'll stop and watch it. Like I caught the Lakers and Warriors game and watched the end of that, which was a really good game.
00:42:23
Speaker
But I'll give you props for watching that. Yeah. Well, you know, it was LeBron versus Death Curry. So yeah, they had me interested. And even though I know LeBron's with the Lakers and I hate the Lakers, I still wanted them to bury the Warriors because I still hate the Warriors no matter what. Yeah, for sure. We battled them in the finals so many times. I just hate the the Warriors even more. Right. Right.
00:42:48
Speaker
I haven't been, I haven't really been watching any of the games, but I've been paying attention. And, you know, I see the box scores or I see the highlights on Twitter and stuff. And there's some interesting stuff going on. Luca out there doing his thing. They're up 2-0 on the Clippers. That's kind of a surprise right now. And that's up 2-0 with not having home court advantage. That was on the road, both those wins. Trey Young's going off in New York.
00:43:15
Speaker
Um, you know, the crowd's booing him and he's just going off. It's the game winner. He's having another good game tonight. So that's kind of been a good series to keep an eye on again, two teams that were able to make the jump this year and now they're battling in the playoffs.
00:43:28
Speaker
So there's some interesting stuff going on that the storylines will get better as you get into the later rounds of the playoffs. And I'll be keeping my eyes on it, but really I just want to get to the end of the playoffs so that the real off season can start for the Cavs and get to the draft and free agencies signing and maybe some trades here or there. So I'm excited. Yeah, can't wait. All right, Alex. Well, we covered a lot in this episode. Yeah, we sure did. Yeah, it was good getting back on the mic.
00:43:56
Speaker
and talk in the breeze, but I think we're gonna wrap up this episode. Wanna thank you as always CAS fans for tuning in and listening. And Alex, you wanna let them know where they can follow us and connect with us.
00:44:09
Speaker
I do. And I also want to point out one thing real quick that Darius Garland received three third place votes for most improved player. I did see that. Congrats, Darius Garland. Who ended up winning that? Do we know? That is a good question. Yeah, I don't know who won that.
00:44:33
Speaker
I'd be very curious because I did feel like, I didn't think about that. I was like, oh, I wonder if Garland will get any consideration because he did make a big leap from year one to year two. He did have some injuries throughout the season two. So I mean, he did miss some games, not a ton, but I don't know how much that plays a factor and how good your team is and stuff. So I'm just curious who actually won it this year.
00:44:58
Speaker
I'm trying to stall to see if you can find it, but if not, that's fine. I was scrolling through their article looking, but it doesn't mention it. That's all right. I'll look it up and probably grip my teeth into like, seriously, that guy. Yeah. But follow us on Twitter at calves pick and roll. We got a Facebook page calves pick and roll podcast and shoot us an email calves pick and roll at gmail.com. Wherever you're listening, leave us a like, leave us a review. Click that five stars. We'd appreciate it.
00:45:28
Speaker
Yes we would. Alright CAS fans, thanks again and we will talk to you again soon. Peace out CAS fans.