National Basketball Association

Cleveland Cavaliers: Best Case Scenarios For 2016-17

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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The Cleveland Cavaliers reached the pinnacle of winning a championship just three months ago. What are the best case scenarios for 2016-17?

Jan 6, 2016; Washington, DC, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving (2) celebrates with Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) after their game against the Washington Wizards at Verizon Center. The Cavaliers won 121-115. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

The Cleveland Cavaliers are coming off the most successful season in franchise history. It included winning the organization’s first NBA championship and the city’s first championship since 1964.

The dark cloud that used to hang over Cleveland is now gone … well, at least for the NBA team it is.

The good thing is there wasn’t any real drop off throughout the off-season for the Cavaliers’ roster. Timofey Mozgov signed a huge contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, but considering he played just 76 minutes throughout the postseason, his production won’t be hard to make up for.

Matthew Dellavedova scored a four-year $38 million deal with the Milwaukee Bucks. His numbers don’t match that kind of deal, but his presence and invaluable effort helped getting paid. Besides depth at point guard, this move won’t hurt the Cavaliers too much.

They hope rookie Kay Felder can step up and be a solid backup behind Kyrie Irving. Felder is a small, but explosive guard who was last year’s Horizon League Player of the Year and a third-team All-American last season for Oakland University.

He is expected to get around $13 million per year.

With that being said, they will return pretty much the same roster as last season, which only means for better team chemistry and understanding of what it takes to win a title. Still, defending your title is one of the hardest things to do in sports.

Even the reigning champs have best-case scenarios that need to break their way.

Let’s take a look at them.

Jun 13, 2016; Oakland, CA, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving (2) shoots the ball against Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson (11) during the second quarter in game five of the NBA Finals at Oracle Arena. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Kyrie Irving Becomes Elite

The discussion of where Kyrie Irving fits amongst point guards of the league has become the equivalent to beating a dead horse. He doesn’t fit the mold that point guards are evaluated by, which makes the topic a heated debate.

There is one area that Irving will become considered as an elite player this season: as a scorer.

Playing next to James is an adjustment for any player. Not that it’s a bad thing, but everyone around him needs to become more effective off the ball and be ready to shoot at all times. Irving is one of, if not the best, one-on-one scorer in the NBA.

As you can imagine, he needed to pick and choose his times when to attack early on.

But 2016-17 will be Irving’s third season with James and he now can be completely comfortable with his role. In fact, after his amazing Finals performance in which he hit big shot after big shot, it’s likely that James will defer to Irving even more this season.

Not to mention more deferring will mean less of a workload for James throughout the 82-game season.

More opportunities for Irving will only mean for a higher average in the scoring category. In the playoffs last season, Irving averaged 20.1 field goal attempts per game. He averaged 25.2 points per game on 47.5 percent shooting from the field and 44.0 percent from three in the 21 games.

His 20.1 shot attempts per game in the playoffs was a 3.1 increase from regular season play. Those few more attempts displayed how effective Irving can really be in big time situations.

James is a basketball genius who realizes at this point in his career, he must preserve some of the energy he has in order to maximize his years. This is the perfect opportunity for him to defer more to Irving on offense.

Irving will be a 25-plus point per game scorer next season and make a real challenge for the NBA scoring title as the Cavaliers continue to dominate the Eastern Conference.

Jun 13, 2016; Oakland, CA, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) before game five of the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors at Oracle Arena. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

LeBron Gets Opportunities To Rest

LeBron James is already 39th in minutes played in NBA history (38,478). He is a unique player in that he invests much of his effort in sculpting his body year round so that he can maintain his dominance for what will be his 14th NBA season.

It’s easy to say that no matter where the Cavaliers finish in the conference standings, they’ll advance back to the NBA Finals this season.

But between the competitiveness in James and the fact that home-court advantage is extremely important in the NBA, he will take any measure to finish atop of the standings.

The Eastern Conference continues to improve. Boston signed Al Horford, Toronto will look to build off its 56-win season and Indiana made some key signing this offseason to help its argument.

Still the Cavaliers are head and shoulders above the teams mentioned. If they can get off to a quick start this season, it would leave more games for James to rest fully or play limited minutes in order to save his legs for April.

Last season, it took 57 wins to be crowned the Eastern Conference regular season champions. It’s safe to say that a total around 56-60 will be more than enough for the top spot. This Cavaliers team is more than capable of accomplishing that.

Rack up wins early, so the King can relax throughout and in the end, lead this franchise to a third-straight Finals appearance.

Jun 19, 2016; Oakland, CA, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) and forward Kevin Love (0) celebrates after beating the Golden State Warriors in game seven of the NBA Finals at Oracle Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Chemistry Growth After Championship

The journey of chasing an NBA title isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Along the way there is adversity that hits and can force a team to question their ability and potential.

From October to February, there were constant rumors that Kevin Love would be traded. Even still today, those rumors still linger. Love continued to play through the chatter and tried to find his niche with this team. He did so on the biggest stage possible.

All of the frustrating plays that Love made were forgotten when he played perfect defense on Stephen Curry in Game 7 of the Finals:

If Love can continue to put forth maximum effort defensively and help Tristan Thompson dominate the glass, he will help this team the most. Offensively, Love somehow has to become an efficient outside shooter.

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Assuming that Mo Williams doesn’t retire, the Cavaliers currently have nine players from the playoff roster set to return. Smith will make that 10 as he is expected to sign sometime before the regular season.

They’ve been battle-tested and proven to themselves that no obstacle is too big to overcome. With their backs against the wall down 3-1 in the NBA Finals, it’s the perfect time to point fingers and fold as a team by accepting defeat.

But what did they do? The Cavaliers came together with a laser-focus on their goal and fought back to achieve the impossible.

That bond will only grow as time goes on. They’ll face the same scrutiny and criticisms this season, but there will be peace of mind knowing they have been through it before and came out on top.

Feb 3, 2016; Charlotte, NC, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) gets a high five from his teammates guard Kyrie Irving (2) and forward Kevin Love (0) after scoring during the second half of the game against the Charlotte Hornets at Time Warner Cable Arena. Hornets win 106-97. Mandatory Credit: Sam Sharpe-USA TODAY Sports

How Far Can They Go?

As reigning champions, this question is quite simple. A formula for success in the Eastern Conference is obvious, have LeBron James on your team.

The Golden State Warriors may be the favorites to win it all with the addition of Kevin Durant, but again, the Cavaliers have already been in that underdog position last season when the Warriors won the most games in NBA history (73).

On paper, the Warriors run away with the NBA crown, but as we saw with the Miami Heat in 2011, that doesn’t decide the true champion. Chemistry within a great roster is a must-have and in that regard, the Cavaliers remain a step ahead.

If the Cavaliers and Warriors met for a third-straight time in the Finals, it would be nothing short of sensational. Durant failed to dethrone James in the Finals last time they met. Now he is teamed up with the like of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green. Will that be enough?

If the best case scenarios play out for the Cavaliers, it won’t be.

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