The Cleveland Cavaliers are a young team. They have some key veterans sprinkled in, including two in Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio who will form the backbone of bench lineups and the 28-year-old Caris LeVert who may start, but the most important players on the Cavs’ roster are all 26 years old and younger.
That makes for an incredibly bright future for this team, one of the reasons the Donovan Mitchell trade was such an exciting move; it helps the Cavs improve now while not shortening their timetable. The best version of the Cavs is the one that will compete three or four years from now.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have a bright future based on their talented young core. How did The Ringer nail their ranking of the Cavs’ young stars?
The difficulty in evaluating young cores is that they are often unproven and always unrealized as to their full potential. Looking at a veteran group of players is generally much easier; what those players are is a known quantity, and they generally get to prove themselves as a group against playoff competition.
Not so for young cores. As they begin to grow they often take multiple years to build towards the postseason, and each player has some amount of question marks when projecting how they will play this year, let alone years down the line. Looking at the league’s exciting youth is to dabble in prophecy and hope.
That doesn’t stop us from doing it, however, Our very own FanSided Team recently ranked the Top 25 players under 25, a list that saw three Cleveland Cavaliers players show up — one of only two teams to place that many young stars on the list.
Not to be outdone, The Ringer leaped into the fray on Thursday, revealing their comprehensive rankings of all 30 NBA teams’ young cores. They took into account every under-25 player in the league to rank each team’s young core. That ranges from the Milwaukee Bucks, who feature 0 rotation players under 25, to teams like the Orlando Magic and Houston Rockets who are positively flush with them.
Last season the Cavs placed 16th on this list, an evaluation of the current performance and potential of the team’s five-player young core: Darius Garland, Collin Sexton, Isaac Okoro, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. It was the youngest starting five in the league and was viewed to be around league average when compared to the star players other teams had.
That changed in a major way a year later. The group of players is exactly the same now, save for Collin Sexton now being a Jazz. (Jazz man? A Musician? A Jazzer?). The difference? Jarrett Allen took a two-way leap to be a low-end All-Star, Darius Garland is a sharpshooting floor general with All-NBA aspirations, and Evan Mobley is potentially the greatest defensive prospect of his generation and a future MVP candidate.
That major step forward not only propelled the Cavs up the standings last year to 44 wins and an eighth-place finish, it gave the team the boldness to trade for Donovan Mitchell (at age 26 he is a little too old for this list). Where did it land the Cavs on The Ringer’s young core rankings?
The answer is second overall, a leap of 14 spots up to the very top of the list. When compared to every other team in the NBA sans one, the Cavs’ young quartet (three stars plus Isaac Okoro) came out ahead. They passed talented ensembles like the Toronto Raptors and New Orleans Pelicans, and the very best individual U-25 talents like Jayson Tatum and Luka Doncic.
It’s an incredible rise, one that mirrors the Cavs’ rise up the standings this past season and the rise of hope in the breast of every Cavaliers fan. For the first time in a very, very long time the Cavs have a home-grown group of players who are ready to set the league on fire. They don’t need LeBron James to carry them this time, as great as he was for the city of Cleveland. This is something new and something special.
Who did The Ringer rank above the Cavaliers? That would be the Memphis Grizzlies, and it’s hard to argue with that decision. Ja Morant is already an MVP candidate and this young core is a step ahead, finishing with the league’s second-best record last season and winning a playoff series. Those are steps ahead of the Cavs, but they haven’t taken them yet. Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Desmond Bane are a core three right there with the Cavs, and the Grizz have more young depth pieces behind them than the Cavs’ middle-aged bench does.
Moving forward, Jarrett Allen will age himself off of this list next year. Will future growth from Garland and Mobley keep the Cavs near the top? It’s certainly possible, and all the more likely if Isaac Okoro takes a step forward. This is probably the high-water mark for the Cavs on such lists, but it’s a picture of all that the Cavs have accomplished and all that lay before them.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have the league’s second-best young core by this metric, and if Donovan Mitchell is included they may rank at the very top. The Cavs’ arrow is pointed up; how quickly will they ascend? Whatever happens it looks like it will be a lot of fun to watch.