A hot topic around Cleveland circles has been whether or not this Cleveland Cavaliers team is the best in franchise history. Some watching this current, joy-filled team are spouting off bombastic statements, causing former Cavs players to fire back. It's a mini spat caused by the success that this group has had to start the year.
How you view this Cleveland Cavaliers team largely depends on what your criteria for success is.
If you are asking for the "best" team in Cavaliers franchise history, you might be looking for the team with the most postseason success. That is obviously the 2016 Cavaliers led by LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. That team came back against the Golden State Warriors to win the NBA Finals and bring the franchise its first and only championship.
That criteria would also lead you to stack up the other four teams that LeBron James led to the NBA Finals in 2007, 2015, 2017 and 2018.
Is this the best Cavaliers team in franchise history?
Your criteria may be different, however. Perhaps it is looking purely at wins and losses. In that case, this year's team is the best team in franchise history. They are off to a 27-4 start across 31 games, the best 31-game start of any Cleveland team. The 2008-09 team was 26-5 and went on to win 66 games, although they flamed out short of the NBA Finals.
Perhaps you look at the first 31 games and comment that they are not any different than another 31 games in a season. That may or may not be true, but let's entertain the thought. How does this 31 games match up with any 31-game stretch in franchise history?
The answer is that this is the best 31-game stretch the Cleveland Cavaliers have ever pulled off. This Cavaliers team has gone 27-4 to start the season, and no Cavs team has ever done better at any other point in the season.
The catch? A few other teams matched that mark.
The aforementioned 2008-09 Cavaliers team actually did so twice. They matched that mark early in the season as they got off to a strong start, and then they actually closed the season on a 27-4 run before entering the playoffs.
The next year, the 2009-10 Cavaliers also put up a strong stretch right in the middle of the season, hitting 27-4 over a couple of different segments as their fine start and fine finish were lifted up by an exceptional December and January, ultimately propelling them to a 61-21 record. That team would flame out in the playoffs and lead to LeBron James taking his talents to South Beach.
Looking for a non-LeBron James team that put together a stretch of 31 games anywhere near this impressive? You have to lower the bar to 25-6, when the 1988-89 Cleveland Cavaliers announced themselves as Eastern Conference contenders with a dominant two-month span.
What this Cavaliers team needs to do
What is interesting to note is that the best starts and stretches of basketball in franchise history all came from teams that didn't make the NBA Finals. Those five teams that won the Eastern Conference all had slower starts to the year and less spectacular win-loss records.
Does that suggest something bad about this Cleveland team, that they are somehow decreasing their title chances by winning this many games? The answer is almost certainly no; teams with dominant records win the title all the time. That quirk of history speaks more to LeBron James and how he manages himself through a season, and how the best teams the Cavs had in the playoffs often had to make a midseason adjustment to stay in contention.
This Cavaliers team is off to the best start in franchise history and is right there with the 2017 Cavaliers as the best offensive in franchise history. Whether they could possibly be considered as the best team the Cleveland Cavaliers have ever had will come down to how they perform in the playoffs.
Win the title? It's a slam dunk. Make the Eastern Conference Finals? Then this group will likely be discussed in that upper echelon. Flame out early? This group will go the way of the 2008-09 group, a dominant regular season squad who stumbled out of the playoffs and right out of the "best team" conversation.
Time will tell, but everything this team has shown thus far suggests they are ready to rise to the challenge.