Which 3 Cavs players will determine whether Cleveland’s 2026-27 season succeeds or fails?

Well, I think it's a combination of both, Ethan, and I think we have to start here.

Um, there is no roster in the NBA that is perfect.

There is no flawless team out there.

Not Oklahoma City, not San Antonio, not New York, not Philadelphia, not new look Miami, nobody.

What you have to do is you try to work around your flaws.

You try to minimize those as much as you possibly can.

I think, you know, the strength and the physicality and the brute force, like Mario Hezonja is built like a linebacker.

He is.

Every time I have talked to him over the last forty-eight hours, and him and I are trying to get to know each other on a more personal level because, you know, I'm around as, as much as anybody that he has had cover him throughout the course of his career.

So I told him, I was like, "Get used to seeing me because I'm gonna be around a lot." You know, I don't know how it was overseas, but I don't think you saw the same guy every single day.

So he was laughing about that.

But the thing that strikes me is just how physically put together he is, even by comparison of some of his teammates.

Um, and I think that's something that, that stands out for this group, obviously.

Um, and I do think that that level of physicality, um, and that effort on the boards at both ends is going to help.

But I'm not gonna sit here and say that Evan Mobley is an elite rebounder, because he's never been an elite rebounder, right? I'm not gonna sit here and say that Jarrett Allen is an elite rebounder because, yeah, he gets rebounds, and yes, he's one of the best centers in the Eastern Conference, but is he Tristan Thompson? No.

He's a different kind of player, and every individual player has different skills that make up who they are.

And if the Cavs had Andre Drummond in his prime, then it's a different kind of thing, but there are things about Andre Drummond in his prime that you didn't necessarily like, right? So you take the good with the bad, and you hope that you can mask some of these deficiencies that you have.

At the same time, like, I don't know, we've had this conversation over the last couple of weeks.

I don't know that the Cavs are capable of being a top five defensive team, just like I don't know if they're capable of being like a top five rebounding team.

I think they're going to have to do unique things to try to mitigate that problem because this, by nature, this is a more skill-based team.

This is a more skill-based roster.

And you saw the other night, and I know it was only preseason game number one and nobody really plays hard in preseason when you have the talent level that the Cavs do, but Boston just played harder than them.

You could tell.

You could tell that Boston was a team made up of tryhards.

And, and that's what they did throughout the course of last year.