When LeBron James left Cleveland for the second time in his career, the writing was on the wall that the Cavs were well on their way back to the lottery. Mid-way through the season, and Cleveland is currently the worst team in the NBA, record-wise.

Needless to say, all of this was expected. We saw this the first time around.

The Cavaliers have faced tons of challenges so far this year, and head coach Larry Drew acknowledges that this will continue through the season’s end.

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“We know all the challenges we’ve had thus far,” Drew said, per ESPN. “We certainly know there will possibly be more challenges ahead, but we’ll continue to try to keep this team very competitive, keep this team playing hard (and) keep developing our young guys.”

Drew, who replaced then head coach Ty Lue six games into the season, said these comments following their 100-94 loss against the Miami Heat. Despite the loss, he praised his players’ efforts to stay in the game.

Cleveland actually had a 5-point cushion heading into the second half. However, Miami went on a 32-17 surge in the third quarter to take advantage of the contest heading into the fourth.

The Cavaliers fell behind by 18 points with four minutes and change remaining in the fourth quarter. With the game all in the books at this point, this young Cavaliers squad could have just folded and called it a game. However, the gritty Cavs showed some fight and trimmed the lead down to as low as six with just under a minute to go. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to complete the comeback.

Nevertheless, Drew has to be happy with the effort from his players. Using this year as a season of development for the Cavs should be the right move, as they head into the Zion Williamson sweepstakes. It has to be encouraging for Drew, despite being on an interim position, to see the growth of their young guys such as Collin Sexton and Cedi Osman throughout this season.