Cavs Are on Top of the World (For Now)

With the Lakers' loss tonight to Toronto, Cleveland now has the best record in the NBA.  Who knows if it will last? Maybe the Cavs and Lakers will flip flop for a while at the top; maybe one or the other team will take the reigns for a while. But given the Cavs' rocky start of their season, and given the assemblage of new players they have had to integrate into Mike Brown's philosophy, it's impressive that the Cavs have (for now) reached the top.

In addition, their superstar LeBron James is now leading the league in per-game scoring (he's led in total points for quite a while), having passed Carmelo Anthony in the last couple of games.  Look for James's scoring average to go up, if anything, because of the month-long absence of Mo Williams. 

LeBron also leads the league in plays made (.5 x points, plus rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks). He is way ahead in win shares, in my opinion the MVP stat—at 9.66 he is on the verge of reaching double digits win shares and will get there in the next couple of Cavs' wins. It will take Kobe (second in the league) another 16 Lakers' wins to reach double digits.

LeBron is also seventh in the league in assists (expect that to go up as well, with Williams out), 13th in "true shooting percentage" (combining all shooting percentages), 13th in defensive plays made (blocks plus steals), 16th in steals, and 24th in defensive rebounding.

So LeBron and the Cavs are on top of the world for now. It'll all be for nought if they can't get it done in the postseason (as I'm sure some of the many Cavs/LeBron detractors will point out).

But things look good for now, and the Cavs look poised to make a nice run in the playoffs, with lots of different players getting playing time (partly as a result of the team's various injuries), Shaq cruising along at 23 minutes a game (thus not being overworked before the postseason), and LeBron pretty much dusting off the shelf space for his second straight MVP.