Warriors Can Show Cavaliers What a Real Title Contender Looks Like
The Jan. 9 meeting between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors will be a study in evolution.
The Warriors are at their end stage, basically perfected. They're elite in every facet that matters for NBA success and are, without qualification, the very best team in the league right now.
Chronicling their ranks in important statistical categories is an exercise that starts out as redundant and ends up being comedic:
| GSW | 84.8 (1) | +12.7 (1) | 96.2 (1) | 57.6 (1) | 50.0 (1) |
| CLE | 52.8 (13) | -0.2 (15) | 105.5 (23) | 54.3 (11) | 54.7 (25) |
They're so good that you almost have to laugh.
In contrast, the Cavaliers are in the earliest stages of what they hope is a developmental process ending with a championship.
Recently brought into being by the big bang of LeBron James' return, they're trying to fast-track this whole evolution thing—mutating quickly via veteran offseason acquisitions and trades like the ones that brought in J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and Timofey Mozgov.
"What I’m most proud of, and our front office staff is most excited about, is that we’ve put together a team that we believe can compete at the highest level,” Cavs general manager David Griffin told reporters after the deals. “And we feel like we’ve done it without completely mortgaging the future."
Griffin is right to be hopeful. Objectively, though, even he would have to admit the Cavaliers aren't close to being fully formed.
The Warriors are what the Cavs want to become—only Cleveland is skipping critical steps to get there.
Golden State is defined by its chemistry. When it takes the floor against Cleveland in search of its 14th consecutive home win Friday, you'll see David Lee—a former All-Star—jumping off the bench to slap five with Draymond Green, the second-rounder who wrestled away his starting job.
You'll see Andre Iguodala, another former All-Star and one of the most underrated players of the past decade, doing the same thing with third-year pro Harrison Barnes.
You'll see smiles. You'll see brilliant, selfless offensive play and committed team defense. You'll see players with an awareness of one another, with a gradually grown and genuine desire for each other's success.
You'll see the roof raised.
The Warriors are a team built by degrees. Steve Kerr took over as head coach with an eye toward tweaking—not overhauling. The new rotation pieces they've added to the supporting cast—Shaun Livingston and Justin Holiday most recently—are there because they fit into small roles seamlessly.
The Cavaliers are something drastically different.
Both they and the Warriors play defense, but when you watch both teams side by side, it stretches the term's spectrum of meaning to uncomfortable breadth.
The Cavs offense comes and goes. No systematic approach has taken hold yet, and most half-court attacks take the form of high pick-and-rolls run by James or freelance attacks from Kyrie Irving.
That's not a condemnation of the Cavaliers. It's merely an illustration of how real continuity, real chemistry, takes time.
James is confident the recent trades will provide the stable base needed to kick-start the growth process.
"From a team aspect, to know the pieces that are coming in are most likely going to be here for the long term, for all of us just to be able to concentrate on that and knowing the guys that are here, this is what we got, it matters a lot,” he told reporters.
The Warriors are an example of how valuable that stability is. Their core is entering its third season together, and if you consider their foundation to be the Lee-Stephen Curry-Klay Thompson triumvirate, that's been in place for even longer.
This is a team built methodically, through incremental progress. That adherence to patient construction was tested this past offseason, and the Warriors won't have to look far for a reminder of how the entire project was nearly compromised by temptation.
Kevin Love will be sitting on the Cavs' bench, though he could easily be sitting on the Warriors' if they'd pulled the trigger on a blockbuster trade that was there, per ESPN.com's Marc Stein, if they wanted it.
The patience that has brought the Warriors to this point isn't an option for the Cavaliers.
James is 30 and wearing down. He won't play against Golden State because of a cranky left knee that has kept him on the shelf for the longest continuous period of his career. Love is due to hit free agency this summer—another injection of urgency that explains Cleveland's win-now attitude.
The Cavs have to capitalize in the short term because there's no guarantee of a long one. So we can't fault them for approaching their championship pursuit differently than the Dubs have.
Cleveland is doing the best it can. It's trying to evolve faster than is natural, and it might very well pull off the tough trick before the season ends. If James can rush-engineer chemistry and the team's added depth solidifies roles, it's possible the Cavaliers will become the team they want to be by springtime.
The Warriors are already there. They've completed their evolution and are now the best team in the league, essentially playing out the string of the regular season with nothing to prove, hoping nobody gets hurt before the games start to matter in a few months.
The Cavaliers have a long way to go, and they want to get there—they have to get there—in a hurry.
If Friday's tilt winds up being an NBA Finals preview, it'll mean the Warriors reached their natural conclusion. For the Cavaliers, it'll mean they triumphed over nature.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
