Predicting the year-end awards for the Cleveland Cavaliers
By Chad Porto
The Cleveland Cavaliers are gearing up for the playoffs but who can expect postseason honors?
The Cleveland Cavaliers have done everything they can this season to make the playoffs and they’ve done just that. For the first time since 1998, the team will play postseason basketball without LeBron James on the roster. To break such a streak, they needed key players to be developed and to break out.
Those players, despite how they arrived here, all helped the Cavs get to the postseason. Some of them had a bigger impact than others and those players deserve to be acknowledged. Not only them, but one could argue their head coach deserves some love too.
So who among the Cavs deserves some post-season love? Well, we have our picks right here, but who do you think deserves a postseason award or roster spot?
J.B. Bickerstaff – Coach of the Year runner up
Coach J.B. Bickerstaff has had an up-and-down sort of year this season, but that’s not really a dispute. His lineups have been suspect offensively, and the Cavs are near the bottom of the league in points. They’re also, however, near the top in scoring efficiency. According to NBA.com’s advanced stats, the Cavs are 7th in the league in offensive rating at 115.7, and first in defensive rating at 110.1.
Clearly, the Cavs are having a good year, and Bickerstaff’s systems are a huge part of that. Bickerstaff knows how to coach defense and he knows how to get the most out of the players around him. His play-calling is top-notch but what he struggles with are patience and rotation management.
His inability to give guys more than a few games to work their way through slumps has hurt the Cavs this year, namely Dean Wade and Cedi Osman. Despite that, Bickerstaff the Cavaliers to the 4th seed, the playoffs, and a 50-win season. So he clearly knows what he’s doing, even if he’s not perfect.