Caris LeVert at Cavs media day.
Practice Notebook: A hidden decision, formalities, and roster cutdown day
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The preseason has finished for the Cleveland Cavaliers and now the regular season awaits.
This weekend meant a lot of decisions needed to be made, including the who the team is going to start at small forward. That decision won’t be announced to the world until Wednesday when the season starts, according to head coach J.B. Bickerstaff. Even then, it’s unlikely that it’s revealed until 30 minutes prior to tip off when the starting lineups are due.
That said, Bickerstaff told the media on Saturday that a decision is close to being made internally on who starts alongside Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen, and Evan Mobley. At this point, it’s fair to surmise that the two options left are Caris LeVert and Isaac Okoro.
“I could say, there’s almost a decision made,” Bickerstaff said.
LeVert is certainly the more talented player, but Okoro may be the better fit. It will be an interesting thing to find the results of when Wednesday does arrive.
Cutdown day
The Cavaliers did announce a series of roster moves on Saturday as well as the team waived five players. Sharife Cooper, Nate Hinton, R.J. Nembhard, Jamorko Pickett, and Mamadi Diakite were all cut loose by the team.
“It’s one of those things where Koby [Altman] and [Mike Gansey] make the conversations easier because it’s not something they just plop on you the last minute,” Bickerstaff said. “These are things where we start having conversations in advance to kind of hash it all out and figure out what we want to do next. The conversation for me is nowhere near as difficult as it is for the guys we have to have it with. In essence their dream, at the moment, being paused, at the minimum, sometimes, for guys, being taken away, that’s more difficult. That’s the hard part, like, you have to have that conversation. The conversations that we have, that’s business, but it’s the human aspect that makes the conversation so difficult to have with guys.”
Of that group, Nembhard was one a two-way contract and it may have been the biggest surprise to see him waived. Diakite was also seen as having an outside chance at making the team’s opening night roster, but the Cavaliers opted to move forward with just 14 players on NBA contracts.
“We’re in those conversations with Koby, Gans, and understanding the financial flexibility in all those things. There’s gonna come a point where we made need to, but right now we’re in agreement with the decision to leave that 15th spot open.”
Cutting Nembhard means that the Cavaliers have one open two-way contract slot, with the other one being filled by Isaiah Mobley.
Just a formality
The roster cut downs weren’t the only thing announced by the Cavaliers this weekend. The team also said that it had exercised the contract options on both Mobley and Okoro.
For Mobley, it’s his third-year contract team option for next season. This move, which was strictly a formality, means that Mobley will be making $8.8 million during the 2023-24 season. He will be eligible to then sign a contract extension with the team during the summer of 2024 that’s similar to the one Garland signed with the Cavs this past summer. That deal could be a five-year contract worth up to $205 million, with a salary of $35.3 million in the first season, according to Spotrac.
As far as Okoro goes, this move too as just a formality despite his future being much more uncertain than Mobley’s. With the team picking up his option, he’s set to make $8.9 million next season. The Cavaliers can then give him the qualifying offer, which is projected to be $11.8 million for him, and would make him a restricted free agent during the summer of 2024.
