Hezonja still not signed, and the calendar is starting to matter

This is the sixth note. The roadblock that surfaced July 28 has now outlasted a full week of offseason calendar, and the Cavaliers still don't have a forward they can count on behind Dean Wade and Nae'Qwan Tomlin. Wade averaged 5.7 points a game last season. Tomlin averaged 5.5. That's the depth chart as it stands.

Hezonja was supposed to fix the most obvious hole on the roster — a forward position that was badly undermanned all season. The former No. 5 overall pick spent years becoming a reliable scorer in the EuroLeague after his NBA career stalled, and the one-year, $2.8 million deal Cleveland announced on July 26 looked like a sensible, low-risk solution. It still hasn't closed.

Training camp doesn't wait. Every day this drags on is a day Hezonja isn't in the building, and Cleveland's forward situation remains exactly what it was when Harden walked out the door — a core built around Mitchell, Mobley, and Allen, with a significant positional gap that nobody has filled. The backcourt void is real too, but at least Mitchell is locked in for four years. The forward spot has no such anchor.

At some point this stops being a note about a delayed signing and becomes a note about a team that couldn't solve its most obvious problem before camp opened. We're not there yet. But we're getting close.