The Cleveland Cavaliers are just one game past the halfway points of their season and are 30-12 overall, leading the Eastern Conference. But how are they looking for the rest of the year after what's transpired so far? Here is the Cavs midseason report card for the 2015-16 NBA season.
Record: 30-12
Standing in Central Division: 1st
Standing in Eastern Conference: 1st
Leading Scorers:
- LeBron James - 25.0
- Kyrie Irving - 15.8
- Kevin Love - 15.6
Leading Rebounders:
- Kevin Love - 10.9
- Tristan Thompson - 9.4
- LeBron James - 7.3
Leading Assisters:
- LeBron James - 6.2
- Matthew Dellavedova - 4.8
- Kyrie Irving - 3.8
The Cavs came into this season fresh off of an NBA Finals appearance, in which they fell to the Golden State Warriors four games to two. They're undoubtedly the favorites to get back to the Finals to represent the East, but there have been some road bumps to start this season.
Before the year started, there was the whole fiasco with Thompson, as he took as long as possible to re-sign trying to get as much money as he could -- which he inevitably did, signing a five-year, $82 million deal. He hasn't really been living up to the deal that he received basically because of a great playoff run, as he's putting up just average numbers once again this year at 7.6 points and 9.4 rebounds per game.
Another issue this team has faced was with its young star point guard, Irving. He had a knee injury during the playoffs that knocked him out for the final two series, and wasn't able to return until late December this season. Not surprisingly, he's had his struggles. While Irving has had a couple of very good games, his consistency is well off and he's only shooting 41 percent from the field and 28 from deep -- both well off his career averages. He's never really been a high-assist man, but almost all of his numbers are down still at this point.
Outside of those two occurrences, the Cavs have had pretty much everyone else on deck.
James has been playing at a high level, even if it's not quite as dominant as when he was with the Miami Heat. Love has been solid this year, averaging 15 and 11, and being very effective as a perimeter shooter most nights. Both Mo Williams and Dellavedova have been pleasant surprises both when Irving was rehabbing and now that they have roles off of the bench.
However, despite owning the East's best record and having a bunch of good role players to go with James, Love and Irving, there's still something off.
That was made all the more evident with head coach David Blatt's firing just a week ago. Clearly, there was some major disconnect between the front office and Blatt and the roster. Coaches, analysts and others have called out the Cavs for their decision on firing a first-place team's coach midseason, saying it's "embarrassing," "disturbing" and other such criticisms.
Truly, it just seems that there's some dysfunction in-house there somewhere. And the man they've replaced him with is Tyronn Lue, who has zero head-coaching experience and is barely older than LeBron James. Adding insult to injury, the Cavs fans booed Lue and the team after getting dismantled by the Chicago Bulls in his first game as head man.
It just makes no sense.
Considering all that has gone down within the organization plus the expectations placed on this team heading into the season, the grade for the top team in the East isn't as high as you'd expect.
Midseason grade: B
