The Raptors are the Cavs’ biggest rival for the next 5 years
By Corey Casey
The Cleveland Cavaliers expect to be a contender for years to come, but unlike the last time the Cavs were contenders the Eastern Conference looks a lot tougher this time around. On top of that you have a few young teams who will likely be competing with them for years to come, such as the Charlotte Hornets and as they continue on in their rebuild, the Detroit Pistons. But of all those teams you can make a strong argument why the Toronto Raptors will be the Cavaliers’ biggest rival for the next 5 years.
We’ll get further into why that could very well be the case involving the Raptors and Cavs going forward here.
First, we’ll take a look back at the recent history between these two.
The Cavs and Raptors have a well-established recent history as rivals
Interestingly enough, in the last 6 years the Cavs and Raptors have already built up some rivalry history in the playoffs. The Cavs and Raptors first met in 2016, when it was LeBron James’ second year back in Cleveland. The Cavs became instant championship contenders upon LeBron’s return and after a run of lottery luck from 2011-14, they traded some of those assets that formed a championship core of James Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
The Raptors meanwhile were still a very young team at the time, and they were still trying to get over the hump. in 2014 and 2015 they got their first taste of the postseason since the Chris Bosh days, but they still went out in the first round in seven games to the Brooklyn Nets in 2014 and got swept the following year. In 2016 after a couple of game 7 wins, they were able to make it to their first Eastern Conference Finals in franchise history.
Ultimately it was a complete mismatch for them against the Cavaliers. The Raptors were able to get 2 wins, but in the other games it was never close. The Cavs dismantled them in the 4 wins and the average margin of victory was 28.5 ppg. The Cavs would go onto the NBA Finals where they came back from 3-1 to capture the franchises’ first NBA championship and the cities first major pro sports championship since 1964.
In the next couple years in 17/18 the Raptors never got close and experienced more frustrations against the Cavs in the form of a couple sweeps. After 2018 Toronto was able to land superstar Kawhi Leonard via trade, though, and after years of playoff frustrations they were able to capture their first NBA title, ironically against the Golden State Warriors.
In the next couple years the Cavs and Raptors would take different paths. The Cavs went into a complete rebuild, while the Raptors had a semi-rebuilding year in the 2020-2021 season. In NBA standards, now-President of Basketball Operations Koby Altman was able to rebuild the Cavs rather quickly. If you include the 2018 Nets pick, the Cavaliers outright had 4 lottery picks. Two of those picks Altman absolutely nailed and look like franchise superstars, and we’ll further into that and Toronto’s path from there next.