Cleveland Cavaliers: 3 Players That Disappointed This Season
Ever since LeBron James left for LA, the Cavaliers knew they were in for a pretty rough ride in the season that followed. And expectedly so, it was as tragic as many so predicted.
Cleveland went from being the Eastern Conference Champions last year to finishing as the second worst team on the East standings behind the New York Knicks this year. They ended their 2018-19 campaign with a miserable 19-63(0.263) win-loss record, an insurmountable 41 games behind the East leader in the Bucks.
In his last year with the Cavaliers, LeBron dragged a playoff-inexperienced roster all the way to the NBA Finals and that was one herculean task that nobody ever takes much cognisance of. Remove Bron from the equation and the wreckage that was the Cavs' most recent season, is all that remains.
Kevin Love returned for 18 games during the latter part of the season and helped his team to a 7-11 record in that period. Given they won just 19 games all year, Love's contribution was instrumental, however, it was too little too late. That tells us a lot about the incompetence of the support crew in terms of winning games.
Let's take a look at the three most disappointing individual performances for the Cavaliers during the lowly 2018-19 regular season.
#1 Cedi Osman
The 2015 Turkish Cup winner plays small forward for the wine-n-gold. Osman had his flashes of brilliance under James' leadership. But when he left, his absence required someone to step up and fill the void.
Unfortunately, Cedi could not be that person.
The Turkish baller played the most minutes this year (32.2) of any Cavs player but couldn't even score at least 14 points per game. Coupled with averages of 4.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game, the 23-year-old was not the force his teammates and coaching staff expected him to be. He shot 42% from the field and less than 34% from downtown, attempting nearly five three-pointers every game.