Cavs final report card: Koby Altman and front office

We’re beginning our end-of-season review series for the Cleveland Cavaliers. This time, we’re going to go with the report card format.

As is the case with our postgame report cards, a “B” grade represents a player or group meeting their standards.

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We’ll start with Koby Altman and the front office.

Key moves

The Cavs had more postseason success this year than they have at any point since LeBron James left for Los Angeles. That’s an accomplishment.

The front office played a large role in that happening. They reshaped the roster at the deadline to one that could win multiple playoff rounds. However, that overhaul was only needed because of their missteps over the last few years. Additionally, the runway for success has been significantly shortened. They deserve criticism for that.

In many ways, the Cavs tried to build a roster to compete against the 2025 Indiana Pacers — a team they would never face again.

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The plan last offseason was to increase their versatility at the expense of specialty players like Okoro and Jerome. This trade-off took away some of the intangibles that made the previous group special.

They weren’t the free-flowing motion offense that defined the 64-win version. Instead, they were mostly a jump shooting team that had very few on-ball playmakers. The Cavs didn’t lose their free-flowing offensive identity after the Garland trade — as he suggested last week — they simply never established it at all this year.

This season’s plan fell apart shortly after takeoff. Ball, Nance, and Bryant didn’t provide much versatility, with the main failure being Ball.

Injuries zapped Ball of being a productive player at all. He wasn’t able to get into the paint, and the outside shot abandoned him. Additionally, the defensive versatility wasn’t there due to his diminished lateral quickness. In the end, this all led to Ball not even being in the league by the end of the season.

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These failed acquisitions, in addition to the team’s overall injuries, exposed the lack of playable depth during the regular season.

The front office made the best of a bad…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/cavs-final-report-card-koby-100000728.html

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Publish date : 2026-06-08 10:00:00

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