Evan Mobley shoots a jumper against the Los Angeles Lakers. Rob Lorenzo/ESPN Cleveland
Training Camp Notebook: Mobley to miss some time, Windler feeling healthy, and breaking Okoro out of the box
You must have an active subscription to read this story.
Click Here to subscribe Now!
The Cavs are set to take on the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night on the road to open the preseason. Obviously, things won’t look the same when the regular season begins in Toronto, but head coach J.B. Bickerstaff did say on Monday that all players on the roster that are healthy are expected to play against the Sixers.
One of the guys that won’t be available in the game is second-year big man Evan Mobley. The team announced on Monday night that Mobley sprained his ankle and would not only miss the game in Philadelphia, but also the next one to two weeks of action. It’s not known at this time just how severe the sprain is.
This, of course, instantly becomes the biggest story of training camp for the Cavs. The team has big plans for the second-year player this season, and this isn’t the start that anyone envisioned. Given the timing of the injury, even without knowing the severity, it could make sense for the Cavs to take a bit of a conservative approach regarding Mobley’s ankle. Putting him back on the floor for game action before he’s back to full health could be something that negatively impacts the Cavs later in the season.
It's probably a safe bet that Mobley won’t see any action in the preseason, and with opening night for the team just 16 days away, his status for opening night in Toronto is in question.
Speaking of health…
Health is something that often with professional athletes can be taken for granted by fans. Often times, when guys have to spend too much time rehabbing from injuries, they don’t have the time or ability to work on their craft in the way that they’d like to. For a couple of guys on the Cavs, they’re past that for the first time in quite some time.
For Cavs fourth-year guard Dylan Windler, he was healthy in the offseason for the first time in his injury-plagued career. In his first three years in the league, Windler has played in just 81 games, all of which came after he missed his entire rookie year due to injury.
A stress reaction was found in Windler’s leg prior to the start of his rookie season, and he hasn’t spent much time with his name not on the injury report since. Windler has since dealt with injuries to his wrist, knee, hip, back, and calf that have all cost him time. It can be hard to carve out an NBA career while dealing with those things, but it can be even harder getting better when more time is spent on the training table than on the court.
“That's just part of it when you have surgery, you're going to have to rehab a lot and it's months and months of work,” Windler said on Monday. “Mentally, getting over that hurdle you know there's always going to be a lot of talk when you go through injuries like that. There's gonna be people, 'can he play at this level?' You've gotta deal with that outside chirping. For me, I've always just kind of stayed close to my support system and the people that I work with every day and see every day. They have been there for me, and they continue to encourage me and that's helped me get through the last couple of years.”
For Windler, this season is essentially now or never, not only with the Cavs, but potentially for his NBA career. Windler is on the fourth and final year of his guaranteed rookie contract. The Cavaliers can make him a restricted free agent next summer, but even the qualifying offer is far from a given considering what Windler’s career has been to date.
“It's a big season. It's the last year of my rookie deal. You never really know how that's going to turn out. For me, I try to just control just what I can control. That stuff is gonna be beyond me. If I come in here and work hard every day, it's gonna be up to JB [Bickerstaff]ultimately with the minutes and the rotations and it's up to Koby [Altman] with the GM stuff with the contract and all that. Kinda just try to focus on myself during this time and just play basketball.”
Windler enters camp as a guy that’s not guaranteed to have a role on a night-to-night basis, but he’s also at a position of need. The Cavs vitally need guys that can excel on the wing. It’s a crowded room, but a legitimate competition for minutes.
Getting Okoro out of the box
As far as the competition for the starting small forward position goes, Isaac Okoro is on the long list of guys that are options to start. He’s a player that has shown he can be successful on the defensive end of the floor but is a bit more of an unknown on the offensive side of the floor.
The Cavs are hoping that changes this season.
“A lot of what happened to Isaac last year was on me. We put Isaac sort of in a box to try to create as much spacing and get room to the other guys on the offensive end of the floor,” Bickerstaff said. “So, Isaac does what we asked him to do. A lot of what people were watching was on us and was systematic. We know for us to get where we want to go, Isaac has to continue to move. That means as a coaching staff we have to give him the freedom to play to his strengths and I think that's what we'll see this year.”
What Okoro’s role looks like on offense will be interesting to follow. That ‘box’ that Okoro was essentially the corners on offense. He was asked to stand there and knock down open 3-pointers. Last season he knocked down 35% of his 3-point chances.
In a vacuum, that’s a fine number. The issue is that so many of Okoro’s shots are coming in what are deemed ‘wide open’ opportunity – when the closest defender is six feet or more away. Last season, 34.3% of Okoro’s overall shot attempts were of that variety and he knocked down just 35.1% of them.
In other words, teams are willing to bet that Okoro isn’t going to make them pay if he’s left open, and to date he hasn’t. For the Cavs to not only get the most out of Okoro, but also to break him out of his box, those wide-open threes being knocked down could go a long way.
