How the Cavs changed everything while changing very little

The Cleveland Cavaliers arrived at what felt like a crossroads this past summer. On the heels of an injury-marred roller coaster of a season in which only surface-level progress was made, and with the specter of Donovan Mitchell's free agency looming, some kind of directional adjustment felt possible, if not probable. Instead, the organization basically took a page out of the Yogi Berra quote book: When they came to the fork in the road, they took it.

First, Mitchell agreed to extend his contract through at least 2026-27. His backcourt mate, Darius Garland, seemingly recommitted after reportedly entertaining the possibility of pushing for a trade. And then the front office extended the jumbo frontcourt of Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, locking in a core four that showed flashes of immense promise in two seasons but also encountered roadblocks because of fit issues and injuries (the latter led to them playing only 457 minutes together in 2023-24). The supporting cast around that quartet also remained identical. The one personnel change Cleveland made was on the sideline, where Kenny Atkinson replaced J.B. Bickerstaff as head coach.

The hope was that better health from the core four, a few Atkinsonian stylistic tweaks, and some internal improvement (namely a Garland bounce back and an offensive step forward from Mobley) would combine to jolt the team out of neutral. And so far they're batting 1.000 on those swing factors, which have coalesced into a 14-game season-opening win streak - the sixth-longest of its kind in NBA history. That start has been powered not only by Cleveland's reliably excellent defense (currently a top-seven unit for the fourth straight year) but by the most efficient offense in the league. This from a team that finished 16th in offensive rating last season and is yet to get a single minute out of would-be starting small forward Max Strus.

It can be foolhardy to buy too much into results at this juncture of the early season. Hot streaks happen. Heck, the Cavs had a stretch in which they won 17 of 18 games last season, and they still didn't feel much like contenders when all was said and done. They've played one of the softest schedules in the league to date, and they're riding some wildly hot 3-point shooting that's bound to cool off.

That said, they've aced the handful of true tests they've faced, grinding out a crunch-time win over the Knicks and absolutely blasting the Lakers and Warriors. Maybe more to the point, the team looks and feels different than its other recent iterations, even though so many of its components are the same.

As much as anyone or anything, the avatar of that change is a more empowered, more assertive, more forcecul, more fluid version of Mobley. This Mobley takes it upon himself to race the ball up the floor after snagging defensive rebounds, runs a handful of inverted pick-and-rolls every game, and generally spends more time piloting the offense, whether operating at the elbow or running delay from the top. Though his raw counting stats don't fully capture the extent of his role shift, his usage rate and average time of possession have both spiked, as have his drives and transition possessions.

As I wrote about last season, this is the way the NBA is trending, with increasingly skilled big men taking on increasingly prominent roles as teams recognize the cascading benefits of running more offense through them. Doing so not only facilitates all manner of dynamic off-ball actions, it can mitigate spacing issues by turning a non-shooter (in most cases) into a playmaker the defense has to account for. It also has a way of making life easier for guards like Mitchell and Garland, who get more opportunities to receive the ball on the move and in the flow, rather than being tasked with creating advantages from a standstill with defenses loading up on them.

"If you have a guard and want to give him an opportunity to not be bottled up, figure out how to get him off that ball," Kings coach Mike Brown told me when I asked about his offensive system accelerating that trend.

Garland and Mitchell are both spending roughly two fewer minutes per game with the ball in their hands, and neither ranks inside the top 30 in total time of possession after they finished ninth and 13th last season, respectively. Incidentally, Garland is having by far his most efficient scoring season, and he and Mitchell both have the lowest turnover rates of their careers.

Of course, that only really works if the big man assuming more of the on-ball orchestration is both a savvy playmaker and a legitimate threat to score. In that sense, what we're seeing here is really a marriage of developmental gains and coaching philosophy, with Mobley rising to meet Atkinson's challenge by tightening his handle, becoming a quicker decision-maker, and building up more strength and resilience as an attacker.

You could say the same about the way the team as a whole is playing. After all, every coach comes into every season preaching the importance of sharing the ball, of playing with trust, continuity, and pace. How many of their teams actually wind up executing all those principles to a T?

The Cavs have jumped from 22nd to 12th in offensive pace, most notably getting shots up more than a second faster after opponent makes, per Inpredictable. They're employing more guard screens, both in the aforementioned inverted actions for Mobley and in small-small pick-and-rolls. Atkinson's also tweaked the half-court spacing a bit by running more five-out sets.

Initiating the offense via Mobley or Allen (the latter of whom is a better playmaker than his screen-and-dive reputation suggests) makes that alignment more tenable. But simply starting possessions with them spaced in the corner or weak-side slot rather than the dunker spot can complicate a defense's help points. It opens up opportunities for cuts and skip DHOs (another concept sweeping the league), with Mobley holding the threat of the keeper in his back pocket:

Even without Strus, the Cavs are running a full 10-man rotation, with no one playing more than 31 minutes a game. And their bench, led by Ty Jerome and a blistering Caris LeVert, has been dominating. Guys who've historically been one-way players, like Sam Merrill and Georges Niang, are battling hard and rotating with precision on defense. Dean Wade is Cleveland's only rotation player with a below-average true shooting percentage, and Dean Wade rocks.

So, the Cavs are playing a bit differently, but they're also just playing a lot better. And let's be clear: they were already a very good team. They won 51 games and finished with the league's second-best net rating in Mitchell's first season in Cleveland, and then clawed their way to a top-four seed and a playoff series win last year despite disastrous health luck. And it's not like Bickerstaff didn't try to instill some of these same principles. It's that his rotation was stretched thin, Mobley wasn't ready, Jerome was sidelined with an injury rather than cooking opposing second units, and Garland was broken.

That last point is probably the most important variable in this whole equation. Garland never got right last season after straining his hamstring on opening night and then breaking his jaw shortly after returning. His handle was noticeably looser - probably due to the loss of grip strength that typically comes with jaw fractures - and he wasn't comfortable playing through contact, probably because he lost 15 pounds while drinking through a straw for weeks.

This season, Garland's reminding everyone what a special talent he is: an elite shooter both off the bounce and the catch, whose passing vision and ability to maintain a live dribble in traffic help make Cleveland's two-big lineups offensively viable. Due in part to the schematic adjustment that has him initiating less, a much larger share of his threes are catch-and-shoots this year, and he's canning 49% of them. He's also shooting 66% at the rim (his previous career high was 59%) and a comical 71% from floater range. None of those numbers are sustainable, but the process that's helped produce them suggests a career year could absolutely be in the cards.

A particularly encouraging sign is that he and Mitchell have recaptured the synergy of their first season together, after their fit looked janky and control of the offense often devolved into a tug-of-war last year. At the end of the day, the two of them are still the ones creating the vast majority of the advantages here. They're the reason Mobley and Allen rank second and third in the league in dunks, behind only Giannis Antetokounmpo.

They can both thrive running their own transitional lineups alongside one of the two bigs, but unlike last season, the starting and closing lineups with both of them on the floor have also been elite. It helps that they're insulated by the league's best defensive frontcourt, but they're better defenders than they get credit for, especially with a healthy Garland back to playing with real physicality at the point of attack.

Mitchell's contributions should not be forgotten in all of this. Not only because it was his commitment that paved the way for the Cavs to see how far this roster could take them, but because he's willingly loosened his grip on the steering wheel after a season in which he butted his way into the MVP conversation as the team's sole driver of offense for extended stretches. Despite conceding touches, his per-minute scoring average is right on par with where it's been the last two years, and it still feels like he has another gear to hit.

When a good team has struggled in the past to get over the proverbial hump, there's always a knee-jerk impulse to scrutinize any ostensible signs of progress, and try to discern what those positive indicators portend in the big picture. In this case, that means speculating about whether these same-but-different Cavs are good enough to overcome the playoff foibles that have tripped them up the last two years. Given the ugliness of their first-round loss to the Knicks in 2023, and the unconvincing nature of their seven-game squeaker over the inexperienced Magic last spring, those questions are not only inevitable but valid.

The thing is, those questions are also a total drag. Who wants to spend a magical run in November worrying about whether spacing is once again going to be a problem against dialed-in defenses in May? Or whether that one team with the playmaking power wings will be able to mismatch-hunt Cleveland's small guards to death?

The Cavs will have their chance to provide answers in due time. For now, and for as long as this heater lasts, let's appreciate the simple pleasure of watching a complex puzzle snap into place, and indulge the possibility that constancy and introspection - rather than major disruption - can help you evolve into a better version of yourself.

Joe Wolfond covers the NBA for theScore.