Are the Cavs one injury away from a season-long problem?

First and foremost, let's start with the injury news itself.

The Cleveland Cavaliers will be without Naquan Tomlin for approximately three to four weeks after the team diagnosed him with a lower back stress reaction.

He missed the entirety of the preseason, and now he's going to miss the beginning of the regular season as well.

What's particularly interesting here is that Kenny Atkinson had indicated that Naquan Tomlin was actually going to be a part of the rotation based on how he was performing in the summer.

And now with the season starting, he's going to have to work his way back into the mix while everyone else is already establishing their roles.

So Chris, how significant is this injury when you consider what the Cavaliers need from their power forward position specifically? Because Tomlin wasn't necessarily a proven rotation player, but Kenny Atkinson had envisioned a role for him, as he said at practice today.

How much does Cleveland lose by not having that option available?

I don't think it's a significant loss, Ethan, and I don't want to downplay it, but it's more just denting Cleveland's depth and versatility.

And I think one of the things that that we have talked about throughout the last couple of weeks is just the different way that the Cavs want to approach this season and the identity that they want to have.

They've talked and we'll find out if they actually back up these words.

But they have talked about rediscovering their defensive identity and becoming a top five team.

And I think part of the reason why Naquan Tomlin was pegged into the rotation is because of his size, his length, his athleticism, his switchability, his energy, his activity, those kinds of things.

So I think it just kind of limits the amount of different lineups and variations that Kenny can use.

And I did think it was interesting earlier today, Ethan, that Kenny was talking about when it comes to who's going to replace Naquan in this stable 10-man rotation, it's not necessarily going to be a like-sized player at the same positional group.

And that leads me to believe that it's going to be a guard, and then one of the wings is going to have to downsize and shift over to play some small ball forward at times.

Peyton Watson, Jalen Tyson, obviously it's beneficial to the Cavs to have somebody like Mario Hazonia.

Signing him this off season, six foot nine, 250 pounds, can play the power forward spot.

So he moves up the depth chart.

He needs to be a little bit more reliable.

somebody that the Cavs can count on a little bit more because they just don't have anybody else in that position group aside from a wing and a downsized lineup that can really step in and do the things that Kenny was looking for Naquan to do in year three.

So I would say that this would be a bigger loss for the Cavs if Naquan was a little bit higher up the importance hierarchy, a little bit higher up in terms of the depth chart.

He was going to be one of the last players players in the rotation and having Mario Hazonia gives you some depth and some insurance.

But if Peyton Watson goes down, if Evan Mobley goes down, if Mario Hazonia goes down, we don't know what's going to happen over the next month.

And if any one of those guys goes down, Ethan, then you're starting to look at a position group that is really, really, really thin.

Chris, that's exactly where I was going next, especially when you talk about the injury history of this Cleveland Cavaliers lineup.