CLEVELAND, Ohio — Are injuries a valid excuse when the Cavs preached and raved about their depth entering the season?
On the latest Wine and Gold Talk podcast, cleveland.com columnist Jimmy Watkins didn’t mince words about the team’s most glaring issue: a maddening pattern of acknowledging problems without fixing them.
“Darius Garland said after the Hornets game, like, let’s see what this looks like down the road. It’s better to have these problems now than ... I’m so sick of hearing that. And I know Cavs fans are too,” Watkins vented, capturing the frustration of a fanbase watching a talented 15-12 team underperform against inferior competition.
The podcast, featuring host Ethan Sands alongside Watkins, delved into the Cavaliers’ troubling pattern following a loss to the LaMelo Ball-less Hornets.
The same issues have persisted even after nearly a week off to reflect on them, prompting questions about the team’s mental makeup and leadership structure.
Watkins diagnosed a fundamental flaw in the locker room dynamic: “They need a bad teacher in the locker room. There’s too many good cops, there’s too many nice guys. They need Max Strus to mf somebody out there and we just need to see that fire. It has been missing for so long.”
This absence of edge – someone willing to hold teammates accountable in uncomfortable ways – has allowed a culture of complacency to fester. Players make the same promises about improvement, deliver the same platitudes about patience and produce the same inconsistent results.
The contrast between the team’s talent and their performance makes this particularly frustrating.
As Watkins bluntly stated, “There’s nothing more frustrating than watching a talented team play uninspired basketball and play below its potential. That’s what we’ve been seeing for weeks now.”
The podcast revealed a telling moment during the Charlotte game when Donovan Mitchell was caught on mic telling Jarrett Allen to play with more physicality, even if it meant a hard foul to send a message. Allen seemed to initially question the idea which speaks volumes about the team’s reluctance to bring necessary intensity and physicality.
Head coach Kenny Atkinson hasn’t escaped scrutiny either.
While he’s been “losing his mind on the sidelines,” according to Watkins, the message isn’t fully penetrating. “Kenny can yell ... but at a certain point you just need to do it. There’s only so many different ways someone can tell you before you just need to do it.”
As the Cavaliers prepare to face the Chicago Bulls, they confront a simple challenge that has somehow become their greatest hurdle: bringing consistent effort and intensity.
The Bulls, second in pace and ninth in defensive rebounding, will test Cleveland’s willingness to secure rebounds and get back in transition – basic basketball fundamentals that shouldn’t require special motivation.
“You guys are professional basketball players,” Watkins noted. “You guys keep telling us that you know what the issue, it’s a very simple issue. You guys are just not bringing the heat often enough.”
For Cavaliers fans and analysts alike, the time for talk has passed. Only actions – specifically, fiery, inspired basketball – will silence the growing concerns about this team’s ceiling and character.
Here’s the podcast for this week: