Minnesota Sports Forum

Given good health, I think they are going to be better than good. Love, Lebron, Kyrie, trumps Lebron, DWade, and Bosh. Add in Marion and the rest of the crew and I can't see why they don't win 60 games in the East. In fact, I think 65 is realistic. They may not win the NBA title due to lack of finals experience other than Lebron, but they are going to kick ass in the East. The big three all fit together incredibly well.

If they add Marion (and Ray?) then that puts them over a healthy Bulls team for me. Cavs are gonna be good they are even reasonably (Haywood and go smaller with TT) protected when AV gets hurt which will happen. Win totals? Idk but they are gonna be really good. I think its going to be interesting to see how Waiters and Kyrie do playing with 2 offensive players inLebron and Love. Lebron and Love will be just fine on offense I think its the young guards that are going to have a much tougher adjustment.

I'll go with 62-20

Lebron won 61 games with scraps for teammates the last time he was in Cleveland. I'd say they'll hit 65.

I'm going to go in a different direction, and say they win only 55. I say "only" because everyone here has them in the 60s and they appear on paper to be a super team in a weak league. But I think they are going to underachieve. Here's why.

1) Overconfidence: When you are the best team on paper, it's difficult to get up for every game. And conversely, every opponent is going to be gunning for the Cavs. A big difference in intensity sometimes trumps talent difference.

2) Health: The 2010-11 Heat won 58 games in the first year of the Big 3, but they played 79, 76 and 77 games that year. LeBron is a horse, but both Love and Irving have been injury prone in their early years, as have Varejo and Waiters. Combine that with an aging supporting staff, and I see a team destined to struggle with staying healthy.

3) The Love factor: It's an unknown. For some reason his teams have regularly underachieved, and it seems to be beyond the level of coincidence. He won in the Olympics, but the talent difference was so extreme I would say they even underachieved there (remember that the bronze medal winner's second best player was Shved!). Can Kevin be a winner?

4) Pressure. The Cavs have mortgaged their future by dealing two # 1's and another future first rounder, so they need to win now. The locker room has two guys (Love and Waiters) who have had issues with teammates before. I look for fingers to start pointing if they hit a rough patch.

And yet they have so much talent. Absent factor 2 above, they should win well over 60 games. But I think injuries and intangibles cap them at 55.

55 wins? LeBron can do that by himself. More hate for Love! Awesome.

I'm really torn on this. I hated LeBron for leaving the Cavs in the manner he did and was happy for the Cavs fans when he announced he was going home. As a fan of small market teams it was good to see another one taking a shot at greatness! Then comes the Love deal, I'm happy to be getting what they are rumored to be getting, but now find myself hoping that bad things happen and the Cavs never win the big one!

As for an actual number, I don't know, but I expect them to win the east for the next five years or so and likely take a couple titles home too. F'ckers.

Camden wrote:55 wins? LeBron can do that by himself. More hate for Love! Awesome.

ESPN gives the Cavs 56 wins. Typical ESPN Love haters!

longstrangetrip wrote:

Camden wrote:55 wins? LeBron can do that by himself. More hate for Love! Awesome.

ESPN gives the Cavs 56 wins. Typical ESPN Love haters!

As I've said numerous times on here, ESPN doesn't influence my opinion on anything really. Just guys with opinions, sometimes less basketball smart than posters on this forum. I'd read the article if you have a link, though.

Camden0916 wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

Camden wrote:55 wins? LeBron can do that by himself. More hate for Love! Awesome.

ESPN gives the Cavs 56 wins. Typical ESPN Love haters!

As I've said numerous times on here, ESPN doesn't influence my opinion on anything really. Just guys with opinions, sometimes less basketball smart than posters on this forum. I'd read the article if you have a link, though.

After thinking about it and also looking at the standings from last year...LST's 55 seems like by far the most reasonable prediction here although all his explainations still make him sound like a hater. Lol

Winning 60 games is a ton really. 55 games would have been the 5th best record last year in the entire NBA and 2nd in the East. The East might be a little tougher 1-8 and it was last year too. If Atlanta hadn't lost Horford for the year they would have probably had a winning record so that would have given the East a winning record for the 8th seed for the first time in a while. Lol Now there will be 9 teams that have a reasonable likeliness to be over .500 teams with the Cavs joining and the Heat still going to playing winning basketball unless major injuries happen which is possible.

Edit: All the predictions here are reasonable everyone has qualifiers for the win totals. I stand by that 60 wins is a lot but agree its very attainable by the Cavs this coming year. I was also trying to make the point (and did it poorly) that 55 wins is a pretty impressive floor of wins. :)