Coach wants Cavs tougher

Coach J.B. Bickerstaff knows exactly the type player he wants to add to his Cavaliers team before the 2020-21 season starts in December so they can contend for a playoff spot, and he wants to see the same quality from his current players.

“From a player’s standpoint, it’s dribble, pass, shoot and versatility at the defensive end of the floor,” Bickerstaff said June 9 on a Zoom conference with media covering the Cavaliers.

“We want long guys, athletic guys, fast guys. (Former NBA coach) David Fizdale called them Swiss Army knives.”

Bickerstaff then amended his wish list and added “toughness” as a key asset when former Cavalier Campy Russell noted in the Zoom conference Bickerstaff did not mention toughness initially. Russell, who played for the Cavaliers from 197480 and again in the 1984-85 season, works as a pregame and postgame analyst for FOX Sports Ohio.

“I should have said that (at first), because I believe to my core that’s one of the most important things you can have,” Bickerstaff said.

“You can’t be a good team if you don’t have that toughness. My vision has always been being a group of guys nobody wants to see.

“As you come into a team in a back-to-back in February and their first thought when they see you on the schedule is, ‘Oh, (bleep), not them.”

Bickerstaff understands why the Cavaliers and seven other teams are left out of the NBA’s restart plan, but he also believes the league should do something for the teams that won’t be playing when the season resumes next month. Commissioner Adam Silver on March 12 suspended play because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Cavaliers, at 19-46, have the worst record in the Eastern Conference and the second-worst record in the league. The 16 teams

currently in playoff position plus six teams within striking distance of a playoff spot will play eight regular-season games beginning July 31 at the Walt Disney Resort in Orlando, Fla., to determine playoff seeding.

Under the current plan, the 2010-20 playoffs would end in October. The 202021 season will start Dec. 1. That means the Cavaliers will go almost nine months (they last played March 10 in Chicago) between games.

“This is motivation for us moving forward,” Bickerstaff said. “We are very clear and understanding of the league’s reasoning. We will be good partners in that. We get it. But this is internal motivation for our group to prepare ourselves to be better so we could be on that invite list going forward.

“We have asked the

league to do things so it isn’t a competitive disadvantage. If you take eight, nine months off between games, there’s no doubt it will be a competitive disadvantage for your group. We’ve had discussions with the other seven coaches to figure out a way to put something in place to negate that disadvantage as best we possibly can. How do we get guys together in market? How do we get some competitive games out of it? There is nothing definitive yet.”

The Zoom conference lasted about 50 minutes. Questions followed two paths — one about what the Cavs must do to get better and the other about the role Bickerstaff and the Cavaliers can do to help promote racial harmony. The topic has been revived since the death of George Floyd, a

black man, occurred when a white police officer knelt on the back of Floyd’s neck.

“I do feel a responsibility to have a voice and be part of the discussion, but everybody should, because this is a two-sided issue,” Bickerstaff said. “Either you’re for equality or you’re not. There’s no neutral. I think that’s where we’ve been caught for too long. We’ve let people off the hook being neutral. I don’t think we can do that anymore.

“Racism is not just a black problem. It won’t change unless we all make a conscious decision and effort to change it. All the coaches in the league — black, white, Filipino, Hispanic — we all have a responsibility to speak out on this. If you don’t speak out, you’ve made a choice, and that’s the choice to be on the side of wrong, in my

mind.”

Bickerstaff has struck up a friendship with Browns coach Kevin Stefanski, whose father, Ed Stefanski, worked in the front office of the Grizzlies when Bickerstaff was coaching the Grizzlies in 2016 and 2017. Bickerstaff said he and Kevin Stefanski plus Cavaliers general manager Koby Altman and Browns GM Andrew Berry will work together to affect change in the Cleveland community.

“We’re in the process of trying to figure it out,” Bickerstaff said. “But — and this is all of us — we’re done with statements. Now it’s time to be part of the action. We’re working to get there. We want it to be intelligent. We don’t want it to be scattered and get nothing done. We’re working on those things now.”