The Cleveland Cavaliers are going to be without Andrew Bynum until… I’m no even going to take a guess here. Theoretically someday he returns. Yes, he practiced with the team and has done some 5-on-5 work, until he suits up and walks on the court I’m not playing your game.
Until that magical day, at least the Cavaliers have Anderson Varejao… for a few minutes.
Coming off life threatening blood clots that kept him out much of last season, the latest of three injury-plagued seasons, the Brazilian center told the News Herald that he could be on a minutes limit.The Cavs have made no announcement on whether they’ll restrict Varejao’s minutes. It might not be wise to play him 35 minutes a game, even though it might be tempting.
“(I’m) not sure yet,” Varejao said. “But knowing Coach Brown, (he) probably (will). It’s all him. I want to play. If he plays me five minutes, if he plays me 35, like I said, I will give 100 percent. My goal is to stay healthy. After these last three seasons of freak injuries, I want to go out there and just have a healthy season.”
This sounds less like a hard cap of minutes (ala Amar’e Stoudemire) and more a “let’s play it by ear and not burn the guy out” situation. If you can trust Mike Brown to do that.
Tyler Zeller will get minutes at center, while Tristan Thompson will soak up a lot of the minutes at the four (if Bynum gets healthy, Varejao likely slides to the four and Thompson could see his minutes drop). Expect Brown to keep tinkering with rotations for a while to see what works... and if he finds something that works, that’s when Bynum will return.
In the mean time, Cleveland just going to lean heavily on Kyrie Irving. He’s driving that bus.
