It’s difficult to envision something happening that hasn’t occurred yet. At the same time, everything becomes clearer after the fact. This phenomenon is seen with recent NBA champions, a list that the Cleveland
Cavaliers should join next June.
Going into last season, the Oklahoma City Thunder were questioned for their youth and inability to replicate their regular-season success in the playoffs. They were the number one seed in the Western Conference in 2023-24 with a 57-25 record. That didn’t hold up in the postseason as Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving blew past them in the second round en route to a Dallas Mavericks Finals berth.
That storyline doesn’t sound too dissimilar to the Cavs.
The Thunder grew from that experience, responded with 68 regular-season victories, and claimed an NBA title the following year.
In retrospect, it’s easy to see the disappointment of the 2024 playoffs as a necessary step onto OKC’s eventual road to a championship. And on top of that, it was only a matter of time before a collection of talent broke through on the biggest stage, right? But 365 days ago, that path wasn’t as clear.
The same could be said about the 2023-24 Boston Celtics. They were a group too reliant on threes to win a title. That was why they couldn’t get over the line despite having several chances to do so in previous playoff runs. But they were able to break through. And in hindsight, it now seems like they were always destined to do so.
Support us and Let ‘Em Know with Homage!
Anything bought from the links helps support Fear the Sword. You can also shop all of Homage’s Cavs gear HERE. The link to the Donovan Mitchell NBA Jam shirt is HERE.
You could keep going through previous champions and find a similar trend. There’s also a much smaller list of teams that never got over the hump, for whatever reason, even though they should’ve been champions on paper.
The question is, do the Cavs have the talent to win a championship like the teams that have come before? And if so, is there an obstacle in the way that could keep them from doing so?
It’s easy to look down on regular-season success, but it has been the best barometer in determining the eventual championship. From that perspective, the Cavs certainly do have the talent to win a title.
In the past ten years, there have been 14 teams that have won 60 or more games in the regular season or were on pace to do so in a Covid-shortened season. Of those teams, 11 of them won a championship in a three-year window either before or after that 60-win season. The ones below in bold are the three that didn’t, which include last season’s Cavs.
- 2015-16 Golden State Warriors (73-9) – Finals champion the previous and following two seasons
- 2015-16 San Antonio Spurs (67-15) – Finals champion two seasons before
- 2016-17 Warriors (67-15) – Finals champion
- 2016-17 Spurs (61-21) – Finals champion three seasons before
- 2017-18 Houston Rockets (65-17) – no championship in three-year window
- 2018-19 Milwaukee Bucks (60-22) – Finals champion in two seasons
- 2019-20 Bucks (56-17) – Finals champion in the next season
- 2019-20 Toronto Raptors (53-19) – Finals champion the year before
- 2019-20 Los Angeles Lakers (52-19) – Finals champion
- 2021-22 Phoenix Suns (64-18) – lost in Finals, no championship in three-year window
- 2023-24 Celtics (64-18) – Finals champion
- 2024-25 Thunder (68-14) – Finals champion
- 2024-25 Cavaliers (64-18) – no championship in three-year window yet
- 2024-25 Celtics (61-21) – Finals champion the year before
Let’s take a look at the two outliers that never won.
Those versions of the Rockets and Suns never got across the finish line. The James Harden-led Rockets were exceptional, but ran into arguably the greatest team ever assembled, the Kevin Durant Warriors. Houston was simply the right team at the wrong time.
Meanwhile, the 2022 Suns would trade most of the depth that allowed them to make a run to the Finals. Going all in for Durant was an experiment that didn’t work out. The team that won 64 games in 2022 never had a chance to develop thanks to increasingly desperate and head-scratching decisions from their front office.
Right now, we don’t know for certain whether the Cavs are closer to those two teams or the 11 others that won a title. However, the odds are in the Cavs’ favor. Historically, teams that dominate throughout the regular season eventually put it together. Even teams like the Bucks, who had imploded in the playoffs numerous times before winning it all.
If the Cavs are going to get over the hump, this seems like the best year for them to do so. Two of the final four teams in the Eastern Conference playoffs aren’t expected to replicate last season’s success due to injuries to their star players. That leaves a shallow conference where every other team has numerous deficiencies that the Cavs should be able to take advantage of.
On paper, the Thunder should be title favorites again coming from the Western Conference. But there is a reason we haven’t seen a defending champion advance out of the second round the following season since the 2018-19 Warriors. It’s difficult to replicate the intensity needed to win a championship in back-to-back seasons in a league that has more parity than it did even five years ago.
If we assume that history is going to repeat itself with Oklahoma City not being able to copy last season’s success, that would leave the Denver Nuggets and New York Knicks as the biggest challengers for the Cavaliers this season. Denver is a great team, but the Cavs are built to make life difficult for Nikola Jokić with the two great defensive centers they can throw his way. And on paper, the Cavs have a more complete roster than the Knicks, even though New York has had far more postseason success in this era.
Injuries have been the Cavaliers’ biggest obstacle the last few seasons. It’s important to acknowledge that injuries play a far greater role in determining the champion than we often admit. Both Oklahoma City and the Indiana Pacers were healthy throughout the playoffs heading into Game 7 of the Finals. The team whose star players were able to finish that game came away the champion.
Injury luck has not been on the Cavs’ side during their last two postseason runs. That will need to change if they’re going to reach their goal this season. There’s no situation where the Cavs win a title if their three best players in Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and Darius Garland, aren’t all healthy throughout the entire postseason.
It’s difficult to envision things happening before they do. The Cavs haven’t played to their potential in the postseason, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. This group has proven to be extremely resilient. They’ve shown that they can drastically improve upon the weaknesses of the year before to become a better version of themselves.
Likewise, the front office has done a great job of identifying and bolstering its biggest areas of need over the past several seasons. That continued again this summer as Cleveland brought in all-around talents in Lonzo Ball and Larry Nance Jr. to plug in some of the deficiencies with those bench units.
This same improvement has transferred over to their stars as well. Mitchell, Mobley, and Garland are significantly different players than they were three years ago, when they first shared the floor. They’ve continued to answer questions about whether their talents fit together. Now, the only thing left to prove is that they can stay healthy through four postseason rounds.
History tells us that a team as talented as the Cavaliers is likely to break through at some point if they keep knocking on the door. Whether or not they stay healthy remains to be seen. But if they can, they have a clear path for getting to and winning the Finals.
This should be their year.
