The Cavaliers’ 5-6 start is drawing heat for Kenny Atkinson, but NBA analyst Kevin O’Connor says the issues in Cleveland run deeper than the bench.
In comments shared on X, O’Connor pointed to the way the roster is built and, more specifically, how the team’s top four pieces fit together.
“This Cleveland team just feels flawed to me, with the top four,” O’Connor said, via Santino Honasan of Basketball Network. “Mitchell and Harden is an imperfect backcourt. Mobley and Allen is an imperfect frontcourt, and then a bench that I don’t really think is that good.”
That’s a blunt assessment of a team that reached the Eastern Conference finals, but the early returns have done little to quiet the noise. Cleveland dropped a 124-112 decision to the shorthanded Hornets on Monday, another result that left more questions than answers.
O’Connor also raised concerns about Evan Mobley’s ability to create against smaller defenders and said James Harden doesn’t look like the same player.
“James Harden looks old,” he said. “It’s just the reality of it now.”
The Cavaliers need more from Harden, but that’s only part of the picture. They’ve also been too inconsistent on the glass, too loose defensively and too uneven in the stretches where their talent should be taking over.
That leaves the familiar split: how much belongs to Atkinson, and how much belongs to the players? O’Connor’s view was that the coach isn’t the whole problem.
“I don’t think the coaching is necessarily the problem. It’s a problem, but not the problem,” he said.
He also predicted Atkinson won’t be the one finishing the season on the sideline, though that was his opinion rather than any indication the Cavaliers are preparing a change.
Eleven games don’t tell the whole story, but they’re enough to make people uneasy about how this roster is functioning. No matter who’s coaching, Cleveland still needs more from its best players.
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Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley were among the players drawing concern in the aftermath, while the piece also elevated Meleek Thomas as the games bright spot. Even with the focus on one standout performance, the bigger issue for Cleveland is the uneasy feeling around familiar pillars of the roster, especially when the margin for error shrinks and the questions start sounding less like overreaction and more like something the Cavaliers will have to answer soon. [Read more 🡒]
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Cavaliers Bench Is Sending A Message The Starters Can't Ignore
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The issue has not been confined to a single off night, either. It has shown up in multiple games, including matchups with Brooklyn, the season opener against New York, and the loss to Charlotte, which is why the discussion has moved beyond execution and into culture. For a team built around experienced starters and high expectations, the gap between the energy of the reserves and the consistency of the veterans is becoming hard to ignore. [Read more 🡒]