Cavs having lowest wins over-under for 2019-2020 seems about right

The Cleveland Cavaliers reportedly have the lowest betting over-under for total wins for the 2019-2020 NBA season, which shouldn’t be surprising at all.

The Cleveland Cavaliers could be a lot more fun to watch in the 2019-20 season, as compared to 2018-19, but the win-loss results probably aren’t going to be much different.

That’s reportedly reflected in Cleveland’s over-under win total for next season.

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According to oddsmakers Fan Duel, Draft Kings and PointsBet, the Cavs opened with the fewest projected over-under win total in the NBA at 23.5 (the first two mentioned) and 24.5 (PointsBet), courtesy of The Action Network’s Evan Abrams (and h/t WKYC’s Ben Axelrod).

This is the current over-under win total right before the start of free agency, to further contextualize.

As for the Cavaliers, considering their financial situation realistically limiting them, they likely won’t do much of anything in free agency, as Axelrod highlighted, and even though they have plenty of expiring contracts, potentially trading several of those by the 2020 trade deadline won’t likely cause their over-under to go up as the season progresses, anyhow.

In fact, again, as Axelrod hit on, considering the team reasonably could be listening to trades involving Kevin Love, it wouldn’t seem far-fetched that the over-under win total could go down eventually.

Adrian Wojnarowski and Zach Lowe of ESPN recently mentioned the Portland Trail Blazers as a potential Love trade suitor; granted, there’s been logical speculation of that before, too, though, but this instance seems even more legitimate.

As for the present, this suggested over-under win odds number seems about right. Cleveland is coming off a 19-63 season (per NBA.com) where they were historically bad from a defensive rating standpoint (according to Basketball Reference), as KJG contributors have touched on many times.

The Cavaliers are going to be significantly younger when it comes to the players getting meaningful minutes by adding three rookies into the fold in Vanderbilt’s Darius Garland (19), Belmont’s Dylan Windler (22) and USC’s Kevin Porter Jr. (19), to go with players already in the rotation in Collin Sexton (20), Cedi Osman (24) and Ante Zizic (22).

For a team in the beginning stages of a full-rebuild, though, this is fine, and there shouldn’t be pressure on head coach John Beilein and the Cleveland Cavaliers’ coaching staff to need to have plenty more wins than last season, as player development is clearly the focus for the coming years.

The Cavs’ drafting of Garland was, in my opinion, the clear right pick, as long-term he could end up being Cleveland’s franchise star, but short-term, adding the 6-foot-3, 175-pound lead guard (per tankathon) and likely having him and Sexton in the backcourt for long stretches next year will make a historically bad defense even worse, but as  frustrating next season may be for some, the Cavs are doing the right thing.

Cleveland reportedly hired Beilein for player development (along with seemingly the other members of the coaching staff) and to be a “teacher,” as general manager Koby Altman has reportedly emphasized in pressers, for a team the Cavs knew was going to be increasingly young and focused on rebuilding.

Second, for a rebuilding team, it’s very important that they keep their 2020 NBA Draft pick, which is just a first-rounder, and is still top-ten protected (per Real GM).

If the Cavaliers have a top-ten pick in the 2020 NBA Draft (which is extremely likely), they’ll keep the pick and the Cavs will instead convey two second rounders in 2021 and 2022 to the New Orleans (per a reported draft night trade with the Atlanta Hawks), and along with that, Cleveland does not currently have a second-rounder in 2020 (the Cavs’ pick will go to the Charlotte Hornets), again per Real GM.

With the state of the roster, a lot of youth, and a historically bad defense is probably why the Cavs’ over-under was placed at 23.5 and 24.5 wins by the aforementioned oddsmakers, which again isn’t surprising as far as that metric is concerned.

Even though it probably won’t lead to many wins, with a good amount of the youth Cleveland has added, this team will be incredibly fun to watch. It’s clear Altman and the front office has a plan and they have been doing all the right things.

Losing can be frustrating, but fans should enjoy a more exciting team led by Beilein that’s predicated on the growth of the young guys, and how this team will continue to get rebuilt is ever-intriguing.