The Cleveland Cavaliers are making lots of news this season and have the attention of the NBA as they are off to one of their best starts ever as a franchise with a 26-4 record so far. It’s their best start for 30 games since the squad’s 2008-09 team. A young LeBron James led that team, but that team faltered in the end, losing in the Eastern Conference Finals.
We haven’t seen a Cavalier team play so well in such a long time, and there doesn’t seem to be much negativity about any of it. The players, the coaches, the organization, and the fans all seem to be on the same page this season.
It wasn’t so long ago that this Cavalier team with almost the same roster struggled under JB Bickerstaff's coaching. Now the Cavs have Kenny Atkinson coaching, and he has made a ton of difference especially when it comes to building confidence in his team.
So where does this season stack up compared to all the other Cavs seasons that were some of the best?
This Cavaliers team is having an all-time start
Currently, it’s the best team in terms of overall winning percentage (.867), but we’ll see where that ends up by season's end.
This hot start has even caught the attention of one of the other best Cavs teams that being the 2016 NBA Champions. Some of its former players have been speaking out on social media platforms including Channing Frye.
Frye recently commented back on a tweet by a Cleveland sports news and radio personality Ken Carman who described this year‘s Cavs team as the most perfect ever. Frye took exception to the opinion and fired back at Carman.
That 2016 championship team did have a great season with a final record of 57-25 and won the championship by coming back against the previous champions Golden State Warriors in the title series. It was a monumental moment in the history of the organization as Cleveland fans worldwide celebrated.
That team will be cherished for a lifetime, but what this current Cavs team is doing is exceptional too and should be celebrated for its positivity as Carman pointed out.
When you’re a champion, it’s hard sometimes to recognize those that come next can be just as good or better then you were. Who knows how this current team would stack up against that 2016 team? That’s for another article.
As far as comparing this team, to the other great teams and Cavs history, there aren’t too many other seasons to compare it with. That 2009 season the team won 66 games. The following 2010 season the team won 61 games but neither led to more titles.
Besides the 2016 season when they won the title, Cleveland also had their next best seasons with 57-25 marks in both 1989 and 1992. Those were the great teams led by Brad Daugherty, Mark Price, Craig Ehlo Larry, Nance, and Hot Rod Williams.
So how does this season's squad stack up to the rest of the league? The Oklahoma Thunder are 23-5 leading the Western Conference. The Boston Celtics are 23-7 in the East. There’s still a lot of basketball to play this season but the Cavs are playing good team basketball on both ends of the floor. Atkinson has his players trusting one another and that goes a long way to creating success.
Based on the current record, their standings in the Eastern Conference and a wealth of confidence this team should keep winning. But as with other past good Cavs regular season teams how much can they take from their current successes into the postseason and win there.
They climbed the mountain once in all those years with Lebron James leading the journey. Can they do it now with Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Darius Garland, and Jarrett Allen? The biggest factor in all of this is the solid coaching they are getting for the first time as a group. That might just be the trick in getting this team another championship.