National NBA Insiders Saying They Believe in Cavs’ Potential for Deep Playoff Run

January 2, 2025

If you ask ESPN, the Cavaliers can really go places — this season.

Actually, the Cavs have already gone plenty of places, racing to a 15-0 start and recording an NBA-best record of 29-4. That’s also a franchise best.

But most of the buzz about them has been limited to Cleveland and Cavaliers fans. No big surprise, there. The national media wants drama, and lots of it. The Cavs have none.

Instead, they’re just playing basketball the way it might be described on Wikipedia, with ball movement, teamwork, determination and all-around smart play under first-year coach Kenny Atkinson.

Finally, some of the national media is taking notice and showing belief. We know this because ESPN ran a roundtable featuring NBA insiders, with one of the questions being as follows: Which newcomer contender is best positioned for a deep postseason run?

The Cavs received some love. Let’s take a look.

“The Cavaliers have the league’s best record heading into the new year and they look poised for a deep run in the East,” wrote ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk. “They look like they have everything they need: a prolific star scorer, a high-scoring backcourt, incredible size and length, veteran shooters and defense.

“Donovan Mitchell has proven he can get hot in the playoffs when healthy. Though all the talk entering the season revolved around the Celtics, Knicks and Sixers, the Cavs are building a cushion atop the East standings and have shown little signs of slowing down.”

ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, who covered the Cavs during the LeBron James era, also weighed in.

“The Cavaliers are no fluke, beating up on an Eastern Conference that’s weaker than the West,” he wrote. “They have star power in the backcourt (Mitchell and Darius Garland) and frontcourt (Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen). They can go 10 deep, and that’s not counting Max Strus, an elite role player who has missed most of the season because of an ankle injury.

“They have the second-best point differential in the league behind Oklahoma City. Their coach, Kenny Atkinson, has been waiting for a chance to prove himself since being unceremoniously ousted by the Brooklyn Nets during the Kevin Durant–Kyrie Irving failed experiment.

“Add in a great postseason home-court advantage thanks to an electric fan base, and the road to the Finals in the East could go through Cleveland.”

Finally, the Cavs were also the pick of ESPN’s Tim MacMahon.

“The Thunder arrived as a contender last season, when Oklahoma City was the No. 1 seed in the West. Cleveland is on that path now,” MacMahon wrote. “There seems to be an assumption that the Celtics’ return to the Finals is a certainty, but it’d be foolish to dismiss the Cavaliers as a serious threat.

“There is nothing fluky about Cleveland’s league-best 29-4 record. The Cavaliers are in rare air with a net rating of plus-11.6, which ranks behind only this season’s Thunder (11.9) and last season’s Celtics (11.7) among teams in the past decade.”