Steve Kerr was on the mark saying LeBron James’ best Cavs team was in 2017

Recently, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said that he believes the best team LeBron James had on the Cleveland Cavaliers was in 2017, factoring in the return years and essentially overall, and he’s right on the mark there.

It’s clear as day that as Cleveland Cavaliers fans, though the late 1980’s to into the early 90’s was a great run of postseason appearances with the likes of Brad Daugherty, Mark Price, Larry Nance and others, the LeBron James return years was the best run in team history.

The Cavaliers made four straight NBA Finals (the 2015-2018 Finals), which was quite a feat.

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Even while the Eastern Conference had some awesome squads back in those earlier days, the Kyrie Irving-LeBron James duo was the most talented in team history as far as first and second options.

I firmly believe if Irving didn’t fracture his kneecap in Game 1 of the 2015 NBA Finals, Cleveland definitely could’ve won that series over the Golden State Warriors, who took that in six games. Cleveland still had a 2-1 lead in that series at one point, though, even after Kevin Love dislocated his shoulder earlier in that postseason.

Moreover, recently, when Golden State head coach Steve Kerr was asked about the 2017 NBA Finals, I believe Kerr was right on the mark saying that was “Cleveland’s best” of the four teams the Warriors faced in LeBron’s second tenure with Cleveland, per the Mercury News‘ Wes Goldberg (and h/t Cavs Nation’s Ashish Mathur).

Kerr had plenty more to add when asked a follow-up, too, and highlighted how Cleveland winning a championship the year before gave them a new level of confidence. As us Cavs fans and I’d imagine NBA fans are well-aware of, that was when James, Irving (who hit what was essentially the game-winning shot in Game 7) and the Cavs came back from a 3-1 deficit and beat the Dubs, who that season broke the NBA’s single-season record for regular seasons with 73, too.

However, James did definitely carry Cleveland, and he ended up leading all players in points (29.7), rebounds (11.3), assists (8.9), steals (2.6) and blocks (2.3) per game in that 2016 Finals series, according to Basketball Reference.

Here’s again, more of Kerr’s take on why that 2017 Cavs team was the best of those LeBron return years, and essentially in all of his 11 seasons as a member of the Wine and Gold, via Goldberg.

"“I think there’s always another level for a championship team to reach the following season because there’s a new, deeper sense of confidence that didn’t exist. Once you win your first title, there’s such a deep level of confidence that it takes you to a new level. So just like us in ’16 after winning the title in ’15, we were way better in ’16. Even though we didn’t end up winning the championship, we were a much better than we were in ’15. I thought the same thing was true for Cleveland.”"

This was definitely right on the money, in regards to that “deep level of confidence” Kerr was referring to, in regards to the Cavs in this case in that 2017 postseason.

As a Cleveland Cavaliers fan, I was seeing it for them, too, as the Wine and Gold, though there were tight games in their first Eastern Conference postseason series against the hard-nosed Indiana Pacers, Cleveland just seemed to turn it up at times for big stretches.

The Cavaliers, just like the Dubs in the Western Conference, lost just one game in the postseason leading up to that 2017 NBA Finals clash.

They also had a big-time sharpshooting addition in Kyle Korver they acquired via trade with the Atlanta Hawks earlier that season. Plus, veteran swingman Richard Jefferson was still around, and Kevin Love, J.R. Smith and others were spacing the floor for James and Irving at an elite level.

Cleveland averaged 14.2 three-pointers made on a 42.0 percent three-point shooting clip in the 2017 postseason, an offensive rating of 119.9 and a net rating of 8.1, according to NBA.com, so yes, the Cavs were at the peak of their powers of LeBron’s second tenure with them.

Kerr’s comments again here were right on the mark about that being James’ best team in that run, per Goldberg, though Kevin Durant was clearly a massive difference, as Kerr referenced.

"“They had broken through and they were playing with that kind of championship swagger. They believed they could do it, they were fully healthy and they were a great, great team. But we had the ultimate weapon in Kevin and nobody had an answer for him.”"

While the Cavaliers ended up losing in five games in that series, if Korver ended up hitting a corner triple in the waning moments of that Game 3, and KD didn’t go completely berzerk in that one, which included him hitting a big-time triple over LeBron late, of which Mathur hit on, the series could’ve been much different.

That’s also factoring in Smith and Cleveland’s flamethrowing performance in that Game 4 en route to a win.

Granted, Durant as Kerr alluded to was basically the ultimate check mate-type of difference, and that Dubs team was unreal with how high-powered they were and were simply impossible to defend at times.

Looking past that, Irving after an eventual trade request that ensuing summer was traded to the Boston Celtics (and is now a Brooklyn Net via unrestricted free agency last summer), and James now is a Los Angeles Laker, courtesy of unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2018.

Durant, meanwhile, is now on the Nets via sign-and-trade this past summer (though he hasn’t played due to a ruptured right Achilles), but most importantly, we hope he is progressing in his recovery from being one of the players/NBA personnel that tested positive for COVID-19. Also, for other reported updates about the novel coronavirus’ affect on the NBA, you can view those here.

Again for reference, the 2019-20 NBA season for the Cleveland Cavaliers and other teams is currently on hiatus until further notice due to precautions being taken in wanting to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

At any rate, that 2017 Cavs team was so high-powered, and had the Warriors not landed KD in the free agency period before the following season after Cleveland’s Finals W, Cleveland could’ve very well been back-to-back NBA champs.

That’s even more so with that next level of confidence Kerr was referring to, but looking back, it was still an amazing run for Cleveland in that LeBron Return Tour.