Cleveland Cavaliers: Model For Success

The modern National Basketball Association is vastly different from 20 or 30 years ago. Trading and free agency, once unheard of, now rule the NBA. There is no greater example than the Cleveland Cavaliers.

In an age where the Spurs, with their tenured team, are a rarity; the Cavs are the model for 21st century success in the NBA.

When LeBron James made his decision to return home. That was the first domino to fall. A team that then had Kyrie Irving and Andrew Wiggins, now had their King. But Cavs owner Dan Gilbert wasn’t done yet.

“What’s most important for me is bringing one trophy back to Northeast Ohio.”-LeBron James

After waiting the time limit out to trade Wiggins, he pulled the trigger. And thus, the new ‘Big Three’ was born, or so we thought.

Wiggins, not even a Cavalier long enough to put it on a resumé, is now a Minnesota Timberwolf. The Cavs managed to ship Wiggins North and land their second prize of the offseason, Kevin Love.

A team that hadn’t broke 34 wins since the city’s crown jewel left, suddenly jumped to becoming the favorites to win the NBA championship this season.

When James brought in his crew, he had the keys to bring Cleveland a championship. That’s the goal. Cue Mike Miller, James Jones and Shawn Marion. Three signings to shore up the team, round things out.

But in reality you cannot simply ‘build’ a championship team. They have to be forged. Placed in the fire. And James knew that coming in. He didn’t set expectations at “Not one, not two, not three…” championships, not this time. Young guys like Dion Waiters and Irving had bad habits. He had to break them.

The transition wasn’t smooth, not at all. ESPN had the Cavs ranked as number two in their preseason power rankings. They fell to a low of 17 just two weeks ago and they were .500. People were really concerned.

So how do you fix a team that was manufactured? Well, you have to fix the broken pieces and interchange some of the pieces.

The Cavaliers traded for J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and Timofey Mozgov. Away went Waiters and his 10.5 points per game (ppg) to Oklahoma City. In return they upgraded to J.R. Smith and his 15.2 ppg. Mozgov gave the Cavs a force down low that had been missing since Anderson Varejao was injured, and maybe even an upgrade over Varejao. Before the Thunder game Sunday, Mozgov had four consecutive double-doubles.

And Iman Shumpert has only played in the last two games, in reserve minutes, but he will continue to grow into a role on this team. He had eight points in 10 minutes last Friday.