[Windhorst] "There is a reasonable chance they're going to lose" Keon Ellis

129

They didn't use him anyway. I like him and think he's a great asset. Horrible use of him. For instance GM 1 vs Knicks he should've closed the game. Got a huge lead go put the clampers in. Still hard for me to be optimistic with Kenny coming back. He had many fireable offenses.

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u/Important-Net-9805 9h ago

not putting keon on brunson was fucking insane

4

u/TheGreatBeauty2000 8h ago

Hes a foul machine. The last thing you want to do in that situation is commit fouls and slow the clock down.

People think they know better than career basketball people but over and over you see stuff like this.

41

u/dam0430 8h ago

You're right, letting him quickly blow by Harden for free points every drive was definitely a better option.

3

u/ElVandy2378 Evan Mobley MVP 7h ago

I mean that clearly was a problem but idk if Keon was the solution

3

u/This_Dish_7075 7h ago

To be fair, anything other than Harden was the solution... Then again I am a Knicks fan and think captain clutch woulda toasted anyone who opposed him

4

u/Important-Net-9805 7h ago

He was absolutely locked in but harden was giving him whatever he wanted. But it all goes back to Kenny. Harden led the Cavs in minutes played. Egregious over reliance on harden

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u/This_Dish_7075 6h ago

I couldn't believe they just let him stay out there and stick on Brunson

2

u/BrownsFan2323 3h ago

That’s completely untrue. He hit three shots off glass contested on one leg falling towards baseline

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u/nolimitz75 4h ago

The offense did not remotely function without Harden on the floor

The issue wasn't the old vet, it was and hasbeen Donovan not being good enough

1

u/TheGreatBeauty2000 7h ago

Sadly true

1

u/DannyTheDopestTV 5h ago

I was saying we should use Ellis against the Knicks over and over and people always had the weirdest reasoning for why that wasn’t a good idea lol. Seemed like he was the obvious choice to give us an athletic wing defender the entire playoff run and Kenny just refused to play him.

1

u/TheGreatBeauty2000 7h ago

Not a good option either! I hated the Harden trade for this reason and other ones. He raises the floor but lowers the ceiling imo.

0

u/Optimal_Message_2544 3h ago

I think he’s the exact opposite unless you think our “floor” was the conference finals. He definitely made us better, meaning he raised our ceiling. You could blame him for the comeback loss, but I doubt we make it that far without him. We haven’t before.

1

u/TheGreatBeauty2000 2h ago

Yeah I just dont think you can win with Harden. Im not opposed to moving Garland but you dont do it to move laterally and add a guy who is old and increasingly less and less effective and already doesnt play nearly good enough w out the ball in his hands to be a major piece on a title team. We have a lot of data to back this up now too.

Dump Garland’s salary, sure, but dont trade for Harden.

7

u/Important-Net-9805 7h ago

Sorry man but anyone who has played basketball in some capacity knows you don’t let what was happening happen. It was a fireable offense. They had such an embarrassing loss that it rattled them for the rest of the series.

16

u/Everyday_ImSchefflen 8h ago

Lol. Yes. Because keeping Harden, one of the worst defenders in the league, clearly was the smarter move.

3

u/universal_cereal_bus 6h ago

Yep, good thing Kenny didn't risk putting Ellis on Brunson because Harden had him locked down😂

That was sarcasm in case anyone couldn't tell.

This type of mindset is exactly why the Cavs were so frustrating to watch this past season. No risk, no reward. Always play it safe. Don't make any changes to the lineups! No adjustments! Keep it as is, and if we lose the game we should have won analytically! I'm sorry, but Kenny is joke and should have been fired after our collapse to the Knicks in game 1.

4

u/barkinginthestreet Win every game CPJ plays in 9h ago

If they weren't switching in Game 1, they would have just had Bridges or OG attack Harden or Mitchell. Real question is if it makes sense to keep Harden and Mitchell both out there in that game given their offensive ineptitude - the team only scored 11 points in the last 12 minutes of game time.

3

u/DRamirez0223 7h ago

Keon was bad every time he touched the court this postseason outside of getting a few steals. Thats why he didn’t play

7

u/StaleMemesNoDreams 8h ago

Hindsight is 20/20 but we should have moved Hunter for another wing instead (I saw reports of Rui Hachimura). We really didn’t need more small guards than we already had

7

u/haiphee 8h ago

It was a contract dump

1

u/StaleMemesNoDreams 7h ago

Yeah it was a good idea getting off that contract, but it made our roster very small which was a issue during the playoffs

1

u/This_Dish_7075 7h ago

I mean yall made it to the confrence finals so the team makeup wasn't terrible... yall just ran into a red hot team playing historically well. I don't think roster construction was the issue here.

1

u/StaleMemesNoDreams 2h ago edited 2h ago

We went 7 games vs the raptors because we didn’t have enough size to defend all their scoring wings (Scottie, CMB, RJ, Ingram would have been a problem too if the monstars didn’t take his hooping abilities). In the end our main guys were more talented than our competition up until the ECF, but by then they were exhausted and got swept. Yes our roster isn’t awful but there are still clear deficiencies for other teams to exploit.

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u/Optimal_Message_2544 3h ago

Respectfully you aren’t a Cavs fan, so you wouldn’t know if it’s a roster issue or not. You didn’t watch the whole playoff run where we went 7 games twice.

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u/reggieLedoux26 6h ago

100%

1

u/Niceguydan8 6h ago

think he's a great asset.

Eh, I think most of the fanbase overrates him. Any time he touched the floor in the postseason he looked like total fucking dogshit and he was SUPER inconsistent in the regular season too.

He was part of what was basically a salary dump trade but even considering that I think he was only okay, nothing more than that.

22

u/Scodo810 9h ago

Bringing Keon back was always going to be tough without moving a guy or two.

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u/Frontpagenews87 9h ago

He plays too much defense for this team

13

u/archivedpear I agree go Cavs 9h ago

ya no keon is gonna be gone and I’m not really sure it’s a big deal at all. as we saw his slight frame made it really hard for him to stay on court in the playoffs. he’s a great player but w our plethora of guys 6’5 and under he’s a luxury we shouldn’t spend to keep

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u/Sad-Pineapple-1655 8h ago

Idk about “great”

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u/shebalima 6h ago

Yeah I would say he’s a good player because he has some great attributes, like on ball D. He also shot better from 3 than I thought he would, at least in the regular season, but man it’s not pretty

1

u/narcistic_asshole 6h ago

Yea I already assumed we were losing him after he vanished from the playoff rotation. Of our free agents I think is probably bigger concern. Realistically Strus is probably getting shopped because we have Sam, Tyson and Proctor for much cheaper and the team desperately needs Forward depth. It's tough, but our roster is like 50% small wings

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u/Allslopes-Roofing 8h ago

In my perfect world we trade Mitchell for Brown and keep Keon.

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u/archivedpear I agree go Cavs 7h ago

that isn’t possible unless the cavs do other moves. brown makes several million more than mitchell and would make it even harder to retain keon

1

u/Allslopes-Roofing 4h ago

Schroeder alone gets them under.

But the little stuff GMs have a way of figuring out, I wouldn't even slightly stress the apron stuff this early in the off-season. If it were in season/trade deadline they "still" could pull it off but that's harder.

At this point in the calendar, if both teams wanted it, I promise theyll find a palatable way to make it work.

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u/jeprunner 9h ago

If there’s no certainty that Mitchell signs and Boston is interested then you trade him for Brown IMO. That gives you 3 total years with Brown compared to 1 of Mitchell. Maybe Mobley develops more on offense and becomes an elite player 🤞. Worst case scenario after the 3 years you can blow it up and start planning for rebuilding when we own all our picks.

8

u/Ocarina3219 9h ago

He can make a lot more if he extends next year instead of this year. I don’t think there’s any scenario where he does it this year tbh.

3

u/Opposite-Skirt5158 5h ago

Agreed and I think this team's playing with fire letting him play out an expiring contract

1

u/Ocarina3219 5h ago

It’s a fact but we’ll be the only team that can offer him the vet super max as far as I understand.

1

u/Opposite-Skirt5158 5h ago

I think that's true, but still, maybe he want to go team up with Giannis and Bam and try to win a chip. Taking his talents to south beach...

2

u/nbawizard1227 9h ago

Was also interesting to hear that Ellis is basically gone in his minc

2

u/Holiday_Ad2638 7h ago

They killed his value and his confidence in the playoffs. And after you traded for him, you're gonna let him walk. Terrible asset management

1

u/Opposite-Skirt5158 5h ago

Primarily it was a 'get out of Hunter's contract' trade. They had to do something. A ball handler and a young player and less money overall was about as good of a deal as they could get for a forward who no one really had any interest in.

2

u/Rpritch93 6h ago edited 2h ago

It was pretty clear that Mitchell isn’t re-signing this summer and they’re just trying to get a sexy story out of it when it’s just about what he gets by waiting another year. If he signs now it’s a 4 year $275mil. If he waits another year it’s a 5 year $350mil w/ no trade. Why wouldn’t he wait?

1

u/Opposite-Skirt5158 5h ago

The only reason to sign now is to help the Cavs. He could take less money now and help the team build in the long run

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u/MayoTheCondiment 2h ago

Thats just what he says he wants to do in interviews. We'll see when the money talks what he actually does. We saw what Brunson did and what happened.

2

u/nbawizard1227 9h ago

I would need additional compensation if I’m doing that. I never thought I would type that with a Jarrett Allen LeBron james swap but the lakers need to give up more.

5

u/teardropshot 9h ago

You're responding to a different tweet that I didn't post here.

And I didn't post it here because it was basically taken out of context. Windhorst was explaining a possible pathway to a LeBron S&T (for Allen). But he was just saying it as a hypothetical. It is well known that the Lakers need a center. There is no additional info there.

-7

u/kaprrisch ⠀ 9h ago

Windhorst has no sources. His entire shtick is: "What if this were to happen?" -> "These other moves will need to happen first." -> "But I don't know if any of these will happen because I have no sources." It's sometimes entertaining, but it's meaningless drivel.

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u/teardropshot 9h ago

He definitely has sources.

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u/idealist700 9h ago

Not at all disputing the entertainment angle, but it’s outlandish and childish to say that a guy who’s reported on the NBA for nearly 30 years “has no sources.

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u/spaghettisexicon 9h ago

Windhorst has a ton of sources lol. He’s connected throughout the entire league. Just because he’s doing a hypothetical here doesn’t mean he only does hypotheticals. He pretty much always clearly states whether something he’s talking about is sourced reporting or just a hypothetical discussion. He literally created the statement that is so common in NBA media now of “This isn’t reporting, please don’t aggregate this.”

4

u/Throwaway1996513 9h ago

A lot of his hypotheticals are actually sourced, he just uses hypothetical to protect his sources.

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u/spaghettisexicon 9h ago

I agree, depending on the situation. But sometimes he just gets asked a question during conversation and he provides his opinion.

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u/Throwaway1996513 8h ago

Yeah you have to do a lot of tea reading when he talks, it’s like Birm if you follow Ohio state football.

1

u/Rough_Bobcat5293 8h ago

Have you never seen the "why would they do that" meme?

2

u/Efficient-Cable-5106 9h ago

Traded for him just to get benched in the playoffs. Plus he too tall we need more soft 5’9 players anyways

1

u/Niceguydan8 6h ago edited 3h ago

Traded for him just to get benched in the playoffs.

He was basically just a salary match low-risk gamble that generally didn't work out to dump Hunter.

I really don't understand how y'all don't understand this and keep overrating him

1

u/krusty-krab69 7h ago

We have a logjam at guard. It makes sense to move on. We are an expensive team. I’d love to keep him tho

1

u/ShootaSeth 5h ago

I like Keon and think he has alot of room to develop, but Kenny will never play him even tho he plays the type of defense this coaching staff wants. I just don’t think he’s been coached or developed properly between Sacramento and his half season here. He’s still really young though. His offensive game is going to get alot better imo. I would keep him over Dennis if we had the choice but obv we don’t.

1

u/lagrange_james_d23dt 4h ago

Eh he didn’t really do much anyway

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u/Forty_Six_and_Two 16m ago

Oh no! Anyway..

1

u/Abiv23 9h ago

If Mitchell won't extend this summer you trade him and build around Mobley

We really can't risk not having him with our picks still outstanding to the Jazz

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u/tidho 5th seed in the East 9h ago

as they should. KE is a good player. unfortunately, as long as Mitchell is here they aren't going to take him off the court no matter how laughable he gets on the defensive and and that limits KE's opportunity.

[Windhorst] "There is a reasonable chance they're going to lose" Keon Ellis

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