It could be a year for Cavs in American basketball — Virginia in college, and Cleveland in the pros.
The city of Cleveland is America’s most gut-punched sports city. There is no debate. The Chicago Cubs are the most gut-punched team, but the Windy City has the Blackhawks. Chicago had the Bulls in the 1990s. It had the Bears in the 1980s. Buffalo comes in second place, but that city has no NBA or Major League Baseball franchises. (It used to have an NBA team, but that’s a different story for a different day.)
Cleveland has been suffering in three sports, not just two, for nearly 50 years. Lucy always pulls the football (or basketball, or baseball) from Charlie Brown in the end.
This season, that wait is supposed to give way to a celebration, but good luck telling Clevelanders that a Larry O’Brien Trophy is in the bag. Some people wait for the other shoe to drop. Cleveland sports fans wait for the other piano to fall from the sky and crush an emerging dream.
We’re not expecting anyone to beat the Cavaliers in the East this season, but if we had to choose one team, which would it be?
We asked our roundtable panel:
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SEAN WOODLEY
The short answer is probably nobody, but for the sake of the discussion, I’ll say the Washington Wizards – provided coach Randy Wittman finally embraces a smaller, three-point-heavy configuration that allows John Wall to feast in open space.
The pieces are here for an Eastern Conference runner-up. Ernie Grunfeld didn’t make any sexy offseason additions, but the players he did reel in – Jared Dudley, Alan Anderson and Gary Neal – were smart pick-ups that will bolster what was a woefully thin collection of wings last season. Losing Paul Pierce to the Clippers hurts somewhat – but more in the area of swagger than on-court presence; once Dudley and Anderson return from their respective injuries, they should sufficiently replace the on-court production Pierce provided. Not to mention, Otto Porter illustrated his value in the playoffs last season. He should at least be a reliable contributor, and maybe more.
Last season’s Wizards attempted the fourth fewest threes in the league, yet had the ninth-best percentage from outside. Bradley Beal has already made his intentions known – he’s going to heave more three-pointers, and fewer ugly, long twos. If that strategy is embraced team-wide, the lightning-quick Wall is going to dominate with a less congested court in front of him. The death of Wittman-ball could yield a rebirth at the Verizon Center.
JOE MANGANIELLO
It feels like the answer has been the Chicago Bulls for awhile now.
LeBron’s greatest adversaries have been in the West, of course, and the Pacers and Celtics have had more tangible success against him than the Bulls. It’s going on five years since Derrick Rose won MVP and the Bulls and Heat did battle in the East Finals; a myriad of injuries and internal conflicts has chipped away at Chicago and capped its ceiling.
The Bulls return their entire rotation from an overachieving 50-win team, the final installment of Tom Thibodeau’s tenure with the organization. Chicago fell by single digits to Cleveland in games four and five of the second round before getting dropped on its head by the Cavs in Game 6, and Thibbs was out as head coach weeks later. Enter wizbang head coach Fred Hoiberg, making his high-profile NBA debut — an offensive innovator and pace-and-space savant from the college ranks.
If Hoiberg can transform the Bulls into a high-flying wire act overnight, their sheer talent alone could overtake every other team in the East, and give Cleveland a run for the No. 1 seed. Hey, if the Pittsburgh Steelers can evolve from Steel Curtain into football’s biggest offensive machine, why can’t the Bulls?
JARED MINTZ
I’m sorry, saying Cleveland is the only team that can beat Cleveland is not an answer. If the Cavs struggle with injuries, it’ll still take a better team than LeBron and friends (unless he’s the one who’s hurt) to get out of the East, and as difficult as it is to predict which team that’ll be, I’m going to wager it’s the Chicago Bulls.
We’ve seen them play stifling defense under Tom Thibodeau for years, and now that Fred Hoiberg’s running the show, the expectation is that they’ll reach new heights offensively, which appears to be the best way to knock off this Cleveland squad.
We’re still unsure which versions of Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose will show up for 2016, but the fact that the team was able to post the 11th-best offense and defense last season, despite those two players probably having the worst seasons of their careers, says a lot about how good the rest of the team is. Jimmy Butler, Pau Gasol, and Nikola Mirotic have turned into their own big three, and if they can work with more efficient versions of the two former stars, I think they might have the upside to beat Cleveland.
This isn’t to say I think Chicago will be the second-best team in the conference; I still like Atlanta a bunch, but I’m not sure the Hawks have improved, and we saw Cleveland destroy them in the playoffs last season with a limited Kyrie Irving and no Kevin Love. Let’s see what the new year brings for the Bulls.
BRYAN GIBBERMAN
Barring injury the answer is really none. It’s crazy to say that, but the talent of the Cavaliers is that much better than anyone in the conference. To play along with the game, I’ll go with the Miami Heat.
Let’s envision this scenario: Dwyane Wade found a time machine this offseason, plays like he’s 25, and no longer gets hurt. Hassan Whiteside becomes one of the five best centers in the NBA without going bat-shit crazy, plus all the other pieces fit together in the most perfect way possible.
MATT ZEMEK
Until the Chicago Bulls show me that they can hit enough three-pointers in the month of May to win late-stage playoff series, I’m going with the Miami Heat.
In many ways, this is a process of eliminating the worse candidates, because while it’s true that the East appears to be a better, deeper version of its 2014-2015 self, the conference doesn’t possess multiple heavyweights at the top. Let’s realize, first, that Cleveland was an injured team with a short bench last spring… and Chicago basically vanished in the fourth quarter of Game 4 in the East semifinals. The Bulls then went away in Game 6 at home, fading into the night against a shorthanded opponent which was there for the taking.
The Washington-Atlanta series was lost by the loser (and affected by injuries; John Wall says hello) more than it was won by the winner. Sporting competitions are like that sometimes, and the point shouldn’t be hidden from view. The Hawks are almost certainly going to fall several games in the standings without DeMarre Carroll. Without Paul Pierce, where will the Wizards’ second scoring option emerge in the playoffs (Bradley Beal being numero uno)?
The Milwaukee Bucks represent a promising team led by a capable coach, but a run to the East Finals seems like the kind of run that’s still a few years away.
This leaves the Heat, a team which won’t just get Chris Bosh back from a health scare; it will get a fresh Bosh, given the fact that he didn’t play after the All-Star break. The frailty of Dwyane Wade’s body is more of a playoff concern than a regular-season concern. The main issue for the Heat in games one through 82 is to receive adequate production from their bench. Amare Stoudemire and Gerald Green are two very shaky pieces on that roster. If they can meet even modest expectations, the Heat should at least get the No. 3 seed, which — if Cleveland is first — would enable Miami to face LeBron James in the East Finals.
*consults TV schedule for the 2016 playoffs, sees that ESPN gets the East Finals next year*
ESPN certainly hopes that Miami is the team which comes out of the woodwork to meet Cleveland for the East title (but it would settle for Chicago).
