The Cleveland Cavaliers didn’t realistically the 2018-19 season they wanted from a record standpoint, but them clinching having the 2019 NBA Draft’s best lottery odds isn’t an awful consolation.
The Cleveland Cavaliers and Kevin Love (who was mostly sidelined due to reported injuries) haven’t had the season they would’ve wanted from a playing standpoint; currently they are just 19-61 and have virtually had the league’s worst net rating all season long (according to NBA.com).
As we’ve touched on throughout the last few months of the year, though, there’s been plenty of growth from their key young pieces, and that’s why you could argue the 2018-19 season was somewhat successful, as our own Eli Mooneyham recently demonstrated.
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After Friday’s loss to the Golden State Warriors, the Cavaliers also stamped having their share of the best lottery odds, according to 92.3 The Fan’s Daryl Ruiter.
Under the new lottery rules that will start in the 2019 NBA Draft, the teams with the three worst records in the NBA (Cleveland, the Phoenix Suns and New York Knicks) all have an equal 14.0 percent chance of landing the first pick (per Tankathon), and based on the opinions of draft pundits, that means the right to draft Duke phenom Zion Williamson.
Williamson has not officially declared, but as Bleacher Report’s Adam Wells noted, that’s essentially just fine print at this point based on recent comments by this year’s Associated Press Player of the Year in NCAA Men’s Hoops.
Cleveland having a chance at landing the top pick for 2019 is a pretty nice silver lining to have for this year, along with the fact that rookie point guard Collin Sexton has been killing it for the last two or so months and should warrant NBA All-Rookie First Team honors (as our own Robbie DiPaola highlighted), and wing Cedi Osman has taken a big leap forward in his first season playing a considerable minutes-share with 13.0 points on 50.3 effective field goal shooting, to go with 4.7 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game (per NBA.com).
Jordan Clarkson, the Cavs’ leader scorer among regular rotational players this year with 17.0 points per game on 51.1 percent effective field goal shooting, broke the Cleveland Cavaliers’ single-season record for bench scoring recently, and is proving to either be a key piece for the squad in the coming years, or will at least be arguably the team’s best expiring trade piece for next year.
Larry Nance Jr. has had a career-high in essentially every traditional category, and 22-year-old Ante Zizic has proven to be a solid interior bench scorer, too.
So no, this season wasn’t a particularly memorable one for the Cleveland Cavaliers. However, winning the 2019 NBA Draft lottery would give it a whole lot of meaning, all things considered.