NBA Team Preview: Cleveland Cavaliers

Dunking With Wolves is counting down NBA Team Previews from the worst to the best. The Cleveland Cavaliers are #3.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have the best duo (and trio) of stars in the entire NBA.

Sure, James Harden and Dwight Howard are great, and Chris Paul and Blake Griffin aren’t all that far back from the Cavs. But LeBron James and Kevin Love are simply un-surpassable as the best duo in the league.

No other team can boast two top-six players, and once you throw in Kyrie Irving, you’d be hard pressed to find a superior core in the league. (The aging San Antonio Spurs’ core of Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Tim Duncan along with Kawhi Leonard is obviously tops as well, but not for all that much longer.)

The only real question marks for Cleveland this year are a) non-wing depth, b) a rookie head coach, and c) overall team chemistry with a largely remade roster and the aforementioned new coach. Of course, the coach is David Blatt, who has long been regarded as one of, if not the best head coach in the international game, so he’s not exactly a “rookie” coach, just new to the NBA and his newly-fashioned roster.

The back court consists of Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters, who both started for a 33-win team in the putrid Eastern Conference a year ago. The backups haven’t been upgraded from a year ago, either, with Matthew Dellavedova replacing the departed Jarrett Jack as the primary backup point guard, with A.J. Price and second-round pick Joe Harris as the only other true guards on the team.

The guard spot would be shallow for any team, but as much as James apparently love Waiters, the former Syracuse guard remains a massive question mark as a productive NBA player. Through two professional seasons, Waiters has been a chucker that can’t make shots, attempting 17 field goals per 36 minutes with a true shooting percentage of just 50.8% and an effective field goal mark of 47.9%. He’s also turned the ball over on more than 12% of his possessions, and hasn’t defended or rebounded his position consistently, either.

If he can adopt a (very) poor man’s version of an aging Dwyane Wade (no, not a particularly good player) as the type of slasher that LeBron is envisioning him as in Blatt’s offense, he has a shot at being somewhat effective. But unless he becomes a knock-down spot-up shooter from the perimeter, he is easily the weakest link in the Cavs’ rotation.

Backing up James on the wing are veterans Mike Miller, Shawn Marion, and James Jones. It’s an aging and somewhat brittle crew, but there’s enough shooting and defensive help there to be sufficient in backing up the best player on the planet.

The front court is the strength of these team, although it’s also a bit shallow. Love will play alongside defensive stalwart and holdover from James’ first stint in Cleveland Anderson Varejao. They’ll be backed up by the solid Tristan Thompson and Lou Amundson, who’s good for six to eight haphazard, energy-filled minutes per game and not much else.

The Cavs are missing a backup center, and they’ll likely be making a move for a veteran that can play a decent chunk of rotation minutes. (One of the more obvious fits is the Wolves’ Ronny Turiaf, but I would expect Flip Saunders to hang onto him until close to the trade deadline — he’s too concerned about Nikola Pekovic missing time to give up this third-string center.)

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ offense could legitimately be one of the best in league history. It has that much potential.

The issue, of course, is how Love and Irving adjust to being second and third options, respectively — they’re both used to being #1. If they can adjust and Blatt can manage the personalities and egos on the roster, the sky is the limit for this team. The only reason they aren’t first in our rankings is because of the learning curve/adjustment period that teams like this undergo. Look no further than the 2010-11 Miami Heat for an example of this reality.

The Cavs will finish with 58 wins this year, and if they gel much quicker than expected, this is a team with legit 60+ win talent. Of course, if one of the starters goes down for an extended period of time, the bench isn’t exactly deep. Look for the front office to make a couple of in-season moves to acquire veterans (Trading for a center or point guard? Signing Ray Allen?) as an attempt to shore up their depth as spring draws closer.