Cavs: Either a roster overhaul or a change in coach need to happen

The Cavs are at an impasse and need to decide their next steps.

The season is over and we know two things. The first is that the team isn’t working as-is. The second is that the GM is just throwing talent at the wall and seeing who sticks. That’s a horrid methodology and one that will keep the Cavs searching and the bottom of the barrel for years to come.

The team is built to be very much a run and gun offense, with small quick guards, perimeter shooting bigs, and forwards with ball-handling capabilities. The team really only has two major defensive players and they’re not even to the level they would need to be to justify building around them in Isaac Okoro and Jarrett Allen. You would need Okoro to play like Tony Allen of Memphis-fame, while the Cavs’ Allen would need to play like Ben Wallace; and then you could justify building around their defensive skillsets.

The Cavs have got to pick a direction.

So that means one of two things, either J.B. Bickerstaff is the guy and so that means trading away half the roster to build your very own grit and grind team in Cleveland. Or, go get someone like Mike D’Antoni and keep the roster mostly intact.

If you keep Bickerstaff in place, then you’d have to buy out Kevin Love to clear his roster space for someone that fits Bickerstaff’s system, move on from Collin Sexton because he doesn’t play defense and re-invest in retooling the rest of the roster and over-spending on guys like Allen.

If you move on from Bickerstaff and go with D’Antoni, you don’t need to worry about overhauling the rest of the roster, but it’d make sense to let Allen walk then, trading or releasing Love and running a lineup of Darius Garland, Collin Sexton, Okoro, Cedi Osman, and Larry Nance as your starting five next year.

Something has to change because this roster doesn’t have the talent to play a defense-first style, nor does it have the right coach to maximize the talent it has. You can’t go in in both directions and expect to find success splitting the difference.