East No. 2 | Full List
No. 1: Cleveland Cavaliers
Last Season: 53-29
2nd place in East; Lost 4-2 to Golden State in the Finals
Everything involving LeBron James becomes branded, so it's fair to wonder how his Miami years will be remembered from a Cleveland perspective. The Hibernation? The Gestation? However the in-between years come to be identified, the first season of The Return will be remembered as the one where James pushed the Cavaliers to the precipice of the franchise's first championship. And in the end, he did it largely on his own, just as he was forced to do so often during his first stint in Cleveland. This time was different, though, as the 2014-15 Cavs were more a victim of rotten injury luck than limited roster design. Because of that, Cleveland enters the 2015-16 season poised for its greatest campaign ever -- if the injury luck begins to straighten out.
When James averaged 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists per game during Cleveland's Finals loss to Golden State, he showed us the limits of how far a single player can carry a team. With Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love out, James morphed into a frightening combination of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Karl Malone, but the Cavs came up two games short. It was exhausting just to watch. The residuals of that grueling loss are everywhere; no team enters the new season with as many injury-related question marks.
In fact, every single member of the projected starting lineup is dealing with some kind of significant malady. That includes James, who sat during the preseason with ongoing back trouble that has made him questionable for Cleveland's opener. James is a player with mileage. He's now played 43,330 career minutes between the regular season and the playoffs. If you extrapolate from his distance numbers generated by SportVU last season, you can estimate he's now covered about 2,570 miles over his career to date. Mileage. Serious mileage.
Injuries aside, when Cleveland finally settled the summerlong negotiation with restricted free agent Tristan Thompson, the Cavs found themselves with a depth chart two-deep with legitimate NBA rotation players. Beyond that, there is some deep depth, featuring players who can play a very real role. There seems to be little doubt that if Cleveland gets its pieces in place, the Cavs are the heavy favorites to repeat in the East. Most oddsmakers see them as the overall favorite in the NBA.
But the questions remain: Will the Cavs get their pieces in place? If so, how quickly does it need to happen? We're months away from having definitive answers to these questions. As much as any team in professional sports, the Cavaliers' season will be judged by their final game, not their first.
After James reunited with the Cavaliers, Cleveland quickly switched gears from the gradual bottom-up design that had just started to show results. Out were back-to-back top overall picks Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett, in was All-Star forward Love. The bench was stocked with veteran floor spacers like Mike Miller and James Jones. Just like that, new coach David Blatt found himself with a roster that was projected to win 55 to 60 games.
Things didn't go well at first. James dealt with his back and a balky knee. Love struggled to acclimate himself to a complementary role. Irving grasped to find the right blend of the alpha player he'd been and the beta player everyone is forced to be next to James. Cleveland hovered around .500 for most of the first half and stood just 19-20 on Jan. 13. The Cavs ranked 11th on offense, a major letdown for an attack with historically high expectations. Yet the news was even scarier on the defensive end, where only four teams ranked lower.
The stage for Cleveland's turnaround had been set about a week before the season's nadir, during a nine-game stretch James missed with injury. Cavs GM David Griffin unloaded marginalized volume scorer Dion Waiters and spare parts in a three-team deal that brought wings Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith from New York. A couple of days later, Griffin turned a package of draft picks into Denver center Timofey Mozgov. James joined his new teammates on Jan. 13, a loss to the Suns. Then the new era took off.
From that point on, Cleveland went 34-9. The offense was the league's best during that span and the defense improved to 13th. The Cavs entered the playoffs looking like the team everyone thought they'd be. But that team began to disintegrate, beginning with the season-ending shoulder injury Love suffered at the end of Round 1. Even with Irving's knee-addled status an on-again, off-again proposition, the Cavs still managed to dispatch Chicago and Atlanta to reach the Finals.
Irving finally went down for good late in Game 1 of the Finals with a dislodged kneecap. Behind James and supporting players like Thompson and Matthew Dellavedova, the Cavs gave the mighty Warriors a good run, and James gave us a performance for the ages. Still, when the dust settled, Cleveland's 45th season ended like all the others -- without a title.