Nostradamus we're not: Or pre-season analysis that didn't age well

[JonFromVA]

It's fun to revisit this stuff, here's one from Jonathan Tjarks who was so super high on Evan Mobley, yet couldn't figure out how the Cavs would be able to play him and win games:

https://www.theringer.com/2021/10/5/22708269/evan-mobley-cleveland-cavaliers

Lots of remarks that didn't age well here including:

The problem is that there isn’t much else to be excited about besides Mobley. None of their past three lottery picks—Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, and Okoro—looks like a future franchise player. Nor do they form a group better than the sum of its parts. Sexton and Garland are undersized guards who can’t defend multiple positions. Okoro can defend, but can’t play off them on offense until he develops as a shooter. Cleveland is closer to Detroit and Orlando, both of whom are starting rebuilds, than Chicago and Toronto, the other two teams to miss the play-in tournament in the East.

[JonFromVA]

And not to tout my own horn, ... ok ... to tout my own horn, Tjarks wasn't considering that the Cavs might play Allen, Markkenen, and Mobley in the starting lineup when he wrote that article on October 5th, but I was already thinking that way shortly after we acquired Lauri on August 27th just 4 hours after Shams reported the trade was going to happen (and tip of the cap to Fedor):

I don't think the Cavs are good enough defensively to prioritize spacing above all else this way.

Also, our softness just increased to Charmin levels.

I think we just traded our best win-now player for another we'll-see young guy. I suspect the second best offer for Lauri wasn't anywhere near this good, in terms of dollars or trade compensation.

I'm not sure Lauri is better than Hartenstein.

Hartenstein is a C, Lauri sure isn't.

To riff on an tweet of Fedor's which just said "Traits. Not positions." ... did we need more shooting? Oh, yes. Does Lauri improve our 3pt shooting? Oh, yes. Is he a SF? Noooooo ... but if we'd signed a no defense SF who could shoot like Duncan Robinson to a deal like this, , would we be complaining? Not so much.

So, I wonder ... how much worse are we if we end up playing Mobley or Markkanen at SF so we can get that shooting on the floor?

Something to ponder ...

[El Hespiritu]

I tend to write some mid-season post comparing my Pre-Season posts with current team situation.
Didn't do it yet this season.

I take mental note.

By memory, I'd say I didn't dig too much into expectations or players' evaluation since I mostly didn't even know half of their faces.

So I don't expect neither too many #IToldY'All nor too many #IKnowNothing