Cavs: The team should consider removing Koby Altman

The Cavs need to move on from Koby Altman

Chris Fedor wants you to know that he predicted a similar season to the one the Cavs had and that there’s no need for outrage. The problem with that thought, however, is that there is. The Cavs are averaging just 20 wins over the last three years. You can argue that it’s just a rebuild, the shortened seasons didn’t help, there’s “talent” on this team and the like but at the end of the day, the New York Knicks drafted one guy and signed one coach, and turned their franchise around overnight. Clearly, Koby Altman isn’t sure what he’s doing.

It doesn’t take three, four, five, or six years to turn around a franchise if you know what you’re doing. The Knicks made some small moves, sure but they only brought in Alec Burks this year in free agency, they drafted dark horse Rookie of the Year Immanuel Quickley and hired Tom Thibodeau. That’s it, those were the big moves they made in 2020.

They already had Julius Randle, who wasn’t blowing anyone away in 2019-2020, and R.J. Barrett was fine as a rookie and fine as a sophomore, but no one is confusing this corp with the 2005 Phoenix Suns.

So the Cavs are again in the lottery. They’ve been in the lottery every year since 1999 unless LeBron James was on this squad. Even then they were still in the lottery twice during his tenure. The Cavs have gone through countless coaches, turned over their roster nearly every year it felt like, and has largely just been a mess.

Sure, Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, and Isaac Okoro are promising, but that doesn’t mean they fit. An NBA team needs to fit. Players have skill sets that make them best suited for individual roles on a team. Those players don’t always fit well with one another, case in point the Cavs. Sexton and Garland could both be All-Stars but they won’t be next to one another. Sexton is a high-volume ball handler who gives up more points defensively than he scores offensively. Garland is a good one-for-one type of player but he’ll never score enough points to make up for Sexton’s defensive inabilities. Nor is he a good enough defender in his own right to cover up for Sexton’s inability on the defense front.

Then you put Sexton in a defense-first system and things go wonky.

That’d be like putting MVP Steve Nash in the Lakers Triangle Offense. He’d look like a shell of his MVP-self. Why? Because Nash was arguably the fastest player in the NBA during his tenure at the top, putting him in a system that utilized his speed and endurance allowed him to be the best version of himself he can be. Making him play in half-court offenses would of been limiting and exposed him in ways the Suns seven-second offense never did.

Think about if James was only ever put on the wing and told to look for open threes only. As if he was Kyle Korver. Think if Tim Duncan was told to be a point-forward and take the ball up the court all the time like Hedo Turkoglu. He’d be awful at that. This is part of the problem with Sexton, he’s always going to be a defensive liability, and putting him in a system where that’s exploited isn’t great.

That’s the problem with the front office. They don’t understand how to best utilize their players. Sure, some of it falls on Cavs head coach J.B. Bickerstaff for not adapting but he was hired to implement his style and system. If you hire a sushi chef but you want steak, why would you be mad when he makes you sushi? That’s what Bickerstaff is doing; what he was hired to do.

It’s on Altman to hire better. It’s on Altman to vet better. To build better. Just because he’s always making deals, doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing. The problem comes back to the same thing we said last year. This isn’t the first time we pointed out these issues with Altman.

It needs to be the last, however.