In a recent appearance on a radio talk show, Brooklyn Nets superstar forward Kevin Durant said that he believes the Cleveland Cavaliers did, in fact, have the league’s best team in 2016, and that showed how that collection of Cavs was a truly special group.
Fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers will be forever grateful for the championship the team won in 2016, when they defeated the Golden State Warriors.
It was the Cavs’ first and only NBA title, and before that, Cleveland major professional sports teams, the other two being the Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Indians, hadn’t won a league title since 1964, when the Browns defeated the Detroit Lions.
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So, yes, the Cavaliers completing the only 3-1 comeback in NBA Finals history and doing so against the team with the league’s best regular season record ever, 73-9, was something that fans of the Wine and Gold and especially, Clevelanders themselves, will never not reminisce about.
That being said, it seems that many believed that even though the Cavaliers won the NBA Finals in 2016, that Golden State was the better team, and that’s a valid argument.
However, one NBA superstar does not side with that line of thinking, and said that he thought the Cleveland Cavaliers did, in fact, have the NBA’s best team in 2016.
In a recent appearance on a radio talk show, Hot 97’s “Ebro In The Morning,” with hosts Ebro Darden, Laura Stylez and Peter Rosenberg, current Brooklyn Nets superstar Kevin Durant (who went there via reported sign-and-trade this offseason), who played his last three seasons with the Warriors (courtesy of unrestricted free agency after the 2016 season), told one of the co-hosts that (h/t Yahoo Sports’ Chris Cwik) “the Cavs were the best team in the league – the most talented team..” and that was after touching on how he and Durant’s then-Oklahoma City Thunder squad also played the Warriors and a great San Antonio Spurs team in that postseason, too.
OKC blew a 3-1 lead against the Warriors, for the record, probably because they were gassed.
Anyway, here’s the clip of it, courtesy of Hot 97, and KD hits on the Cleveland Cavaliers at the 25:26 mark, for the record.
This to me, just shows how that Cavs championship team was a truly special one, with a tremendous combination of stars in LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, with also the other needed role pieces to be a truly special team.
LeBron and Kyrie both going for over 40 points in that 2016 Game 5 was something I’ll never forget, or of course, Kevin Love’s stop on then-NBA MVP Stephen Curry, along with Irving’s go-ahead shot with under a minute left in Game 7 with Curry defending, too.
For the Cavaliers to come back and take down the Warriors, it took contributions from everybody, not just the stars, though, whether that was the constant offensive rebounding threat that was Tristan Thompson at his absolute best, or if that was J.R. Smith saving the squad in the third quarter of Game 7 when Cleveland absolutely needed a spark.
The Cleveland Cavaliers 2016 team seemed to have an amazing locker room, too, and pieces such as Channing Frye, Richard Jefferson and seemingly Dahntay Jones and Mo Williams all were needed voices in the locker room to keep the team in it the whole way, even when it seemed that nobody gave them a chance when they were down 3-1.
LeBron delivered in a monster way all-around to complete his return mission, though, and Kyrie, again, was nothing short of magnificent in his own right.
Again, though, the key takeaway from those comments from Durant to me in that radio talk show appearance was that the Cavaliers had a truly special group that was arguably the most talented team in the league, but of course, was not just top-heavy.
That Cavs team had great role pieces such as veterans in Frye, a knockdown catch-and-shoot player and Jefferson, a solid all-around player on both ends, along with Thompson, a big-time rebounder on both ends and good switchout player in pick-and-roll coverage, and the Cleveland legend, backup point guard Matthew Dellavedova, did solid work defending Curry and throughout that whole 2016 postseason run as well.
Anyway, best of luck with your reported Achilles tear injury rehab, and thanks so much for that, coming from a die hard Cavs fan, KD!