How low in the standings could the Cavs realistically fall?

The Cleveland Cavaliers are having a great season. For those riding in the front seat with the team through all of its wins and losses this year, it likely doesn’t feel that way as the team stumbles towards the finish line. Even so, after winning 22 games last season, this team has already clinched a winning record and placed two of its young players in the All-Star Game. Another, Evan Mobley, is right there in position to win Rookie of the Year. The future is bright.

Yet in the here-and-now, things are looking rough for the Cavs. They have lost five of their last six games, with the lone win a tight one against the conference’s last-place team, the Orlando Magic, and at home no less. With All-Star center Jarrett Allen sidelined they have looked like the young team they are and not the defensive juggernaut that blitzed teams for much of the season; losing Mobley for at least a handful of games due to an ankle injury doesn’t help things either. As of the morning of Friday, April 1st they are 42-35, seventh in the Eastern Conference.

Part of the problem for the Cavs is that the teams around them are playing well. The Chicago Bulls, currently in fifth place, are the only team just above or below them with a losing record in their last ten games, and they have won two straight and three-of-four to right the ship. The Toronto Raptors are 8-2 in their last ten, climbing 2.5 games free of the Cavs in the race for the sixth-seed.

Things aren’t much better below Cleveland. The Brooklyn Nets have a healthy Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving is now eligible to play home games, and they are just two games back of the Cavs. The Charlotte Hornets, tied with the Nets, have won eight of their last 10 games. The Atlanta Hawks just walloped the Cavs on Thursday night and are likewise tied with the Hornets and Nets.

Let’s ask the unfortunate question, the one lurking in the pit of the stomachs of countless Cleveland fans. How low could the Cavs fall? If everything goes poorly, and the Cavs lose out, how bad could it get?

The Cavs are in an injury-fueled freefall at the end of the season. If they lose out, how far could this team fall in the standings?

The Cavs have five games remaining to the season, starting Saturday night at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks, a team playing  better of late. Then it’s the fourth and final game of the season vs the Philadelphia 76ers; stopping Joel Embiid without Allen or Mobley would look to be nearly impossible. A road game in Orlando is the only respite on the schedule and it can’t be taken for granted; they almost lost to the Magic in Cleveland just a few nights ago. A showdown against the Nets looms next Friday before a season-ending clash with the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday, April 10th.

If the Cavs were healthy, the most likely outcome from those five games would be 2-3, with 3-2 much more likely than 1-4. As it is, 2-3 seems like the best-case scenario, and anything better than that more of a fantasy. It’s not out of the question this team drops all five of its remaining contests.

Let’s say that happens, and the Cavs finish 42-40 on the season. Around them, let’s project success for everyone else. The Nets finish 5-0, including a blowout win over the Cavs next Friday. The Hawks go 4-1, their lone loss to Brooklyn. The Hornets likewise go a perfect 5-0. Brooklyn and Charlotte would thus finish 7th and 8th, respectively, at 45-37 and go into the play-in game facing off against each other.

Cleveland would fall to 10th place and have to travel to the 44-38 Atlanta Hawks and Trae Young, who has absolutely roasted the Cavs since he was initially stymied by Mobley’s unexpectedly elite defense in the first week of the season. The Cavs would have to somehow pull out a road win against the Hawks in the play-in, then again vs either the Nets or Hornets, also on the road, to scrape their way to the eighth seed.

Given the overwhelming ineptitude from the bottom of the West playoff bracket, losing out and falling behind the three East play-in teams only shifts them three spots in the overall league standings. Every West team has at least 40 losses already (the LA Clippers have 40; the New Orleans Pelicans are next with 43) and there is no way for the Cavs to fall beneath any in the standings. One team will win their way into the playoffs and out of the lottery, but that means 13th is as far as the Cavs can fall.

Such an ending would be a bitter pill to swallow, but at least it would come with a silver lining. The Cavs’ first-round draft pick, traded to the Indiana Pacers in the Caris LeVert deal, is protected 1-14. If the Cavs do miss the playoffs, they now jump back into the lottery of a draft relatively deep in wings, which the Cavs desperately need to add to their arsenal.

Even the “worst-case” scenario nets the Cavs a draft pick, and nothing that happens over the next two weeks (other than a long-term injury to a core player) can dempen the brightness of this team’s future. The nucleus of Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley should compete in the East for years to come, and this roster has plenty of other helpful players to surround them with. Losing out would be hard, but not damaging.