From Lottery Winners to Contenders, Cleveland Cavaliers Have Come a Long Way
It was a sight that was at once surprising and disappointing in how surprising it was.
Anthony Bennett, like a young Anthony Mason, barreling through the lane, rising over traffic and putting his poor opponent on a poster.
But this wasn't in a playoff game with the Cleveland Cavaliers or even in a regular-season outing with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Instead, Bennett's shining moment was in the waning minutes of a preseason scrimmage between the Toronto Raptors and Los Angeles Lakers in Ontario, California.
It wasn't supposed to be this way for Bennett. As the No. 1 pick in the 2013 NBA draft, the freshman out of UNLV was slated to be a cornerstone of Cleveland's future alongside Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson and Dion Waiters.
But Bennett, out of shape in the wake of shoulder surgery, struggled through an abysmal rookie campaign. Then...well, LeBron James came back, and before long, Bennett was off to Minnesota along with Andrew Wiggins as recompense for Kevin Love.
Now, Cleveland's young core is no more. Bennett, 22, is with his hometown Raptors after getting waived by the Wolves on the first day of fall. This past January, the Cavs dealt Waiters to the Oklahoma City Thunder as part of a three-team deal that brought Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith to the shores of Lake Erie.
Irving remains sidelined by a knee injury he suffered in Game 1 of the 2015 NBA Finals. Thompson is still holding out for a new contract.
And yet, despite swinging and missing on a No. 1 pick just two years ago—a misfire that would sink most rebuilding franchises—the Cavs are odds-on favorites to hoist the Larry O'Brien Trophy next June after coming up two wins shy this past June, per Odds Shark.
That's the power of a player like James, whose generational talent and regional commitment are tailor-made to not only rescue Cleveland from its disastrous past, but ensure an exceedingly bright future, all in what might as well be the blink of an eye.
In announcing his decision to return to Cleveland last summer, James (with the help of Sports Illustrated's Lee Jenkins) made clear time and again how important it was for him to lift up the community from whence he came:
"I feel my calling here goes above basketball. I have a responsibility to lead, in more ways than one, and I take that very seriously. My presence can make a difference in Miami, but I think it can mean more where I’m from. I want kids in Northeast Ohio, like the hundreds of Akron third-graders I sponsor through my foundation, to realize that there’s no better place to grow up. Maybe some of them will come home after college and start a family or open a business. That would make me smile. Our community, which has struggled so much, needs all the talent it can get.
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James did his part—first by taking his own talents back from Miami then by helping to orchestrate the trade that landed Love in Cleveland.
But in James' mind, there was much more to pulling off a quick turnaround than simply revamping the roster. As Ethan Skolnick wrote for Bleacher Report in July, the team needed "a culture warrior" ready, willing and able to re-engineer the makeup of the entire franchise:
"To start to reverse Cleveland's half-century sports curse, he needed to do more than just score a lot of points or grab a lot of rebounds. He needed to rewire his new teammates' brains, altering the way they thought, about collaboration and communication, about work and winning. He needed to do it relatively quickly, since the public's patience with him would come with an expiration date, no matter how he pleaded, and that would only intensify the pressure on everyone around him.
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James certainly had his work cut out for him. The Cavs fell into calamitous disrepair almost immediately after his televised Decision in 2010.
James brought Zydrunas Ilgauskas with him to Miami; Shaquille O'Neal signed his final contract in Boston. The team shipped Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair to Minnesota in exchange for Ramon Sessions and Ryan Hollins, and it replaced Mike Brown with Byron Scott prior to James' momentous announcement.
The results were predictably devastating. From late December 2010 through early February 2011, the Cavs lost an NBA-record 26 straight games, including a 55-point drubbing at the hands of the Los Angeles Lakers. In a calendar year, Cleveland fell from first to second-worst, from a league-high 61 wins in 2009-10 to a near low of 19 in 2010-11 (Minnesota had 17).
From that collapse came the trade that sent Mo Williams to the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for Baron Davis along with the pick that would become Kyrie Irving. The Cavs' own pick landed at No. 4, from whence then-general manager Chris Grant opted for Texas' Thompson over Lithuania's Jonas Valanciunas, Washington State's Klay Thompson and San Diego State's Kawhi Leonard, among others.
The arrivals of Irving and Thompson didn't do much to improve Cleveland's fortunes on the court in 2011-12. A 21-45 record during the lockout-shortened season gave way to another No. 4 pick—and yet another head-scratching choice. The Cavs went with Syracuse sixth man Dion Waiters over North Carolina's Harrison Barnes and UConn's Andre Drummond, not to mention Weber State sensation Damian Lillard.
The futility continued in Cleveland, enough so for the Cavs to can Scott and replace him with Brown, his predecessor.
On the bright side, the Cavs landed the No. 1 pick, albeit in a decidedly weak 2013 draft. For the third year running, Grant and his front-office staff stunned onlookers—including Bill Simmons, then still with ESPN—by making UNLV's Bennett the first Canadian to go atop the draft.
Bennett's pro career began with ailments and misses galore. A shoulder injury and a bout with sleep apnea left Bennett in poor shape. He missed his first 16 shots in the NBA, portending a rookie campaign that, in January 2014, SB Nation's Drew Garrison characterized as "the worst rookie season of any No. 1 pick in the past 24 seasons and it isn't even close":
"His PER — a whopping 1.1 — is 10.1 lower than Kwame Brown, a player considered one of the biggest busts in draft history. That's the next closest player to him. The rookie-year PER gap between Bennett and Brown is nearly equal to the gap between Brown and Kyrie Irving (10.2).
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Another abysmal season begat another No. 1 pick, one Grant wouldn't get to botch after being replaced by David Griffin.
While the Cavs were wallowing in youthful misery, James was busy competing for championships in Miami. He joined the Heat as the game's preeminent talent, with two MVPs already to his credit. But the then-25-year-old still had a lot to learn about translating that talent into titles.
As he explained in his Sports Illustrated essay announcing his return to Cleveland in 2014:
"Miami, for me, has been almost like college for other kids. These past four years helped raise me into who I am. I became a better player and a better man. I learned from a franchise that had been where I wanted to go. I will always think of Miami as my second home. Without the experiences I had there, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing today.
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It was an intense education for James to say the least. He captained the Heatles, with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh by his side, to four Finals and two titles in four years.
Those star-studded Miami squads burned brighter than any team in the league during those years until they burned out entirely. The writing was all over the walls of American Airlines Arena after an historic annihilation at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs in the 2014 Finals.
In James' mind, Pat Riley's grand experiment had run its course. It was time for the Heatles to break up and for James to bring his new know-how back to his old stomping grounds.
Mere weeks after that crushing blow, James came back to Cleveland a changed man. He was more than a hometown prodigy returning from his rumspringa to South Beach. He was also a champion whose on-court triumph lent even more gravitas to his already-heavy words.
"His mindset, his leadership was a lot different," said Anderson Varejao, who bridged the gap between the LeBron eras, per Skolnick. "I would say more mature."
Added one of James' associates to Skolnick: "He kind of learned from how Miami did business. And it was every day, you're accountable, you're doing something. He's more accountable for his day and for his actions."
Among James' first actions in Cleveland: bringing Love with him to Rock City. Less than a week after James announced he was coming home, Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski reported that LeBron had reached out to Love to gauge the disgruntled power forward's interest in coming to Cleveland.
Come late August, the deal was officially done. Love was on his way to Cleveland, with Wiggins, the No. 1 pick in 2014, and Bennett going to Minnesota along with a soon-to-be-rerouted first-round pick. The wheeling and dealing didn't abate for Griffin, who had essentially swapped out Waiters, another first-rounder and a slew of spare parts for Mozgov, Shumpert and Smith by the halfway point of the year.
Once James came back from a midseason sabbatical, the Cavs were off and running. From mid-January through the end of the regular season, Cleveland went an NBA-best 34-9.
All the while, the rest of the East collapsed around the Cavs. The Toronto Raptors fell back to earth from their early-season start. The Atlanta Hawks, with a conference-leading 60 wins, were eaten alive by injuries, as were the Washington Wizards on account of John Wall's playoff wrist injury. The Chicago Bulls, expected to challenge Cleveland from the get-go, ran out of gas during head coach Tom Thibodeau's final days.
Those circumstances paved the way for the Cavs to return to the Finals sooner than James had expected, if his letter in SI were any indication:
"I’m not promising a championship. I know how hard that is to deliver. We’re not ready right now. No way. Of course, I want to win next year, but I’m realistic. It will be a long process, much longer than it was in 2010. My patience will get tested. I know that. I’m going into a situation with a young team and a new coach. I will be the old head. But I get a thrill out of bringing a group together and helping them reach a place they didn’t know they could go.
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Cleveland fell two wins shy of the city's first championship in over half a century, but still came out well ahead of the players who'd been offered up as sacrifice to surround James with fitting talent. Waiters' Oklahoma City Thunder missed the playoffs. So did the T-Wolves, who saw Bennett stumble as a sophomore while Wiggins won Rookie of the Year.
What mattered most for the Cavs, though, was how much their culture had changed in just one year with an older, wiser James at the helm. Varejao said as much to Skolnick:
"This first year was new for everybody. With him back, and the guys that came with him, they changed everything. Now we are trying to win a championship. I really think, next year. Because this year was more like seeing how the team would respond with everybody, with Kyrie, with Kevin Love, the vets that came with him, even with the Dion situation, the trades and everything. I believe everybody now knows a lot better what we may need next season to win.
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All involved in Cleveland's bounce-back appear headed for better days in 2015-16.
Minnesota added another No. 1 pick (Kentucky's Karl-Anthony Towns) to its promising core, of which Wiggins is the most surefire star. The Thunder are ticketed for title contention, though far more for Kevin Durant's comeback than for what Waiters brings to the table.
In the East, the Cavs look like overwhelming favorites to return to the Finals despite injuries and holdouts. The Atlanta Hawks (DeMarre Carroll) and Washington Wizards (Paul Pierce) are both coping with key free-agent departures. Chicago is long on talent but short on experience under rookie head coach Fred Hoiberg. The Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks are on the up and up, though each looks to be another year or two away from true contention.
As it happens, Miami might be Cleveland's toughest competition in the East, courtesy of a post-LeBron turnaround far likely quicker and less painful than what the Cavs went through.
Toronto could have something to say about the East too, while Bennett works to salvage his still-young pro career on his hometown's behalf.
"I feel like there is no bad," Bennett told Yahoo Sports' Marc J. Spears. "I'm in a comfortable position. It's a solid position like it has been in the past."
In some respects, the current state of affairs for the Cavs and all those touched by their LeBron-aissance is the product of a long process and a lot of luck.
James had to leave the comforts of home to study the ins and outs of what makes not only an on-court champion, but a successful organization from top to bottom. During that time, Cleveland had to accrue the requisite assets—some to keep and others to trade—to lure James back to Northeast Ohio. Both efforts took all manner of planning and even more good fortune.
Still, once the ball got rolling, everything came together so quickly. In two years, Bennett went from the first pick in the draft to a guy who might be on his last legs in the NBA.
In about half that time, the Cavs rocketed out of a Cuyahoga catastrophe and into the NBA's upper echelon, with James pulling the strings. Whatever the true extent of his influence—and however anyone may feel about him meddling in coaching and management—James has Cleveland closer than ever before to ending the city's epic championship drought.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
