The Cleveland Cavaliers Are The Perfect Team For Cavalier NBA Fans

Stathole1/11/2025 4:16 PM

Jason Miller. Getty Images.

There's nothing cavalier about these Cavaliers.

But they're the perfect team for… well… cavalier NBA fans like myself. I've made my stance clear I'm a proud casual NBA fan who's cynical of the direction the league is going in. And if you find yourself in the same boat, then I have good news. These Cavs aren't just supremely talented. They're incredibly fun to watch. Even if you're a 90s ball boomer like myself.

If you're just dipping your toes into the NBA this season, you might be wondering: How good is this team? I think this should sum it up nicely.

For all the stylistic reasons casual fans bemoan the current state of the game, the Cleveland Cavaliers are the exception. I recently wrote on how obnoxious three-pointer shooting has become in the NBA which touched on the fact that eleven of the top-31 three-point taking teams in NBA history all come from 2024-25 on a per game basis. At least it was through November. I'm assuming it's still pretty much there now.

The 2024-25 Cavs were the reason I cut it off at 31 instead of, perhaps 30. They were rank #31. But they had a better shooting percentage than any of the other 30 teams in NBA history that shot at a higher rate. That includes any mid-2010s Harden Rockets and Splash Brothers years.

How can this be? Sure, they have Donovan Mitchell, but he's hardly a headlining league super star and the team is largely the same as it was last year. But that's part of the answer right there. A shining beacon showing every other team where to tack in order to steer away from the squall this league is sailing towards.

To me the answer is very simple. They are a true team. They move the ball and play with chemistry. And you never know who the next shooter is going to be. They've invested the time and built the chemistry to do this. No shortcuts. This team is not all the sudden great despite being the same team as last year. They are in part because they're the same team as last year. Not just a bunch of mercenaries bouncing from city to city looking for a ring.

Here's another little stat nugget. The Cavs rank 28 in average starter minutes played (28.34 minutes). Only Golden State and Memphis get more minutes from the bench. Maybe this is influenced by blowout 4th quarters, but it seems like the entire operation is a well oiled machine.

Still. They do shoot a lot of threes. 31st all time is pretty indicative of it. So they must be boring to watch, right? That's the general sentiment of NBA haters and, yes, that includes myself. But this team is different. They earn their threes in a way other team don't. The Cavs play basketball better not only from an efficiency standpoint, but from a casual fan's aesthetic standpoint. That's why they have a better efficiency than anyone else.

The reason us casuals hate on three-point chucking is because it often comes out of lazy offense with either zero effort or - at the most - perfunctory ball movement leaving no spetactor wondering what will come next. Pretty much like any Marvel movie.

That's not the case with these Cavs.

The chemistry of this team is up there with any other team in NBA history. Thel cherry-pick slip above supports it. The step-stair graph above proves it. The only thing holding this team back from the national recognition they deserve is that it's Cleveland sans LeBron. Just IMAGINE the coverage if this were the Lakers.

One other thing about this team. It's only natural to be skeptical of a team that - largely unchanged on the player level from the year prior - all the sudden comes out hot to start a season. Their first loss was to the champion Celtics after starting 15-0 which probably planted the "oh they'll regress" seed in our minds, but they went on to beat Boston a couple weeks later and just this past week took down the #1 seed in the West - Oklahoma City. All despite an extremely off night from their best player - Donovan Mitchell.

How impressive was this win? I combed through every season of the NBA and totaled the amount of losses for both teams that played exactly 70 games beforehand. The idea here was to see if there were any better matchup in NBA history at this point in the season.

There wasn't.

With just nine combined losses for both teams, the next fewest ever was a Heat/Suns game in 2005. They totaled 13 losses going in to that game.

The Cavs won the all-time best early January matchup in NBA history with a nothingberger from their star AND they covered the spread. So we not only have a team that's amazing, but they're fun to watch too. There's only way to properly describe this.