Cleveland Cavs Have a Lot of Superteam Questions to Answer Again Next Season
Year 1 of the LeBron James era back in Cleveland has finally come to a thrilling, eventful end.
Year 2 promises to be even better, and possibly more complicated.
The Cavaliers are using the short summer break to rest up and recover, extending some of their own while adding new pieces.
Cleveland came within two wins of its first NBA title, ultimately doomed by key injuries to Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love and a dominant Golden State Warriors squad.
Unlike last year, this group will remain largely intact. James, Love, Iman Shumpert and James Jones have all re-signed. Tristan Thompson, J.R. Smith and Matthew Dellavedova could re-up soon as well. They join holdovers like Irving, Timofey Mozgov, Mike Miller, Joe Harris and Anderson Varejao, who's set to return from an Achilles injury by the start of training camp.
Cleveland has also added veterans Mo Williams and Richard Jefferson to help improve the team's depth, which ultimately hurt it in the Finals.
While this "superteam" appears locked and loaded for another easy path to the Finals, it'll face both old and new issues in Year 2 together.
Health Doesn't Guarantee a Title
Irving and Cavs fans everywhere will declare that Cleveland would have taken down the mighty Warriors had both teams been at equal health.
As Irving stated on The Big Podcast with Shaq:
"I'm more of the voice of reason. I'm always going to be a straight shooter with everyone and give them my honest opinion. Obviously, we have a great thing in Cleveland, and we dealt with everything together. I feel like we definitely would have won an NBA championship if we had everyone healthy. But almost doesn't count.
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While we'll never know what might have happened, Irving's statement wasn't necessarily true.
After Love was lost for the playoffs in Game 4 of the opening round, Cleveland had to switch into a grit-and-grind defensive style of play with Thompson stepping in. After Irving hurt his knee in Game 1 of the Finals, Dellavedova only solidified the Cavaliers' new identity.
Even though the Cavaliers stormed through the last three months of the regular season, they never truly settled on what kind of team they wanted to be. The defense was better with Mozgov and Shumpert but far from an elite level. The Cavs were clicking offensively, but they hadn't established a style.
Were they a three-point-shooting team? Pick-and-roll? Drive-and-kick?
With Irving and Love out, Cleveland was forced to slow down the pace. The Warriors, at 98.3 possessions per 48 minutes, were the league's fastest team.
The Cavaliers stormed out to a 2-1 series advantage with this new, established identity. If not for a lack of depth and the near-exhaustion of LeBron James and Dellavedova, they might have pulled it off too.
As Bleacher Report's Dan Favale notes:
"Stephen Curry wouldn't have necessarily played any less like an MVP to close out the series because of Love or Irving. Andre Iguodala wouldn't have stopped trying to wreak havoc on the defensive end.
Draymond Green wouldn't have ceased doing Draymond Green things.
There's even a chance the Cavaliers would have suffered defensively with Irving and Love—two longtime liabilities on that end—in the fold. And it was defensive excellence that propelled the Cavaliers to victories in Games 2 and 3.
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This isn't to say the Cavs are a better team with Delly and Thompson in for Irving and Love, because they're clearly not.
It is important that Cleveland can find its niche with all three star players healthy, however, before it wins any championships.
Bigger Payrolls = Bigger Pressure, Expectations
Although the Cavaliers' final payroll was roughly $20 million over the salary cap last season, this year's group is headed toward historic levels.
Already at $88 million, Cleveland could wind up well over $100 million in player salary should Thompson, Dellavedova and Smith all re-sign.
With money comes bigger expectations, however.
Shumpert playing good defense and not contributing much offensively is well worth the $2.6 million he made last season. Now entering a deal that pays an average of $10 million per year, that lack of offense may not be as easy to overlook.
Irving's rookie-deal salary of just over $7 million last year now becomes a $90 million max extension, starting at $16.4 million this season.
If Thompson settles on the five-year, $80 million contract that was discussed earlier this summer, a deal first reported by Marc Stein and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com, that would nearly triple his paycheck.
Owner Dan Gilbert is fine with dipping into monstrous luxury-tax levels so long as his team performs. James and Love are used to playing under max deals. The rest, however, will have to do a lot more work to truly earn their money.
A raise is certainly nice, but it does bring added pressure to one's job performance.
House Money Is Gone
No one expected the Cavaliers to be good right away last season, starting with James.
A new head coach, only five returning players and a changing culture were certainly going to slow down the Cavs' progress. A 19-20 start to the season proved as much.
Even during the Finals, with two stars sidelined, expectations were once again tapered.
There was no way James could win a title with such a depleted roster around him. Even capturing a pair of victories against a healthy and stacked Warriors team seemed like an accomplishment of sorts.
Now, no one's interested in moral victories.
Another sub-.500 record in January is unacceptable. The Cavs are going to have six players making at least $10 million next season, including the best player on the planet. Irving, Thompson, Shumpert and Dellavedova won't be on their rookie contracts anymore. David Blatt is no longer a first-year NBA head coach.
Last year, simply reaching the Finals was quite the accomplishment. It equaled what James' 2010-11 Miami Heat squad did, and it far surpassed other recent superteams, including Dwight Howard's 2012-13 Los Angeles Lakers and the $200 million Brooklyn Nets of 2013-14.
Now, anything short of a championship will be viewed as a disappointment.
The house money is gone. Cleveland has no choice but to go all in.
Chemistry, Roles Cleaned Up?
The downfall of many a good talent-stuffed team, the Cavs need to eliminate any and all chemistry issues that could plague them.
We saw quite the transformation last season, from James calling the team "fragile" in November (during a conversation with Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com) to dancing in a tub with teammates in May.
The good news for Cleveland is that many of the great locker room presences of last season will be returning. Miller has picked up his player option, Jones recently inked a new one-year deal, according to Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com, and Varejao is set to begin a three-year extension.
Beyond them, newcomers Williams and Jefferson bring plenty of experience and knowledge.
On the outside, chemistry shouldn't be an issue. At least, not to start the season.
While roles have been primarily determined with a mostly returning roster, the Cavaliers still need to fully integrate Love. After launching three-pointers at a career-high rate last season, Blatt needs to get Love more touches in close and open up the outside for shooters.
Cleveland also needs to find the best role for Varejao, who has yet to play a game with Mozgov and Shumpert. If Smith is not re-signed, Shumpert's move to the starting lineup will be the only shake-up from a season ago. Blatt will also be under pressure to establish Thompson in the rotation, especially with the amount Gilbert will be paying for his salary and taxes.
In the end, it all comes down to James to set the tone. After sharing his expectations with every member of the team before last season, he must once again display strong leadership qualities.
If the Cavaliers are winning, team chemistry and roles should take care of themselves.
Greg Swartz has covered the Cleveland Cavaliers and NBA for Bleacher Report since 2010. Follow him on Twitter: @CavsGregBR
All stats come courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
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