Cleveland Cavaliers have changed a lot of things this summer and their team will look much different next season. The biggest roster change they made was moving Kyrie Irving to the Boston Celtics and receiving Isaiah Thomas in exchange for him. Thomas is expected to run the Cavaliers' offense next year, and it will be interesting to see if he can do a great job like Irving did it.
Beside Thomas, the reigning Eastern Conference champions received Jae Crowder and Ante Zizic. While Crowder will undoubtedly be a very important piece of the roster, it is still unknown whether he will be a starter or come off the bench.
This largely depends on the rest of the starting lineup the Cavaliers will use throughout the season. Specifically, it depends on Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson.
Love and Thompson
Beside Kyrie Irving and LeBron James, the Cavaliers' starting five included Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson last year. Standing at 6-foot-9, Thompson is an undersized center. However, this hasn't affected his performance as he does a fantastic job grabbing rebounds and playing tough and physical defense.
Playing under 30 minutes per game last season, Tristan Thompson averaged 9.2 rebounds. He was also ranked fifth in offensive rebounds per game with 3.7. He struggled during the NBA Finals as he averaged only 5.8 rebounds in the series.
Thompson underperformed and it was one of the reasons why the Cavaliers lost the finals.
On the other side, Kevin Love is also a phenomenal rebounder. At 6-foot-10, the power forward averaged 11.1 rebounds per game last season, which was good enough for the eighth place among all players.
Love could replace Thompson
Inserting Love in Thompson's place would allow the Cavaliers to use Jae Crowder in the starting lineup.
They would retain their rebounding as Kevin Love is capable of doing a great job on the glass, but they would lose size and interior presence Thompson provides.
However, it seems that Cleveland is going to retain Tristan Thompson in the starting lineup. “Right now we’re just trying to get all of our pieces together and right now Tristan’s our starter,” head coach Tyronn Lue told Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com.
“I’m just thinking we’re going to run a lot more stuff through Kevin, more at the elbows, like we’ve done the last year and a half. Just trying to figure out with our new pieces and our new players and just see what works best for us.”
While the lineup with Crowder and Love does seem like a great idea, especially because of its quickness, it appears that the Cavaliers will stick to Thompson and Love as a big-man duo in the starting lineup.
