NBA Analyst Believes Cavaliers Are A ‘Wild-Card’ NBA Title Contender

One NBA analyst believes the Cleveland Cavaliers are a “wild-card” title contender. 

Dan Favale of Bleacher Report thinks the Cavaliers could make some serious noise next season. 

“Recency bias is playing too much of a role in the Cavaliers’ championship odds,” Favale wrote in his NBA column. “Last year saw them thrust into existential crisis amid stop-and-start availability from every member of the Big Four aside from Jarrett Allen. Theirs was a tale of, like, three to five different seasons. That choppiness made it difficult to build synergy and momentum and marry core principles and styles.

“At the same time, constant exigency forced self-discovery. The Cavs have a firmer understanding of their best staggered couplings and the benefits of detaching Allen and Evan Mobley from one another. By the end of the year, they also had a better grasp of what their offense can look like when Mobley is taking and making (some) threes. This is all information new head coach Kenny Atkinson can use to optimize a wildly talented, albeit not perfectly fitting, nucleus.”

The Cavaliers signed Jarrett Allen, Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell to extensions this offseason and declined all trade offers for Darius Garland.

Cleveland also fired JB Bickerstaff as head coach and signed Kenny Atkinson to a five-year deal. 

The Cavaliers went 48-34 last season. They defeated the Orlando Magic in the first round of the playoffs in seven games but lost to the Boston Celtics in the second round in five games. 

“People will still glom onto the Big Four’s performance last season,” Favale wrote in his NBA column. “Cleveland barely won the minutes played by Allen, Mobley, Darius Garland, and Donovan Mitchell. But the sample is much smaller (819 possessions) compared to 2022-23, when the quartet posted a net rating of 10.2 through 1,729 possessions.

“Next year’s Cavs are better and deeper than its opening-year iteration. There’s no way a team with four All-Star types all in or approaching their primes peaked during their inaugural season. And if the wildly flawed version of Cleveland managed to squeak out 48 victories and a playoff-series win last year, imagine what a healthier, more talented and better optimized version of that team can do.”