The Cleveland Cavaliers have put together a team that is ready to make a postseason run after the moves they made at the trade deadline. It won’t be easy, as there will be some bumps and bruises along the way, but as long as they keep the same mission in mind, anything is possible.
David Griffin, who was the general manager of the Cavs the year they won the championship, spoke about what this current team will have to do in order to get to the championship.
“First off, you don’t have gratitude for the roster we constructed; you do it for the sacrifices of those guys,” Griffin said. “When you see teams that do that embrace it; they don’t have to win a championship to be worthy of your appreciation. This Cavs team that Koby [Altman] has put together will make those same sacrifices, and they’re going to need a lot of luck along the way to achieve what we did, just as we needed luck. We needed Draymond to get suspended. It takes a little bit of everything.”
The sacrifices are real, and some on that 2016 Cavs team had to do so. No one had to take a bigger step back in their role as much as Kevin Love did when he joined the team. Love’s averages went down when he was with the Cavs, but he still played a crucial role in their championship run and helped lock down Stephen Curry at the end of Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
It’s going to have to be the same way on this current Cavs team as well, and James Harden already seems to know that. In their latest game against the Washington Wizards, he only had 14 points, but he noted that he’s going to do whatever he needs to help the team win. Though he only had four shot attempts, he had 11 assists and got his teammates involved.
Those are the kind of sacrifices that will be needed if the Cavs want to make a deep run.