Make no mistake about it, this year will go down as a failure for the Cleveland Cavaliers. With all the hype surrounding a new Big 3, they were doomed from the start. The Cavs never struggled on their journey to the Finals, sweeping the Celtics and Hawks and winning in six against the Bulls. However, the effort was in vain as LeBron and company lost in six to the Warriors, led by Steph Curry.
Many people will argue this season was a great success for Cleveland. However, several things went catastrophically wrong: the team lost Anderson Varejao before in December and proceeded to lose Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving in the playoffs. In turn, virtually every Cleveland fan was rooting for LeBron to pull off the impossible -- win against a much superior team (FiveThirtyEight ranks the Warriors as the third-best team, ever, by Elo rating). Bear in mind the Cavaliers were trying to win with a first-year coach in David Blatt.
So, everything sounds good so far. The Cavs were heavy underdogs, still took the Warriors to six, and we got to watch LeBron turn in one of his best playoff performances ever. Where’s the issue? It comes in two parts. First, even with injuries, the Cavaliers were truly not that far from winning this year’s Finals. Second, the Cavs face a huge predicament moving forward with contract retention.
Kyrie played great in game one, with the Cavs narrowly losing in OT on the west coast. Kyrie goes out, and the Cavs manage to win game two with Dellavedova. I (still) fail to understand why everyone loves him so much. Offensively, Dellavedova was horrendous, and that is putting it mildly. In games two through five, he shot 15-51 and managed 13 turnovers. Yes, he brought great energy. Yes, he made some great hustle plays. Yes, he played some great defense. But let’s stop there.
Meanwhile, JR Smith and Iman Shumpert contributed very little when it mattered. Timofey Mozgov was quietly the team’s second-best player, only to disappear in the fourth quarter every single game. Tristan Thompson played decently. If Smith and Shumpert shoot just a little bit better, and cut Dellavedova’s touches in half, I think the Cavs easily force a game seven and have at least a 50/50 shot at winning.
Second, the Cavs now have roster choices to make. Assume LeBron resigns, now they have to hypothetically divide minutes between Mozgov, Thompson, Love, and Varejao. What a mess. A good mess, but there’s no chance they retain all four, and might end up losing two. It’ll be interesting to see what happens moving forward.
The Cavaliers were truly close to winning the Finals. So much has been put on LeBron, fairly or not. There honestly wasn’t much more he could have done to give his team a chance to win and it was incredibly frustrating to watch everyone else play poorly. So, does God hate Cleveland? Probably, the Indians aren’t giving us much hope. The Browns? See you in September.
