Despite proposed Kevin Love trade, Cleveland Cavaliers are far from being legitimate title contenders
According to reports early Thursday, the Minnesota Timberwolves and Cleveland Cavaliers are in firm agreement on a trade deal involving Kevin Love. If the trade truly does take place after 23rd August, the date when the contract of Andrew Wiggins, who is expected to part of the deal, expires, then Love will join the All-Star duo of Kyrie Irving and LeBron James. The Cavaliers will certainly have left no stone unturned at assembling a championship calibre team.
Many might think that with only a year left on Love’s contract that the Cavaliers will receive from theTimberwolves, the move does not serve its purpose. However, according to sources, the Cleveland-based franchise has been trying to obtain a long-term committment from him by making him re-sign with the team after he opts out of his contract in the summer of 2015.
The dawn of an era of a new Big 3 is set to begin in Cleveland this season, one that seems to be superior to the Miami Heat’s Big 3 by a large margin purely on the basis of last season’s averages as seen below.
| Big 3 comgination | Points | Rebounds | Assists |
| Chris Bosh, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade | 62.3 PPG | 18.2 RPG | 12 APG |
| Kyrie Irving, LeBron James and Kevin Love | 74 PPG | 23 RPG | 16 APG |
Nevertheless, there is more than meets the eye with the team that the Cavaliers have assembled for the coming NBA season. Along with their supporting cast, the Cavaliers might look unbeatable on paper, but the fans and the management would know that it would be the performance on the court that matters. Mere statistics are not going to book or assure the team of a spot in the Conference Finals, let alone the NBA Finals.
Here is why the Cleveland Cavaliers are not legitimate NBA title contenders for the coming season:
Brand new Head Coach
While the Cavaliers have done a great job of building the best possible team they could for the coming season, the hopes and dreams of many Cleveland natives of a championship surely cannot be delivered by a Head Coach staring at his first NBA season.
Although he has 22 years of experience of coaching in the game, Cavaliers new Head Coach David Blatt has done all of his work in Europe. He has been a highly accomplished and acclaimed Head Coach in Europe with four Isareli Coach of the Year Awards and many trophies to show for his efforts. But the game is played way too differently on the other side of the Atlantic for him to just return to his motherland and coach a team to a championship in his first season.
Nobody will be happier than the Cavaliers management and the fans if the team makes it to the Finals and wins the NBA title, but it would be asking too much not just from the entire team but from Blatt as well in their very first season together.
The Cavaliers can only expect wonders from Blatt and his coaching staff on in the long term. Expecting monumental results in the immediate future and then making changes if those inappropriate expectations are not met will just undo all the good work that the franchise has done through the ongoing summer.
The chemistry of the Cavaliers Big 3 is not a given
When James decided to team up with Bosh and Wade in South Beach, he was teaming up with players who were like friends to him. It’s not hard to guess where the brotherly friendship he shares with Wade and the close friendship he shares with Bosh come from. The former Miami Heat Big 3 were all part of the same NBA Draft class of 2003 and have been pivotal pieces to the USA Basketball redemption program since 2004.
Other than just playing with each other on the East All-Stars team every year at the NBA All-Star Game, Bosh, James and Wade practised together while training for the USA National Basketball team during the off-season as well. And yet, there were still chemistry issues all through the training camp and the first three months of their first season together in Miami.
Imagine the horror that could unfold when three superstar players Irving, James and Love, who have not played a single minute together, take the court for a single franchise in October when the new NBA season tips off. Possibly the only positive factor that the team has right now is that the trio’s games complement each other, and one can only hope that the three learn as quickly as possible to feed off each other’s games for the team’s benefit and not just their own.
If James’ former Big 3 in Miami could not work wonders in their first season, then it would be safe to assume that the current Big 3 involving James cannot win it all either, at least not in the coming season.
Lack of depth and post-season experience
Teams win championships, not just a duo or trio of All-Star calibre superstar players.
Don’t blame Cleveland and the entire state of Ohio for hoping that their team will win a NBA title this season, but there are certain signs about the team assembled so far that it might not be able to have a long post-season in 2015.
The post-season or the Playoffs is the true test of a team’s chemistry, mental fortitude, determination and championship drive. In this Cavaliers team there are only 4-5 players who have played and won in the post-season which includes James and his former comrades from Miami and Cleveland James Jones, Mike Miller and Andersen Varjeo.
The rest of the roster, including All-Stars Irving and Love, have little to no Playoff experience so far in their careers. With the talents that the players on the roster have, the job does become easier for 4-time MVP James, but only during the regular season. Come post-season time, James will find it difficult to look for players on his team who will stand up to adversity and deliver in pressure situations, armed as they are with such insignificant Playoff experience.
So all things considered, it’s not time for the Cavaliers to uncork the champagne just yet. But while the prospects of the team might not seem too bright for this coming season, the team will almost certainly be a deadly force to reckon with in the future once the players learn how to play together and deliver as a unit.