What did Cavaliers’ rotation against Chicago tell us about their regular season?
Oct 21, 2014, 9:44 AM EDT
Getty Images If the Cavaliers coach followed through, what did we learn?
One, Derrick Rose still has some moves and can produce.
Beyond that, we can use Cleveland’s distribution of playing time and apply Basketball-Reference’s projected win shares per 48 minutes to estimate the number of wins each Cavalier will account for:
| Player | MIN | WS/48 | Projected wins |
| LeBron James | 31:48 | 0.278 | 15.1 |
| Kevin Love | 35:06 | 0.221 | 13.3 |
| Kyrie Irving | 38:31 | 0.12 | 7.9 |
| Anderson Varejao | 23:27 | 0.144 | 5.8 |
| Shawn Marion | 24:04 | 0.096 | 3.9 |
| Tristan Thompson | 23:37 | 0.096 | 3.9 |
| Matthew Dellavedova | 22:42 | 0.082 | 3.2 |
| Dion Waiters | 32:33 | 0.038 | 2.1 |
| Mike Miller | 8:05 | 0.115 | 1.6 |
| Lou Amundson | 0:07 | 0.053 | 0.0 |
| Total | 56.7 |
This is obviously far from a fool-proof system.
I don’t know how closely Blatt, despite his stated intentions, followed the script he intends to use during the regular season. I’m not convinced LeBron will rank just fourth on the team in minutes. Injuries will happen. Players like James Jones and Joe Harris, even if not in the rotation, will account for some minutes throughout the season.
But this is another data point, one not too far from the Las Vegas over/under of 58.5 wins.
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- nflcrimerankingscom - Oct 21, 2014 at 10:58 AM
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The Cavs have a revamped roster and new coaching and still punked the Bulls.
By April the Bulls will be lucky to lose by under 20 pts.
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- brownieinec - Oct 21, 2014 at 11:13 AM
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Don’t talk smack in pre-season. Bad Karma.
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- nflcrimerankingscom - Oct 21, 2014 at 12:38 PM
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Cleveland sports doesn’t know anything but bad karma. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lebron and Love collide and blow each other’s knees out.
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- rjthakid - Oct 21, 2014 at 1:39 PM
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“….blow each other’s knees out.”
Giggity
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- jbizz88 - Oct 21, 2014 at 11:34 AM
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Dude ur an idiot. If you even looked at the mins played you see Drose only played 24 mins and had 30 points… Irving had 38 mins played and only had 28, Love played 35 mins and had 9 points and james played 31 and had 18. If Thibs really cared about winning a preseason game he would of kept them in longer. So enjoy a preseason win you bandwagon James/Cleveland Fan.
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- tv63 - Oct 22, 2014 at 6:23 AM
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ONLY had 28 pts to Rose’s 30? Are you this narrow-minded? Irving had 7 assists. For those that are not familiar with that term. Assists means he made his team mates score points. How many times did Rose do that? Get back to us when you get back from school. So while you minimize Irving’s time ; he was busy going to work helping his team mates score and getting some for himself as well. He was flat out more productive than Rose.
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- truehooper1421 - Oct 21, 2014 at 11:35 AM
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Boy, your Bulls hating is in full effect this morning.
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- edon8334 - Oct 21, 2014 at 12:48 PM
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Have you seen the Bulls roster? they are favored to be in the ECF…and Rose is BACK
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- chitownsfinest1116 - Oct 21, 2014 at 8:50 PM
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you do realize that the bulls starters all played less minutes and jimmy butler wasn’t even playing
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- pillsbury13 - Oct 21, 2014 at 12:30 PM
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Punked the Bulls??? Let’s define this punking: the Cavs played four starters over 31 minutes and the Bulls did not play one starter and the others played 24 minutes. Yep, that’s a punking alright.
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- tonybot3 - Oct 21, 2014 at 7:54 PM
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The Bulls starters quit. Sounds like punking to me.
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- twill1970 - Oct 21, 2014 at 1:11 PM
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The Bulls lose and the fans disect everything from the Cavs played thier starters more mins to the water boy gave water instead of gatorade (sarcasm). Bottom line they lost. It’s just a Pre-season game and they trying to make themselves feel good by finding excuses. Quit talking ish and wait for the season to start. I dont take pre-season games for face value. Lets be real give respect where its due. Bulls fans talking trash about Kyrie aint this and that and Love aint this and that, but you nervous. Cavs fans aren’t sitting around direspecting the Bulls before or after last nights game. The Bulls have all this chemistry so what you nervouse about. Neither has won nothing
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- pillsbury13 - Oct 21, 2014 at 5:30 PM
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Your comment makes no sense. First of all the article is about the number of minutes played by the Cavs. Secondly, the only person on here talking trash is the person saying the Bulls got punked. Besides, the last time I checked, the Cavs are the NUMBER ONE favorites to win the title. So, please quit whining about them being disrespected.
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- rjthakid - Oct 21, 2014 at 1:42 PM
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“What did Cavaliers’ rotation against Chicago tell us about their regular season?”
Nothing. Preseason means nothing. Literally nothing.
The minute distribution will be different. The plays they run will be different. The effort level will be different.
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- sonnysuave - Oct 21, 2014 at 1:53 PM
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Presesason don’t mean squat… neither does the win. One thing was for certain… Rose schooled Kyrie big-time! For those that watched the game… it was naaaasty! Fun game to watch! But I’ll give Kyrie his props… since he regained his composure & was able to start scoring, AFTER Rose went to the bench.
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- sonnysuave - Oct 22, 2014 at 4:06 AM
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PROOF of Rose making Kyrie LITERALLY dizzy, spinning in circles trying to defend him… LOL!
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- imakcds - Oct 21, 2014 at 3:07 PM
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I think the Bulls are the team to beat in the East. You just watch how Gasol will fit into that frontline, everyone’s got each other’s back there. Rose back to being Rose, Bulls might win it all.
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- Gary - Oct 21, 2014 at 6:40 PM
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The Cavs had moments that would make you worry (if not a fan) about how good they can be. For instance: Kyrie dribbles down court and passes two defenders, dishes to James cutting who drives and looks to shoot, but then drops it off last second to Varejao or a layup. Another play was a rebound from the rookie center that immediately launch a cross court pass were three Cav players already down court and they converted.
Basically I can see this being a team like Miami in 2011 but with more athleticism, a deeper bench and better ball distribution. The coaching will probably be the weak point for this team.
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- onlyavoice - Oct 22, 2014 at 2:51 PM
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What you seen with the Bulls is as good as they’ll get.
They played at their ceiling, there is no other next level for the Bulls.
Bulls will not make the ECF’s.
