CLEVELAND, Ohio — Kenny Atkinson is in his laboratory, and the NBA should be worried.

With the Cavs opening training camp at IMG Academy on Tuesday, the head coach’s excitement about experimenting with his offense is palpable — even drawing comparisons to a beloved 1990s cartoon.

“You just sense from Kenny of kind of like him in his lab, like Pinky in the Brain back in the day saying like, oh this is going to be great. We’re going to take over the world with this sort of thing,” Chris Fedor shared on the Wine and Gold Talk podcast.

The comparison is apt.

Atkinson, entering his second season as Cleveland’s head coach, isn’t just tinkering with an already historic offense (ranked second-best in NBA history last season). He’s reimagining it, building a more versatile attack that addresses the predictability that plagued the team in last year’s playoffs.

“When you got into a seven-game series and it was all about exploiting weaknesses and scouting reports and playing the same team over and over and over again … the Cavs just didn’t have other places to go,” Fedor explained. “And that’s the thing that Kenny is trying to build — a level of versatility, a level of diversity, being multiple.”

Under former coach J.B. Bickerstaff, Cleveland defaulted to high pick-and-rolls with Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell when plays broke down. While effective in the regular season, this predictability became a liability in the playoffs when teams could scout and prepare specifically for those actions.

Atkinson’s vision is different: a continuous-flow offense with multiple actions that keeps defenses guessing. And while his offensive acumen is central to this evolution, the personnel changes are equally important.

The addition of Lonzo Ball and Larry Nance Jr. brings new dimensions of versatility. Evan Mobley’s improved ball-handling skills (a specific focus of his offseason training) creates additional options. Even the temporary absences of Garland (expected back around Thanksgiving) and Max Strus (potentially missing half the season) present opportunities for experimentation.

These challenges particularly energize Atkinson, according to Fedor: “One of the things that Kenny loves to do most is the mad scientist stuff. So when there are these situations that he has to navigate at the beginning of the year it makes him really, really dig in and it gets him really, really excited to see what he can come up with.”

This scientific approach extends beyond game planning to film study. Jimmy Watkins highlighted Atkinson’s reputation as “a maniacal film guy” who has spent the summer analyzing where the offense bogged down in the playoffs and developing counters.

The team’s increased familiarity with Atkinson’s system should also pay dividends. “The stuff that already exists, you’re just going to understand it better because you’ve done it more,” Watkins noted. “That .05 seconds here where you understand what you need to do, 0.5 seconds here where you see a read better might add up to an extra action per possession.”

Those fractions of a second matter in Atkinson’s offense, which aims to mentally and physically exhaust defenses through continuous movement.

As Watkins explained: “Even if you defend it well for 15, 20 seconds, it’s so mentally and physically taxing that eventually…if the Cavs run enough stuff, if they’re able to get enough actions off, you’re going to make a mistake.”

For fans eager to see what concoctions Atkinson is brewing in his laboratory, tune in to the full Wine and Gold Talk podcast for more insights directly from Cavaliers training camp at IMG Academy.

Here’s the podcast for this week:

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