The Cleveland Cavaliers publicly consider their mid-season trades — the first, the Twitter-breaking shuffle of shooting guards involving New York and Oklahoma City; the second, the acquisition of Timofey Mozgov from Denver — as one total move. Technically speaking, however, Cleveland dealt two first-round picks for Mozgov, at the time an unusual, if not wholly precarious, decision.
Now, after eight playoff games and a dispiriting injury that ended Kevin Love’s season, Mozgov has proved to be invaluable.
Cleveland is 40-14 after inserting Mozgov into the starting lineup. While the Cavaliers scored a crap-ton of points before the trade, their ineptitude on the defensive end restricted them to .500 basketball. Solely with his mammoth frame and mild athleticism, Mozgov brought a much needed stability to Cleveland’s uneven lineups. Yet, these observations are plainly obvious. What had to come as a pleasant surprise to Cleveland was how well Mozgov meshed with LeBron James on the floor.
(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
James might be the greatest pick-and-roll artist we’ve even seen. (Just let that sink in…) That he has never played with a traditional center in their prime is an absolute travesty. Cleveland, pre-Decision, was too cute with its roster building, gravitating toward less expensive versions of former stars or tall jump-shooters who could allegedly spot up around LeBron isos. Miami had great success initiating the modern position-less basketball movement, but a casualty of that was LeBron and Chris Bosh taking a pounding down low, all while logging hundreds of arduous playoff minutes.
Enter Mozgov. During his 46 games with the team, Cleveland scored 11.8 points per 100 possessions with Mozgov on the floor, and posted a net rating of 11.0 — only James (13.8) had a higher net rating for Cavs this season.
Amongst duos that shared at least 800 minutes, per NBA.com, James and Mozgov had a 15.4 net rating, five points higher than James/Kyrie Irving and James/Kevin Love.
This chemistry has carried into the playoffs. James/Mozgov have a 14.5 net rating over 186 minutes together, as units built around these two lap Golden State’s NBA-best defensive efficiency without sacrificing much of anything offensively — in fact, any drop-off in scoring has more to do with Love being injured than faulty roster construction.
The numbers, most importantly, pass the eye test. Mozgov’s offensive game reminds me of a great tight end in football: He has an incredible awareness of where he is on the floor; sure hands; and is always in control.
He never seems to get trapped away from the basket: he’s either setting an on-ball screen or rushing back to the rim. His no-nonsense approach on both ends — crashing or protecting the rim — makes him an ideal piece for James, who always knows where to find his teammates, even when they aren’t in the perfect spot.
With Mozgov, he finally has a center who always knows where he should be. That reliability has changed Cleveland for the better in the short term, and created an unmistakable powerhouse tandem in the process.
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A final thought: Adding to the mythos of this year’s Cavs was Brian Windhorst’s most recent (and last?) appearance on the B.S. Report.
Windhorst tells the story of when LeBron James sees Mozgov for the first time after the trade. The way Windhorst describes it, just seeing Mozgov enter the room — “I can’t believe how big he is,” LeBron reportedly said — refilled James’ tank of energy for the duration of the season.
Basketball is a funny game in that way. Sure, elite talent can sometimes transcend the most toxic situations (See: Allen Iverson in Philadelphia) to achieve greatness. However, in more ways than not, we are who we play with. In Mozgov, LeBron has a big man he trusts, someone he clicks with on the floor. He won’t make Cleveland fans forget Love this spring, but Mozgov might be the difference between a run at the Finals or dropping this series with Chicago.
