What we learned from the Cavs’ preseason press conference: Is Cleveland betting on the right players?

I think it was just more confirmation about how much this organization is excited about and really loves the idea of Peyton Watson in the starting lineup, in the rotation, on this basketball team.

however you want to phrase it.

Kenny Atkinson didn't want to reveal him as the starting small forward today, said that the starting lineup is not set, that there's a whole training camp that they have to figure these kinds of things out.

I don't feel like the Cavs went out and made a five-team sign-in trade and did all these other salary cap gymnastics for Peyton Watson to come off the bench.

That's just me.

But the thing that stands out to me is just how much they're excited about the idea of this player.

And this is no offense to Max Strews.

This is no offense to Dean Wade.

This is no offense to Isaac Okoro or anybody else that has manned the small forward position over the last half decade.

But they're looking at this saying the guy that we have now at this spot can do things that none of those other guys could do.

And we have a different dimension that we can tap into offensively because of the skill set of Peyton Watson.

And I think the Cavs believe that as much as his role is going to be about what can he do defensively? Can he take the toughest assignments? Kenny Atkinson said the thing that stood out to him in some of the workouts that he's seen with Peyton Watson recently is his defense and his shot-blocking prowess and his defense at the rim and his switchability and all those different things.

That's a big part of why he's here.

But I think you could sense from Kobe and you could sense from Kenny Atkinson that there is a different dimension that they believe in.

Peyton Watson can take them on the offensive end of the floor to take some of the burden away from Donovan Mitchell and James Harden.

Like if James and Donovan are going to draw so much attention and they're going to have the ball in their hands so much and teams are going to try and get the ball out of their hands, they feel like they have somebody at that spot that can make the defense pay in a way that Dean Wade couldn't.

I feel like the theme of today's presser was ask not where's LeBron.

LeBron who?

They said his name like once at the beginning of the press conference and then referred to him as like the decision or the outcome or the process for the rest of the press conference.

But ask not, where's LeBron? Ask instead, how cool is Peyton Watson? That's basically the offseason in a sentence there.

I'm excited about Peyton Watson.

I thought particularly when they started talking about using him as a screener, that perked my ears up a little bit.

He basically did none of that.

With the Nuggets last year, that was like 3%.

I looked this up on NBA.com earlier.