The offseason plan that takes the Cleveland Cavaliers to the top of the NBA

1: Play his squad. Atkinson felt like general manager Koby Altman, who achieved success with a series of aggressive trades. Jarrett AllenLeVert and then the eldest Mitchell had built a deeper team than Altman gave credit for.

Altman’s first-round high bets — Darius Wreath, Evan Mobley, Isaac Okoro — all had been hit in one way or another. He supported his team during the free agency period Maximum Structure And Georges Niang. He found rotation players on the scrap heap, like Dean Wade And Sam Merrill.

Not only did Atkinson think all of them, including the guards on the bench, could play Ty JeromeThe 2023 free agent forward, whom Atkinson knew from his years in Golden State, missed the entire previous year due to injury. So he decided to play with them. All.

2: Release the attack. Two years ago, the Cavs miraculously ranked eighth in the league in offense, last in pace, but 24th in three-pointers and in the bottom half of the league in assist percentage. They ran a low-field, low-speed, old-school offense that worked.

The team was devastated by injuries last season, dropping to 16th place in attack, but their ball movement and speed have improved. What if Atkinson could already get those same players on the right track and help them develop further in a few impactful areas?

So the entire training camp was spent promoting speed, quick decision-making passing and movement. Pass, then move. Move, then pass. And whatever you do, do it fast. A lot of guys would play. Everyone, including franchise player Mitchell, would play less than before. So expend more energy in minutes.

This was a sales pitch and not a hard sell. And there was something else. Over the past two years, Mitchell, Allen, Mobley, Okoro, Strus, LeVert and Niang have signed contracts collectively worth more than $600 million. The $190 million maximum deal Garland signed in 2022 also came into play, paying the team handsomely and helping set the mood for the selfless approach Atkinson wants to establish when he returns home from Paris.

“This is a dedicated team and has been that way since we came together,” Mitchell said. “Kenny has been outstanding with us in this regard and continues to have confidence in us.”

The Cavs rank 1st in the league in offense. They have moved up to 7th in speed and could go even higher; They are leading the league in matches played and have not had back-to-back days off all season, and they showed this in the last matches. They are third in total and first in three-point percentage. They lead the league in its most basic form: baskets.

“They move the ball so crazy!” Green said on his podcast.

“I was so excited when Draymond said that. It’s a Warriors kind of thing, you know?” Atkinson, who has been an assistant with the Warriors for the past three seasons, said he returned to the bench after accepting the Hornets’ coaching position in 2022 and later left that position.

“It’s nice to watch that kind of ball movement.”

3: A new role for Mobley. A big part of the Cavs’ coaching search was listening to candidates’ plans to get more out of Mobley, who has been a defensive star since his first weeks in the league but has been an underachiever on offense. Conventional thinking was to have Mobley expand the field with long-distance shots; it wasn’t something he always showed great interest in.

Atkinson wanted him to play in a Green-style role and encouraged him to move the ball up after grabbing defensive rebounds (Mobley is in the top 25 in the league in statistics). Second, Atkinson envisioned Mobley being a distributor and center of the half-court offense, just as Green had been with the Warriors for more than a decade. As a result, Mobley’s usage rate increased by 15% and he reached a career-high 18 points per game.

This was part of a larger overall strategy that Atkinson was trying to implement. His team had elite perimeter scorers like Mitchell and Garland (both top-15 in three-pointers) and elite interior scorers like Allen and Mobley (both top-five in dunks). And there are a number of players in between who can tie them together.

“I knew from the beginning that this was a group that loved each other and enjoyed playing with each other,” Atkinson said. “We’ve got good passers and good connectors. I love that word, connectors. Ty (Jerome) is a good connector, Georges Niang is a good connector, Dean Wade is a connector. So you’ve got big scorers, but guys we can pass around them and we actually see the ball move.” “We make quick decisions.”

JEROME AND LEVERT Both are having the best seasons of their careers off the bench, and on Sunday, Jerome lit up the Hornets by scoring a career-high 24 points, starting in place of Mitchell. Wade can defend both forward spots and centers depending on the matchup. Strus was the Cavs’ No. 1 long-range shooter last season and hasn’t even played yet due to an ankle injury.

The Cavs’ depth, offensive pace and Mobley’s continued development have combined to exceed even the team’s expectations as huge check marks in Atkinson’s plan.

Atkinson admitted that he doesn’t think the Cavs can continue to run that fast offensively and expects their shooting percentage to drop towards the average. But he also noted that the Cavs’ shooting quality has been outstanding nearly every night.

Mitchell, who is heading into his sixth straight All-Star season, found himself taking a similar stance.

He was on three teams in Utah and Cleveland that won more than 50 games and still haven’t made the conference finals. He cautions his teammates to keep thinking about the big picture, but he can’t help but feel in the moment.

“It’s great to be a part of history. You don’t want to take it for granted,” Mitchell said. “At the end of the day it still keeps happening This throughout the team (season). It’s great that we won, the atmosphere is great. So, will we be this team in January, February, March and April? That was my message.”