Caris LeVert and Marcus Smart. ESPN Cleveland/Rob Lorenzo
Caris LeVert keeps making winning plays for the Cavs, no matter what his role is
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Danny Cunningham covers the Cavaliers for 850 ESPN Cleveland and TheLandOnDemand.com
Professional athletes tend to be creatures of habit. The more regular things can be, the more often they’re in position to be successful. An athlete knowing his or her role on a regular basis is how things operate most of the time. It’s a rarity to see success when an athlete goes into a competition not knowing exactly what is asked of them, or if that ask is different on a nightly basis.
That’s what makes what Caris LeVert has been doing for the Cavs this year even more impressive.
LeVert has been in various situations this year and been able to find success consistently in different ways. One night, LeVert is asked to carry a heavy burden in the scoring column, the next he’ll find himself defending the other team’s best player while distributing the ball on offense.
His role has been impacted by the absence of Darius Garland, the addition of Isaac Okoro to the starting lineup, then the exchange of Okoro for Dean Wade. Everything that has changed with the Cavs throughout the early portion of this season has had an impact on the specifics of LeVert’s job on a nightly basis.
The goal of helping the Cavs win games, however, hasn’t changed.
When LeVert earned the starting small forward position, his role was thought to be as the third ballhandler and primary defender of the other team’s best perimeter player. When Garland was lost for two weeks with a lacerated eyelid, that role immediately changed.
“It’s a little challenging, but it’s fun just because I have to be locked in,” LeVert said of his ever-changing role. “It challenges me to be the best version of myself. It’s definitely something I’m looking forward to getting better at.”
Throughout his career, LeVert has often been tasked with different things. He’s dealt with injuries, tumultuous basketball situations, and uncertainty surrounding involvements in trades. He’s rarely had the chance to evolve his game because of one reason or another. That wasn’t the case this past summer, as LeVert was heathy and feeling better than he had in the last three or four years. His evolvement as a player helps to allow his role to evolve on a regular basis.
“It’s definitely a challenge, but it’s fun,” LeVert said. “It’s new for me, for this team, but it’s fun and I’m looking forward to continuing to grow into that role and keep evolving as well.”
LeVert has shined this year in a couple of different areas that many may not have expected. Most nights he’s been tasked with defending the best perimeter player on the opposing team, a list that includes Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, Washington’s Bradley Beal, and Chicago’s DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine. He’s drawn praise from teammates numerous times throughout the season for his efforts on that side of the court.
“He’s been guarding; I don’t think he gets enough credit for the defensive effort he’s put in,” Donovan Mitchell said of LeVert before Wednesday’s game against Boston. “Everybody saw the 41-point game, but he’s been doing it all. Like I was telling him, he does every drill like it’s Game 7 of the Finals. Over that time when you’re continuously going that hard it’s nice to see because then you reap the benefits on the floor, he had a big night. Defensively he’s giving guys fits and he takes pride in that.”
That’s been a key to the Cavs’ success so far this season. It’s no secret they’re a team with a loaded backcourt and two defensive lynchpins in Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley in the frontcourt. The perceived weakness for the Cavs was wing defense, but LeVert has quelled that concern for now.
“Defensively, he's usually on one of the top players on the other team,” Mobley said of LeVert. “So that really plays a big role. He does a lot of our different defensive schemes each game. He has a lot of different rules he has to follow, defensively wise, but I feel like that's what really makes them effective when he's not scoring.”
That role may be the most meaningful that he’s taken on this season, even if it’s the one that goes unnoticed. In LeVert’s 36.5 minutes per game this season, the Cavaliers are outscoring opponents by 12.5 points per 100 possessions. The team’s defensive rating with LeVert on the floor is 102.5, a number only shared by Jarrett Allen among other starters.
Offensively for LeVert, it’s been a different story.
You may have heard this before, but the National Basketball Association is a make-or-miss league. Some nights, the ball goes in the basket, while other nights it rattles around the rim and pops out. Whether that 29.5-inch spherical ball goes into a 56.5-inch goal determines the outcome of games, and thus the perception of players.
That isn’t always the only thing that tells whole picture, though.
This sentiment may apply most to LeVert. Last Friday, he played a nearly flawless game that resulted in 41 points on 12-of-21 shooting and seven assists. It was easily the best game he’s played since the team traded for him back in February. On Sunday night, LeVert finished a win against the Knicks with one point – that came on a technical free throw – on 0-of-9 shooting. It wasn’t LeVert’s shining moment or a box score that he’ll want to remember.
But it’s a night that happens. Being successful in the NBA is more than just scoring, and even on the nights when LeVert hasn’t been able to impact the game as well as he or the Cavs would like in terms of his final stat line, he’s been able to put his fingerprint on the game in other ways.
This season, LeVert has consistently made winning plays for the Cavs. He’s done the dirty work on both ends of the floor. Even on the night he scored 41 points in Boston, it wasn’t just about scoring.
“He’s not being a selfish, ball-dominant scorer,” head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said the day after LeVert’s 41-point performance against the Celtics. “Even the fact that he had 40, to get the seven assists, he was just making the right play. Sometimes the play was to shoot it. But when they brought bodies to him and his teammates were open, he made the right play and found the assist. He played a complete floor game last night and just happened to have 41 points to go with it.”
The way LeVert has been most impressive this season on the offensive end of the floor has been his ability to share the basketball with others and create easy scoring opportunities for others. Through the first seven games of the season, LeVert is averaging a career-high 6.3 assists per game. The sample size is small, of course, but the number may not even live up to the eye test for how good he’s been in that area.
There are going to be nights where LeVert shoots the ball well, but even on the nights he doesn’t he’s still found a way to positively impact the team on that end of the floor. He’s been the player that the Cavaliers envisioned when they traded for him last February.
According to Second Spectrum, LeVert is averaging 9.6 potential assists per game and creating 16.1 points per game for others. His play making has been needed while Garland was out. One of the interesting things to follow with Garland back on the floor is what his role becomes as the third ballhandler instead of the second one behind Mitchell.
If the start to this season is any indication, LeVert will adjust accordingly and continue to make a positive impact for the Cavs no matter what he’s asked to do.
