It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Well, at least that’s what some fans thought on that fateful day back in July when LeBron James said he was coming home, going back to Cleveland to try to win a title in Northeast Ohio. By virtue of having the best player on the planet join their squad, the Cleveland Cavaliers were immediate title contenders. After a trade they suddenly had great odds in Las Vegas, and on paper the newer and younger incarnation of the “big three” with James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love looked incredibly promising.
But games aren’t played on paper and the Cleveland Cavaliers are off to a slow start, sitting at just 5-7 in the Eastern Conference. And as recently as Saturday night, after being soundly beaten by the best team in the East—the Toronto Raptors—James recognized there was work to be done.
“We’re a fragile team right now,” commented James after he watched his team’s 18-point lead turn into an 18-point deficit in the 110–93 loss to the Raptors. “This is not even the lowest it’s going to get for us.”
So what’s the problem?
Right now it’s not just one thing. There is a laundry list of things that need to be addressed in Cleveland before this team can be seen as contenders. The first two things needed are time and patience. You simply can’t cheat the process, and nobody understands this better than James. Currently he is drawing on his experience and trying to teach his teammates along the way, and knows losses are part of the package.
It takes time and patience to gain familiarity, and on occasion the weight of expectations makes that time seem to move more slowly than normal.
And while everyone is drawing comparisons to LeBron’s first go round as a member of a triumvirate in Miami, this is a very different situation. Both Irving and Love are terrific players, but they are each in a new situation. Neither has been to the playoffs, where in Miami, Wade had already won a title as the Finals MVP and Bosh had playoff experience but had never won a series.
Wade and Bosh, though they’d had decidedly different levels of success to that point, knew what it took to win. Irving and Love are going to have to learn. And yes, even in Miami after a slow start and eventually figuring it out during the regular season and playoffs, there was still a loss in the NBA Championship.
Winning takes talent, but it also takes role definition and sacrifice. Before James took his talents to South Beach, Wade was the hub of the wheel in Miami, but he eventually became a spoke and allowed James to be the main cog. Meanwhile, Bosh sacrificed to the point where Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra famously called him the team’s “most important player.”
Look at Cleveland and there are striking similarities with Irving and Love having to change their games and mentalities. And now an older, wiser, championship-tested James is trying to drive the point home to his new team.
Overseeing all this is David Blatt, a coach new to both Cleveland and the league. And that makes one more thing that requires a period of adjustment.
So more than anything else, the Cavs need time. Their rankings in opponents points scored (25th in the NBA) and opponents field goal percentage (28th) will likely improve as players become familiar with both one another and their scheme. And as Raptors bench boss Dwane Casey said the other night, you just hope your squad isn’t the one playing the Cavs when they figure it all out and start trending in the right direction.
Until then, the Cavs need to keep working and be patient.