Cavs: Was the ‘D. Wade 5’ last season’s best lineup?

Captain Obvious alert: The Cleveland Cavaliers struggled last year.

The 2020-2021 season’s 3rd-youngest roster posted a minus-8.3 Net Rating while being plagued with serious offensive efficiency issues. Their most frequent lineup of Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, Isaac Okoro, Larry Nance Jnr and Jarrett Allen recorded a Net Rating of minus-13.9 in 141 minutes – 83rd out of 87 five-man combinations which played at least 100 minutes per NBA.com. The result was an equivalent of 25 wins in 82 games of NBA normalcy – tied for 4th worst in the league.

But peruse last season’s data a little further and you’ll notice a Cavs lineup that not only featured a positive Net Rating but was also their second-most used five-man combination. This unit, the same as above except for Dean Wade over Nance Jr., logged 113 minutes which was 69th most out of 2000 lineups per NBA.com. The outcome was a Net Rating of plus-2.1.

Yes, swapping Nance Jr. for Kevin Love also yielded a positive Net Rating (+4.0) but that was in less than half the number of games and 33% fewer minutes. The next positive Net Rating lineup – Andre Drummond, Nance Jr., Cedi Osman, Damyean Dotson and Okoro – also had a significantly smaller sample size of 78 minutes in six games.

A Net Rating improvement of plus-16.0 between these lineups was significant. Per NBA.com the average differential between most-used units to second-most was actually the opposite: minus-1.43 last season. Only two teams – Atlanta (17.8) and Chicago (17) – saw bigger Net Rating increases in their next-most frequented lineups. In short (and as expected), a team’s second-most-used unit didn’t perform as well as its most-used. The Cavs went the other way and by a substantial margin.

In the midst of a difficult season, the Cavs found one lineup that dominated. What was the secret?

So what made this lineup a success? Was the data meaningful or just a murky coincidence? Was Dean Wade really the difference? Was this last season’s best lineup? Before jumping in, I wanted a name for this 5-man combination – first to save myself writing ‘lineup’ so much but later because it turns out this group deserved one:

I introduce to you the ‘D. Wade 5’

Not yet acquainted with Dean Wade or need a refresher? After going undrafted as a senior out of Kansas State, Wade signed a two-way contract with the Cavs in 2019 and despite only playing 71 NBA minutes the Cavs clearly saw something, locking him into a multi-year deal. Last season the 6’10” power forward increased his playing time to19.4 mpg in 63 games, averaging 6.0 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.2 assists while shooting 37% from three-point range. The partnership worked.

Despite the meaningful sample size of the ‘D.Wade 5’ however, lineup data remains highly contextual. The inherent variables in two, three, four and five-man combinations require supporting evidence to be understood with any clarity. Individually, all members of this unit posted negative differentials last season and while other metrics, especially a crazy defensive rating, agreed on the impact of this lineup, I wanted to see exactly what it looked like. All 113 minutes. In watching them all there was a lot to digest, but five things stood out examining the ‘D. Wade 5’. Here they are in ascending order: