2015-16 Finish: 57-25

Season Highlight:

In an otherwise uneventful season the Cleveland Cavaliers fired their GM Alejandro. Although he had led the team to multiple championships he was considered by many to be an absentee GM that essentially rode the coattails of LeBron James to multiple successful seasons. That firing led to the hiring of the new GM Pistol PK. Not to be confused with the Legendary PG Pistol Pete Marovich. But clearly a colorful personality nonetheless. Pistol PK swooped in and made his presence known at all levels reigniting the fans as well as the players enthusiasm for the Win and Gold.

Season Lowlight:

Failing to win a championship. With Lebron James as the best player. It can be said that running this team is as easy as just rolling he ball out on the court, kicking back and counting your money as the wins pile up, the stadium stays packed and the championship rings get handed out. Somewhere somebody didn’t get the memo as the Cavs were beaten soundly in the 2^nd round of the playoffs by the Boston Celtics and that after barely scraping by the Miami Heat. As the runaway most talented team in the league. Anything less than a finals appearance is a crushing failure.

 

Best Trade:

The Cavs have made 2 trade in 2 years. One consists of the following:

The Chicago Bulls send Lance Stephenson and Andrew Harrison to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cleveland Cavaliers send Jodie Meeks to the Chicago Bulls.

The Cleveland Cavaliers send a 1st-Rounder (Cle) to the Chicago Bulls.

The Chicago Bulls receive 5 GM points. The Cleveland Cavaliers trade -5 GM points

This is really like trading red checker pieces for black checker pieces. Does it really matter if you do this trade for either team? The Cavs are generally so talent heavy that they can afford to skip the draft once in a while but Lance’s impact was minimal at best.

Worst Trade:

See above

Other Notable Trades:

The Cleveland Cavaliers send Nikola Milutinov to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

This was a deal player rights for considerations unknown at the time of this publishing.

Best FA Signing:

LeBron James – retaining arguably the best player in the league is clearly a gimmee on best free agent signing. But there was always the chance he would invoke his right to Decision 2.0 and skedaddle out of town. Although not his best season LBJ was an insane model of consistency. He played all 82 games, and maintained averages of 26pts, 7 rbds and 5ast pregame just to rattle off a few misc numbers.  Even though Mr. James is up for Free Agency again and the numbers overall are slightly down from previous seasons. His ability to dominate a game make him a by far the best free agent signing of not just the Cavs but through the entire free agent class of last season.

Worst FA Signing:

The remainder of the signings were players on minimum salary deals. Kendrick Perkins lead the pack in least useful. The Perkolator did absolutely no running or jumping as he put in extra effort to hold down the bench so that his teammates would have a stable place to sit between timeouts.

Star:

LeBron James

He is a basketball player in a linebacker’s body. It some ways it isn’t even fair. It’s not just his size that is a handful. But the package of refined skills that he has when on the floor. At 6’9” he has the strength and size to play small ball Center or PF and package that with his speed and ball handling ability he can play as a combo guard. As an opposing coach you kind of just have to let him do his thing and make some sort of effort to contain his teammates leaving LeBron to have to take over games to bring home the win.

Surprise:

Biggest surprise here wasn’t a player but not making it to the finals. Expectations around a LeBron led team are so insanely high that anything less than a deep playoff run is a total let down.

Goat:

Alejandro as a dispatched GM proudly wears the Goat hat and we not talking about Greatest of All Time either. Years of disinterest had made some fans somewhat apathetic to the team and take a ho hum approach to supporting their local franchise. His ouster brought in new blood that rekindle the Cleveland faithful passion for the team and the game.

 

Draft Report Card:

 

Cleveland’s 1^st rounder was traded to the Bulls for Lance Stephensen so the 1^st round section of their draft is an incomplete.

For their 2^nd rounder the Cavs picked Daniel Hamilton out of Uconn. Clearly if any NBA team wants you and picks you in the draft you can play basketball at least reasonably well. But when you are picked almost dead last. You might have to look at some of those other options in life. Hamilton is going to be hanging on to his basketball life by a thread thinner than cat hair. H is on a deep team and will have to put in a lot of extra work to prove himself worthy of even garbage time mins.

Looking to the Future:

The Cavs future as usual is pretty much now. Parts of the core are aging but the up and coming guys are pretty decent so they can expect a similar performance as last season unless the roster is shaken up and another superstar level player is brought in to tag team with LeBron. But with that being said reaching the 2^nd round of the playoffs this past season is nothing to shake your stick at and if there is a repeat performance of that then that’s not a too shabby scenario. But is just trading water enough for PistolPK or does he desire to make the leap into the upper echelon of the playoffs?

Upcoming Free Agents:

LeBron James – Hands down the best player on the team. Pretty much has Red Wood level roots in Cleveland so the odds of him going anywhere pretty much slim to none. Unless the earth cracks open, hell freezes over Santa Clause comes bouncing out with Rudolph in tow.

Andre Drummond – Drummond is one of the 5 best centers in the league and even though he is also more or less an automatic lock to return. PistolPK would be crazy to not have a death grip on Drummonds contract.

Terrence Ross – Ross has a restricted status but rumor has it that he is snug as a bug in a rug and has no designs on even remotely considering any other offers.

Ishmael Smith – The Rocketeer is looking for MLE money and that may be more than the Cavs are willing to pay up for a waterbug quick point guard who can’t shoot to save his life.

Lance Stephenson – That experiment was a failure and it would be no surprise if he was run out of twon chased by a mob carrying torches and pitch forks.

Thomas Robinson – A young big with a lot of promise. But somehow thinks he should be getting almost as much PT as Ibaka. It’s a safe bet that he is the only person that believes that on the team and will probably have to look for playing time elsewhere.

Solomon Hill – Somewhere Hill is going to land himself a 8 figure salary. But it won’t be in Ceveland

Kendrick Perkins – A few heads around the league believe Big Perk will end up in retirement.

Damjan Rudez – Not expected to make it through any teams training camp.

Andre Miller – Its astonishing that this guy is still around.