The NBA calendar is pretty similar from year to year. The regular season officially tips off in October, then there is great debate throughout the land about whether LeBron James’ team is not what it was a season ago highlighted by James making a cryptic social media post alluding to his team’s struggles. Next on the schedule are the Christmas Day games, which are soon followed by a period of deep contemplation on LeBron’s team, if it just might be falling apart (but for real this time) and where LeBron might play next. That period is promptly followed by the NBA All-Star Game and then the league calendar wraps up with the part of the year in which LeBron’s team reasserts its dominance and wins the Eastern Conference with ease. Save for a few extra LeBron-related debates and a Knicks tragedy or two scattered about, that NBA calendar hasn’t changed for a generation.
And so we currently find ourselves in the portion of the calendar in which we are contemplating whether LeBron’s team is falling apart (but for real this time). Let’s do it without the parentheses, though, and instead set it off with some hyphens because LeBron’s team might really be falling apart – but for real this time. Since mid-December, the Cavs have gone 8-14, surrendering more than 110 points in 13 of those 22 games. Cleveland stand at 31-22 on the season, just the seventh-best record in the league and the worst record a LeBron-led team has had since the 2007-08 Cavaliers opened 29-24 through their first 53 games and then lost in the of the playoffs to the Boston Celtics. But that Cleveland team gave heavy minutes to the likes of Delonte West, Drew Gooden, Sasha Pavlovic and Daniel “Boobie” Gibson. It wasn’t built and expected to play like a “superteam.” In fact, that term didn’t even exist in the ancient NBA past of 2008.
Ten years on, the 2018 Cavaliers weren’t built to draw comparisons to a team whose second-leading scorer was Zydrunas Ilgauskas, but to the 2016 Cavaliers that won it all and – most importantly – the reigning champion Golden State Warriors. Kyrie Irving was lost to the Boston Celtics, sure, but in his place the Cavaliers added Isaiah Thomas (who on Thursday was traded to the Lakers), Dwyane Wade, Derrick Rose, Jae Crowder and Jeff Green. All that talent added alongside the greatest player in the world plus Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson and JR Smith? Expectations were high. The NBA’s official preview of the 2018 Cavaliers stated: “This might be the deepest Cavaliers team on which LeBron James ever has played.”
Indeed, as the Cavs are currently in deep trouble just to make the playoffs in a conference that is finally much tougher than the one James has tormented throughout his career. Cleveland currently holds the No3 spot, but are closer to the ninth seed – AKA out of the playoffs – just four games removed, than they are to the No. 1 seed Celtics, a team they trail by seven games. It’s hard to imagine LeBron and the Cavs behind jumped by six teams over the final two months of the regular season, but it’s also hard to imagine a basketball team being any worse than this on defense. Remember the iconic image of Allen Iverson stepping over Tyronn Lue’s body after draining a jumper in the 2001 NBA Finals? That kind of defense would be an improvement over what Lue’s Cavs are playing this year.
Even in Wednesday night’s big 140-138 overtime win over Minnesota, the Cavaliers still gave up ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-EIGHT POINTS, 129 of them in regulation while allowing the Timberwolves to shoot 58% from the floor and 57% from three. As entertaining as that kind of basketball might be to watch, LeBron won’t be able to bail his team out every night in the playoffs with a triple-double and a game-winner at the buzzer.
Cleveland’s defensive issues are myriad. Thomas’ limitations as a defender were well-known, and were only exaggerated as he returned from injury. When Thomas, and others, got blown by on the perimeter, there’s not much there as a rim protector. And even James himself, whether due to age or simply being tired of having to compensate for those around him, has been slow of late to help out and fill passing lanes. None of those issues will be easy to fix come playoff time, especially when the mostly defense agnostic Love returns from injury. However, if you believe that Cavaliers time is a flat circle, maybe the Cavs are again purposely playing bad defense so they don’t tip their hand for the postseason.
“We’ve got to hold back [on defense],” Lue told Cleveland.com last March when the Cavs D was also struggling. “We can’t show our hand early because ... we don’t want them to be able to come into a series and be able to adjust to what we do. We just have to be able to play our normal defense until we get there.”
One thing that would undoubtedly help the Cavaliers keep opponents under 130 points a game – maybe even more than adding DeAndre Jordan before the trade deadline – would be if the players actually liked each other and wanted to help each other, on defense or otherwise.
“When adversity hits, we go our separate ways,” Thomas said after the Cavs lost by 18 points to the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night. A night later, after a victory, -internet tea-leaf readers and unaccredited body language experts felt James snubbed Thomas in celebration.
This is too funny. Watch Isaiah Thomas try to celebrate with LeBron. pic.twitter.com/MqLu5xm6VI
— David Astramskas (@redapples) February 8, 2018
That might be a stretch, but Thompson was quite clear about his feelings towards his team-mates following a meeting two weeks ago when he said: “I don’t care if X don’t like X off the court. I really don’t give a shit. As long as you’re on the court playing hard and playing for each other, that’s all that matters to me.” Since then, James reportedly got into a yelling match with Cavaliers execs and his camp is thought to have floated the report that he would consider joining the Warriors in the offseason. If this season is indeed the end of LeBron’s time in Cleveland, and all signs suggest it is, the Cavs are making it a memorable one by filling the stat sheet with drama, just like their opponents do with points.
