CLEVELAND, Ohio — In this episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast, Ethan Sands and Chris Fedor focus on coach Kenny Atkinson’s insights, and the team’s strategies for improvement in the upcoming season.
Takeaways:
Individualized Player Management Plans: The Cavaliers have developed individualized management plans for the entire roster, focusing on keeping players healthy and fresh for the playoffs through careful load management.
Defensive Identity Reassessment: Atkinson is reevaluating how much the Cavaliers can be a switching team defensively, considering options to protect Darius Garland from being targeted.
Conditioning and Durability Focus: A major emphasis is on improving conditioning and durability after being outmatched physically in the playoff series against the Indiana Pacers.
Roster Depth Improvements: The Cavaliers have prioritized adding more “playable depth” this offseason to have 10-11 trustworthy rotation players.
Kenny Atkinson’s Growth and Second Year Advantages: Atkinson has had a more focused offseason, spending significant time with players individually and studying the Indiana playoff series.
Minimal System Changes Expected: The Cavaliers don’t believe major systemic changes are necessary, focusing more on execution, conditioning, and maintaining trust in their established system.
De’Andre Hunter’s Role as Shot Creator: De’Andre Hunter is being viewed as the perfect fit to fill the void for a shot creator off the bench, aligning with the organization’s emphasis on defense-first.
Breaking the Full-Court Press: One of the Cavaliers’ most significant areas for improvement is handling full-court pressure, which has consistently disrupted their offense.
Championship Expectations: The Cavaliers organization has “unshakable belief” and internal expectations of competing for a championship in the 2025-26 season.
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Transcript
NOTE: This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and could contain misspellings and errors.
Ethan Sands: What up, Cavs Nation? I’m your host, Ethan Sands, and I’m back with another episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast. And joining me, of course, you know him, you love him. Chris Fedor. And on our last podcast, we discussed the conversations that were had behind the scenes of the celebrity softball game pertaining to Darius Garland’s toe injury, how he’s recovering, is he ahead of schedule. And then also a conversation that was had with Evan Mobley predicting whether or not he felt he could be an MVP candidate in the 2027 season. So not this coming year, but next year. An interesting topic that we got into, and I implore you to go check that out. But there was one other person that Chris talked to that he got into depth with when it comes to this coming season, what the expectations might be, and that was Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson. Chris, I’m gonna let you have the floor. What was this conversation like? I know you guys were having so many different things behind you, but when you get to talk to somebody for 10 minutes or 15 minutes or whatever it may be, what were the topics that were most necessary and that you felt needed to be discussed?
Chris Fedor: Well, even I briefly talked to Kenny out at Summer league in Las Vegas for. For a piece that I’m working on for later this summer that’s probably going to come out closer to training camp. So him and I have had conversations. I stay in touch with as many people inside the organization as I can, even throughout the summer, kind of keeping up relationships. And it doesn’t always have to be about basketball. It can be about life. It can be about a variety of different things. Um, but. But in this environment, because my main story was. Was Darius Garland and his recovery from toe surgery. And I knew that I was going to do a piece on Darius. I wanted to beef up the piece that I was going to do on Darius. I wanted a different voice in that piece other than just Darius. So I was like, okay, I could talk to Evan Mobley about Darius Garland, but what’s he gonna tell me? I could talk to Max Struse about Darius Garland, but what is he going to tell me? I talked to Tristan Thompson briefly about Darius Garland, but then as I was talking to Tristan, he went up to bat for the Home Run Derby. So that kind of got interrupted. And then the celebrity softball game started, and where I was able to be on the field was a little bit different, and the access that I had to the players was a little bit different, too. So I said, okay, let’s talk to Kenny about Darius. Let’s see what he knows about Darius’s recovery. Let’s see how much he’s had interactions with Darius throughout this off season and what he thinks about this process that Darius is going through and the plan in place. So it was a brief conversation with Kenny. I don’t think it was nearly as long as I would have wanted it to be. But sometimes you take what you can get based on the environment that you’re in. So we talked a few different ways about Darius and his recovery from the toe surgery and how that impacts the, the point guard depth chart and not having tied to Rome and stuff like that. So to me, going into the conversation with Kenny, it was okay, a little bit about Darius and it was a little bit about the off season that Kenny has had and what he wanted to learn about himself coming off the playoff loss against the Indiana Pacers. And obviously there are things that are different with this roster based on what it was last year, so we wanted to get into that as well. So not nearly as in depth as I like to go, I’m not nearly the time that I wanted to spend with Kenny, but the main talking points that I wanted to get to based on why I was there, Darius and his recovery, what he plans to do at point guard if Darius is going to miss time at the beginning of the season and just how much Kenny has reflected back on everything that happened to the Cavs in, in his first year and what he took away from that loss against Indiana that he thinks is going to make him better and make the Cavs better as well.
Ethan Sands: With that in mind, Chris, what do you think the outcome was? Did he get into a more in depth plan on what they decided to do for this coming season? Because going back to last year, we understood that Kenny Atkinson, Kobe Altman, Donovan Mitchell and the rest of the Cleveland Cavaliers organization had this plan mapped out. How early did they have that plan mapped out? Do you think it’s still in the works of figuring out obviously Darius Garland’s recovery if he’s going to be at what stage during training camp? Because I already mentioned in yesterday’s podcast the cryptic message that the Cleveland Cavaliers organization sent out in that press release was like he’ll be doing something during training camp in basswar related circumstances, but it doesn’t necessarily there’s going to be a basketball in his hands where he’s going to be on the floor. Also with that, we know that Lonzo ball, Larry Nance Jr. Are players who have had injury riddled pass and how the Cavs are going to plan on using them this season. You’ve already mentioned a little bit about potential for no back to backs for Lonzo Ball. Is this something that you discussed with Kenny Atkinson and how far did he go with giving you answers in the brief time that you guys had?
Chris Fedor: Well, I asked him specifically about Darius and I said, is there a plan to manage Darius throughout the regular season? Because one of the things that Kenny said is I just wish we could fast forward seven or eight months and get to the playoffs with Darius specifically healthy because it was so unfair what happened to him last year. It was such bad luck what happened to him last year. And he felt like Darius was robbed of showing what kind of playoff performer he can potentially be for this organ. So to follow up with that, I said, okay, well, you know, you said you wanted to fast forward and get Darius to the playoffs at a hundred percent. What is the plan to do that with Darius? And Kenny said that the plan is for the entire roster. It’s not just a Darius specific plan. It’s. We’re taking every individual component that we have and we’re mapping out what we think is going to be best for that player. For somebody like Larry Nance Jr. Playing in all 82 games doesn’t make sense. There’s just not a huge benefit to that. For somebody like Larry Nance Jr. You know, playing 25 to 30 minutes a night at this stage of his career where he’s at, it doesn’t make sense. So it’s going to be a case by case basis in terms of what Kenny thinks is going to be best. But the sense that I got in talking to him at summer league and talking to him at the celebrity softball game and talking to a bunch of different members of the organization throughout this off season, they just don’t feel like there are a lot of changes that they have to make when it comes to the roster, when it comes to lineups and combinations, and when it comes to the things that they want to do within their system. I do think, and I do know that Kenny is reevaluating just how much he thinks this team can be a switching team. It’s something that he believes in. It’s something that he understands can be a benefit if you have the right personnel. But if Darius Garland’s going to be your starting point guard, does that qualify as the right personnel for a switch heavy team? Do you switch 2 through 4 instead of 1 through 5? Do you switch 2 through 5 instead of 1 through 5? So I do think there’s some evaluation going on when it comes to that, but for the most part, I just don’t think you’re going to see a whole bunch of stylistic changes from the Cavs. I think the thing that they’re focused on and the questions that they’re asking is how do we make sure that injuries aren’t a problem the way that they’ve been in the past? Was it just bad luck or do we have to dig deeper into these things? And I think the other thing that Kenny is asking is how do we come a better conditioned team? And obviously we’ve talked about how their plan for the ramp up at the end of the regular season was kind of thrown into flux because of a lot of things that happened that were outside of their control. But Kenny said that’s a hard part of his job and it’s something that he’s got to figure out. How do we become more durable and how do we become better conditioned? Because everybody felt like everybody in the series against Indiana, they obviously were the healthier team, they were the better conditioned team. And the way that they needed to play to have success in that series against the Cavs, Indiana was able to play that way. The way that the Cavs needed to play to have success against Indiana, the Cavs weren’t able to play that way, not to the highest level that they needed to. So we’ve talked throughout the course of, of this off season, and we even talked last year, Ethan, about versatility within the roster and having a bunch of pathways to success. Can you play big and be successful? Can you play small and be successful? Can you play fast, slow? Can you play 94ft of pressure on the defensive end of the floor? Can you switch defensively and be successful? Can you trap successfully? And all of these different things, like some, some playoff series are going to call for different stuff. And it’s like, how successful can you be? How effective can you be playing that kind of style, playing that kind of way? And I think the feeling coming out of the Indiana loss was there were things within our own control from a conditioning standpoint, from a minute standpoint that we probably could have done a better job of during the regular season to control. And we didn’t do that. So I think that’s really what Kenny and his coaching staff and other members in the front office and the training staff, I think that’s what they’re all focused on as, as they get into next regular season and how they’re going to manage the regular season may not be exactly what they did last year.
Ethan Sands: And Chris, going back to late May when we were kind of getting into this conversation of it’s summertime, it’s time to figure out how the Cavs can take the next step. I went ahead and wrote an article for cleveland.com titled how can the Cavs reach a new level? Five areas Kenny Atkinson Should Address this Summer the first one was obviously Evan Mobley is Kenny Atkinson’s summer project. Whether in fact getting in the gym with him, figuring out the offensive system that he is most comfortable with, getting the ball into Evan Mobley’s hands and all these things. Evan Mobley is the key piece for the Cavs to get to where they want to go. Everybody’s known that. We’ve talked about that at length. I don’t feel like I have to continue talking about that on this podcast in particular. The second one for me was Breaking the Press, Cleveland’s Must Fix. I I truly do believe that the area that the Cavs over the last two seasons have been most deterred is in the full court press is when they get hounded for 90ft, when they have a defense that is willing to put body on body with their guards and not allow them to get into their fast pace offense or get into their half court set as quickly as they would want. And it’s hard to see a team that doesn’t have the defensive prowess as the Indiana Pacers did last year or the Orlando Magic did a year before or the Boston Celtics did a year before this coming season, the Atlanta Hawks potentially or Orlando Magic potential a thousand percent. Again, that’s why when we talked about breaking down, who has the better chance to take the Cavs out of their Eastern Conference Finals or NBA Finals run. I didn’t have the New York Knicks as high as other people might have because the New York Knicks don’t have that stout defense as good as a team like the Atlanta Hawks or the Atlanta Magic. It’s their offense that is so good. Obviously they do have players like Og Anunoby and Macau Bridges, but on a general basis those guys aren’t carding Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell. So I’m going to keep going my third one. And we talked about this throughout the summer as well, getting to know DeAndre Hunter because of how he can unlock the offense of the second unit, especially with Ty Jerome being gone. The Cavs have talked about and we have talked about the Cavs needing a shot creator, a scorer off the bench, someone to take in that role playing that has been left in the void of Ty Jerome’s absence. And I think his best friend DeAndre Hunter is the perfect fit to fall into that category because of what he can do offensively. And then you talk about him being the ACC defensive player of the year, you talk about him having a defensive pedigree in all these things, and that gets into this. Reclaiming Cleveland’s defensive identity was number four for me. We’ve talked about this again throughout the summer. It’s everybody on this roster that the Cavs have curated, pass, dribble, shoot, and with big bold letters, defend. Because they realize that as good as their offense was this past season, it is not good enough and it won’t be good enough in the playoffs to get past some of these elite defensive teams if they’re not playing defense of the caliber that they have. That’s why throughout the entirety of the 2024, 2025 season, the Cavs were like, we’re still a defense first team. And we got on them a lot for this, Chris, because they didn’t play like it, they didn’t act like it. They would say it, but then they wouldn’t put that onto the court. And back to the point where you were questioning are they becoming an offense first team. And I think what the Cavs have done with their moves this offseason, what Katie Atkinson has preached to you especially, has proven that they still feel like they’re a defense first team. They just needed the pieces to be able to do that. And obviously when you talk about Darius Garland kind of being a box in one situation, but everything is still being switched two through four rather than Darius Garland not being switchable and all these things. I think the defensive changes are what Kenny Atkinson is trying to find for this organization, for this team, for this roster in specifics, because you’ve got so many players that can do things defensively, but you do have some liabilities and you don’t want those to be glaring because as we know with the Miami Heat series, the plan for the Cleveland Cavaliers attack Tyler Herro, the plan for any offense, if they get to the playoffs against the Cleveland Cavaliers, attack Darius Garland. And that’s not me saying that he can’t play defense. It’s saying that he is not where he needs to be now as of August 5th to be able to get where the Cavs need to be defensively in the playoffs. And as you mentioned, conditioning, my number five on my list of areas that needed to be addressed, never get run off the floor again because that was embarrassing. I think that might was the most embarrassing part of this series against the Indiana Pacers because they knew that the Indiana Pacers were going to run. They knew that they were going to have to face off against the Pacers and what their style of play was, what they did successfully, what they did well, and still they were ill prepared. And obviously it is in part because they had three of their top team, seven players on the bench for multiple different periods of the series. But Donovan Mitchell, you gotta be able to move in game two on that inbound play. That feels like it could have been the deciding factor of that contest. Jared Allen, where were you in game five? In game four? And I think there’s so many different players that didn’t feel like they got to excel where they wanted to because of the lack of conditioning, because they were trying to catch their breath against a team like the Indiana Pacers. So we’ve talked about this and I’ve said it a good amount. The Cavs are tripling down basically, maybe quadrupling down now because after three years of this team, right. I think Toby Altman has said it. This is only year three of the core four, right? And the Boston Celtics compared to the Boston Celtics a lot. How Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown and that corner had to take six, seven years to get to a championship. But Kobe Altman and Kenny Atkinson are tripling, quadrupling down on this core and it feels like there’s a reason for it. And they have a pattern and a goal and a plan of what needs to be improved going into this next season for them to have success. But it’s how it translates to the court. Because as we love to say on this podcast, as Jimmy has coined, and I feel like we need T shirts for it, we got to see it, we got to see it translate. And that’s the biggest thing when it comes to this Cavs team and how they’re going to elevate to the next level for this coming season. If they can get to the Eastern Conference Finals, if they can get to the NBA Finals. And we’ve already talked about this, it is a reach the NBA Finals or bust in a coming season where the Eastern Conference is as wide open as it has been and everybody has a bullseye on the Cavs back.
Chris Fedor: I think the thing that we can’t lose sight of is that Indiana is just a rare entity. They played the fastest pace of any team in NBA history. But. But I think the thing that there are two ways that the Cavs can approach this and I think their off season kind of pointed to one of the ways we’re in an era right now of it’s not only about super teams. It’s not about a big two or a big three or whatever it used to be a decade ago. This is an era of depth. This is an era of playable depth. And it’s going to be hard for the Cavs from a salary cap perspective. And they know this. They push back on this publicly and there are reasons for them to do this, but they know that the kind of salary structure that they have with so many high priced guys is going to make it, at the very least, tricky. Now, are they okay with paying Donovan Mitchell $50 million a year? Of course it’s Donovan Mitchell. He’s one of the best players in the NBA. He is the bonafide leader of this team. He is the face of this franchise. Are they okay with the fact that they have to pay Evan Mobley even more money because of the incentives that he reached in his contract? Of course, because you have Evan Mobley and that’s the kind of contract that it requires if you’re going to have Evan Mobley on your roster. And the same thing when it comes to Darius and the same thing when it comes to Jared Allen, because they believe in these guys, because they understand how special this group could be together. We haven’t seen it, we haven’t seen it to the level that we need to see it in the playoffs, but there’s a belief internally that this group can be special. But in saying that, like, you have to find a way to supplement that while you have those guys under contract and if you’re committed to them, you have to find a way to supplement that talent that you already have on the roster with more playable bodies, with more guys that Kenny Atkinson can trust. And the truth is, if we’re looking at the depth chart right now and how it’s all set up, you know Larry Nance Jr. As a backup center, even though he doesn’t like playing center. But in theory, Larry Nance Jr. As a backup center is more playable than Tristan Thompson was last year for the Cavs. Right? And if you start going down the roster more and more and more, even Lonzo Ball, you can say in a playoff environment, the kind of player he is, the kind of weaknesses that he has within his game are not as exploitable as what Ty Jerome’s probably were. And there’s a reason why Kenny Atkinson felt like he needed to go away from Ty. Whether we think Kenny was right in doing that or not, whether we Think Kenny should have done that or not? He’s the coach. He’s the one making the decisions. And there was something about Ty, his defense in big, bold letters, and he wasn’t playing offense the way that, that he did for a majority of the regular season to make up for those defensive shortcomings and limitations. But there were components, attackable components with Ty Jerome that, that made Kenny Atkinson lose faith and belief in him. Well, he has effectively been replaced by Lonzo Ball. Do you see Lonzo Ball getting played off the floor in a playoff environment? I don’t, not as much. Because, like, what’s the exploitable area of his game? Teams aren’t going to sag off of him from the three point line. So it’s not going to restrict your offense from that standpoint. It’s not like he can’t dribble the ball up the floor and get the team into their offense. So he’s not going to be bothered theoretically by the pressure of Andrew Nemhard, DJ McConnell and the likes of those players, or if they get to the NBA Finals, Luke Dort. So you start like having those conversations about all these different components of the roster. And it wasn’t a splashy off season from the Cavs perspective, but I feel like they have more playable playoff level players. And in this era, that’s what you need. And it doesn’t have to be all seven games in a series, and it doesn’t have to be every single series. But if you look at Indiana, they understood like, hey, we play really, really fast and we’re asking a lot of our guys from a conditioning standpoint, and asking Tyrese Halliburton to play 45 minutes a night, that’s just not doable. Asking Pascal siakam to play 42 minutes a night in the playoffs, that’s just not doable. Miles Turner, same thing. So, so how do we play the style that we want to play? Well, we deepen our roster. We have more trustworthy guys coming off the bench. We play 10 or 11. So I think that’s the other way to combat that. If, if the Cavs can’t get to a point where Donovan Mitchell can play 42 minutes, and again, Indiana is a different entity altogether. But if Donovan can’t get to a point where he can be effective consistently playing more minutes and having a bigger workload, that’s fine. Like, not everybody is built for that, right? Not everybody is LeBron. So the way to deal with that, the other pathway is find more playable guys, right? Find more guys that you can trust go deeper. If you look at the Pacers, Ethan, there wasn’t a single player on their roster that averaged more than 33 minutes a night during their playoff run. Now there were some games where that workload got increased for some of these guys, but depth and balance, that was a big deal for the Pacers. And the Cavs had depth and balance during the regular season. But as they got into the playoffs, what did Kenny do? He went away from Isaac, he had to go away from Ty Jerome. Not as many minutes for Dean Wade because he didn’t have as much trust in him. So if you look at just the roster composition, I think the Cavs, even though it wasn’t a splashy off season, I think they addressed the depth on their team and, and that’s another thing that could theoretically help that whole conditioning thing. Just go deeper, have more playable guys. And I think in a playoff environment, they have more playable guys than what they had last year.
Ethan Sands: Chris I think that’s a great point, especially when we talk about Kenny Atkinson and how he utilized the bench in the playoffs because Kenny kind of alluded to the fact that he, he might change his ideals in the playoffs because we knew throughout the regular season it was depth, depth, depth, depth. We have some of the best depth in the league and we’re going to lean on it and we believe in it and all of these things. And not to say that that wasn’t true, but he also was like, hey, well that Boston Celtics game at the beginning of the year. Yeah, I over prepped for that. We might have over practiced for that. I changed my entire Persona for that game. And that November and then we get into March and he’s. And we’re starting to talk about what he’s going to do in the playoffs, April and March, starting to talk about what he’s doing in the playoffs and his plan and he goes, well, I gotta make sure that I don’t turn into playoff Kenny instead of regular season Kenny, a little bit of, of over foresight on your part there. Kenny Atkinson, because you became playoff Kenny. Right. So we’re talking about the growth areas for Kenny Atkinson this summer and realizing what he needs to do to get this team to the next level. Trust in the system that you built. Trust in the system that you’ve created. Over 82 games like we’ve talked about it. Evan Mobley if you are having a rough game, that does not mean you can stop attacking the basket or trying to get to your spots. Kenny Atkinson, just because something is not working doesn’t mean you shut it down entirely. Maybe you take Ty Jerome out and then give him another shot, not try and take him out of the game in entirety. And what was that, Chris, Game five like? I just think there is a point that Kenny Atkinson cannot reach, which is losing belief in something that has worked even if a certain matchup or situation isn’t going in their planned direction.
Chris Fedor: Because now at the same time, there’s the other side of that, right. That the players have to give Kenny a reason for him to believe in them and for him to trust them. And you know, it’s as much as it’s his job to instill confidence in his players, the players have to instill confidence in Kenny that Kenny can call their number and they can be effective in whatever environment it is where they’re called upon. And I would say that not everybody in the every night rotation did that, especially during that Indiana series.
Ethan Sands: Yeah, Chris. And I think you’re absolutely right. Obviously there’s always the other side of the coin. There’s never going to be just one side of it. You have to always have your players doing what you need to do and not losing confidence in themselves for the coach to be able to put them in the situations to have success. It’s a little bit of a give and take, right? That’s how the NBA, that’s how all sports work, especially in the coaching and player relationships. I just think this is a team that if you say you’re going to do something, you have to do it. One and two, Kenny Atkinson, I think he might have like been overthinking some things and have given us some, some insight to how things might change in the playoffs without trying to. And I thought that was funny. Even dating back to the Boston Celtics game earlier in the season that I mentioned. And then of course how he said there’s a difference between regular season Kenny and playoff Kenny. And not trying to do that because it was something that he had learned coming from Brooklyn and going to the LA Clippers and the Golden State warriors and getting that time, time with them and finding out what kind of coach he wanted to be in the playoffs in those kinds of environments when things get shaky, when things get tough. And I think he’s still learning as a coach, but especially in year two, coming into year two of his tenure with the Cleveland Cavaliers and having a full summer with this team. I think this team is in the right situations when it comes to internal development, is not just players, but coaches. And we talk about Larry Nance Jr. Lonzo Ball having some of their first summers healthy in a very long time and how that’s going to impact them coming into this next season rested, ready to go and hungry, even though there’s going to be plans set in place for them not to play necessarily every game, but to play meaningful roles whenever they are called upon.
Chris Fedor: I think that’s also a good point that you bring up about Kenny in his, in his second season with the Cavs. And it’s not just his second season with the Cavs. It’s a not as busy offseason. Kenny doesn’t regret, you know, working for the French national team. He had that commitment already. Kenny doesn’t regret, you know, going through the entire interview process with the Cavs. But the truth is, you know, the Cavs were playing catch up more so than a usual team would be because of all the different stuff that, that Kenny was trying to juggle last off season and the Cavs gave him the freedom to do that and it made him a better coach to go through those experiences. But it also impacted the Cavs. And I think Kenny feels like, and the Cavs feel like, hey, he’s got a full off season. And think about all the stuff that he has done this offseason. He was with the team in Las Vegas. He spent some time with Evan Mobley and DeAndre Hunter out in Los Angeles. He spent some time with Darius Garland, going through the whole recovery plan with the doctors and stuff like that. He went out to see Sam Merrill, he went out to see Donovan Mitchell, you name it. Like that kind of stuff, he has more freedom to do and he has more of an opportunity to do just based on the, the other stuff that that’s part of his schedule. He even told me he has watched the, rewatched the Indiana series so many different times, trying to study that and, and learn from that. And it’s not to say that, you know, Kenny couldn’t meet with his players last year because of all of his other commitments, but he had to budget his time in a different kind of way last year than, than what he’s been able to do this off season. And I think the Cavs are going to benefit from that greatly. And I also think second year in a system for all these guys, there’s more comfort, there’s more belief, there’s more trust. I think that’s another thing that, that has been talked about throughout the course of this offseason a bunch, Ethan is just the level of on court trust that the Cavs need to continue to enhance and that’s Kenny trusting the players. That’s the players trusting the system. And when things get difficult, you usually revert and it’s when those things get difficult and the pressure ramps up, continue to trust, continue to believe, continue to do the things that helped you become a 64 win team. And I think all of that went into Kenny’s internal evaluation. I think that went into the players internal evaluation. I think it went in to the front office’s internal evaluation and all that kind of stuff. But there’s rightfully so. There’s a lot of confidence from Kenny and there’s a lot of confidence from people inside this organization that the Cavs are ready to compete for a championship and they do believe that they learned what they needed to learn. We’ll see. Has to play itself out. But they do believe they learned what they needed to learn from the latest.
Ethan Sands: Playoff exit Delusional confidence, Chris Unshakable belief and an ego that does not go away just because things go wrong. I think mental toughness is the word that kind of puts all of those together when we talk about this Cleveland Cavaliers group and we understand they know that they need to grow in that department in mental toughness. And we’ve talked a lot about the mental side of things this entire summer and I’m intrigued to see how things translate to Media day, training camp, preseason games and then the regular season. Because as we know, October is important for the Cavs just to see how they get off to the right side start. And of course last season it was 15 0. This season we’re just looking for them to make growth and see where they can improve already to start the year. Obviously training camp and preseason games don’t mean as much other than camaraderie and growing that chemistry. Especially because the Cavs lost every single preseason game last year and it didn’t matter when it came to the regular season. So don’t put too much weight into that. But we are going to look forward to seeing what this Cavs team can do this season in the 20252026 season. And with all that being said, that’ll wrap up today’s episode of the One and Gold Talk podcast. But remember to become a Cavs insider and interact with Chris, me and Jimmy by subscribing to something. Sign up for a 14 day free trial or visit cleveland.comcavs and click on the blue bar at the top of the page to send in your questions for next week’s hey Chris episode. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. All you have to do is text the word stop. It’s easy. But we can tell you that the people who sign up stick around because this is the best way to get insider coverage on the Cavs from me, Chris, and Jimmy. This isn’t just our podcast. It’s your podcast. And the only way to have your voice heard is through some text. Y’ all be safe. We out.
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