FREE: What Makes the Cavaliers a Historically Great Team
It's not just Cleveland's phenomenal shot-making that puts the Cavs in the NBA title chase
This is the free version of a column first published on Monday, before Cleveland beat the Oklahoma City Thunder to move to 32-4 this season.
When the Cleveland Cavaliers traded for Donovan Mitchell in September 2022, they had a clear goal in mind: It was an all-in move to secure the franchise’s first non-LeBron NBA title.
By sending out three first-round picks and two pick swaps to add Mitchell to a 44-win team that already had three budding stars — Evan Mobley, Darius Garland, and Jarrett Allen — the Cavs hoped to vault themselves immediately to NBA title contention.
Indeed, the Cavs made a significant leap to 51 wins in 2022-23 and posted the NBA’s second-best scoring margin. But they stood only fourth in the Eastern Conference standings and won just one playoff game. And last season, Cleveland finished fourth again in a campaign marred by injuries and was eliminated in a five-game conference semifinal series by the eventual champion Boston Celtics.
So while the Cavs had demonstrated they could compete, they hadn’t shown they were ready to truly contend — until this season began.
Now, with a remarkable record of 31 wins and 4 losses — the fifth-best start in NBA history — Cleveland is outpacing all 29 other teams, including Boston and Oklahoma City.
Let’s look at how they’re doing it, and what it means for their NBA title chances.
The best shooting team of all time
The Cavaliers have the second-highest offensive rating of all time — behind only last year’s Celtics. And relative to league average, this year’s Cavs are actually the greatest offense ever.1
What’s driving this success? One skill primarily: Historic shot-making.
If we look at effective field goal percentage (eFG%), this year's Cavs team is on track to be the best of all time. Even when adjusting for rising offensive efficiency, these Cavs are still behind only the 2006-07 Suns, the 2015-16 Warriors and the 2012-13 Heat, teams loaded with future Hall of Famers.
A few more facts about the Cavs’ shooting excellence, before we dig into why they are so good.
🏀 Of the Cavs' top 10 players in minutes, only three have a true shooting percentage below 60%, already a high bar.
🏀 As a team, the Cavs are converting 3s at a blistering 40.6%. Given that they're also sixth in 3-point attempt rate, that's a powerful combination.
🏀 It's not just 3s. This season they have one of the best 3-point percentages and one of the best 2-point percentages of all time.
So, what’s created this perfect firestorm?
1. Some of the best shot creators in the league
Garland and Mitchell are a joy to watch. Both possess amazing dribbling skills and footwork. But what I enjoy most is the creativity. Every game, I'm in awe of at least two moves that almost no other player in the league has in his arsenal. Defenders, as a result, often seem helpless.
Their incredible handles plus their speed mean they can break down almost any defense. And they have few problems generating good looks when necessary — e.g., at the end of the shot clock.
2. Role players who let it fly
The Cavs have a healthy number of quick-trigger 3-point shooters — players who don't need a lot of daylight to get a shot off. While these players create few shots for themselves, they thrive next to shot creators like Garland and Mitchell. And, in turn, they provide spacing for the Cavs’ offensive stars to operate.
Georges Niang, a 3-point specialist signed away from the 76ers in 2023, is putting up 10 3s per 100 possessions and making 39%.
Sam Merrill is attempting 13 3s per 100 and making 35% (though his career mark is 39%).
Yes, these players shoot worse than the Cavs' overall 3-point percentage, but opponents are aware of their shooting prowess and know they can't leave them open.
Isaac Okoro, while not quite taking as many 3s at "only" six per 100, is making them at a blistering rate of 49%, while adding a pinch more defense.
There's another benefit: As these players mostly look to shoot and can do so even when not wide open, possessions rarely end with a turnover. Among players with 400 minutes played, Cleveland has three of the NBA’s top 15 when it comes to lowest turnover rates: Merrill, Okoro, and Dean Wade.
Overall, the Cavs have the league’s fourth-best turnover rate (only Boston, OKC, and Houston rate better), another invisible key to a historically great offense.
3. Post play featuring great length and footwork
Cleveland is the only team with two players in the top 10 in dunks this season: Mobley and Allen.
Even better, Allen is second in the league in field goal percentage. His solid post footwork, when combined with his extremely long arms, means the ball is almost certain to go through the net once Allen has it down low.
Both Allen and Mobley can finish with either hand. And when they play together — each standing 6'11" — chances are high at least one will have a height advantage over his defender.
4. Role players to fill the gaps
Caris LeVert and Ty Jerome don't necessarily fit in the above boxes, but they deserve a shoutout, too. As opposed to the standstill shooters above, they provide dribble penetration while also hitting the occasional 3-pointer. LeVert is, in fact, third the league in 3-point percentage at 45%.
If the season ended today, LeVert's ridiculous OnCourt rating of +19.3 would be the second best since 1996-97 (minimum: 2,000 possessions).
Three key players driving a top-10 defense
While they aren’t setting records on defense, the Cavs are a top-10 team on that end as well.
My xRAPM numbers suggest this is mostly thanks to three players:
1. The DPOY candidate
Mobley is a former first-team All-Defensive player, so his prowess is no secret.
But while defending the third-most shots within five feet of the basket, Mobley is holding opponents this season to a field goal percentage similar to the likes of Victor Wembanyama — the runaway favorite for Defensive Player of the Year. (Mobley is the third favorite, according to Vegas.)
And Mobley is also one of just three players — the others being Wembanyama and five-time All-Defensive player Anthony Davis — with more than 10 defensive rebounds, two blocks, and 1.5 steals per 100 possessions.
2. The second-best two-way shooting guard in the NBA
Shai Gilgeous is a strong MVP candidate this year, third in the league in both points and steals per game for a Thunder team leading the league in defense by a mile. He might be the NBA’s best player, not simply the best 2-guard.
But the second-best two-way SG? According to xRAPM, it's Mitchell, easily, with apologies to up-and-coming star Anthony Edwards.
We noted Mitchell’s offensive talent above, but don't scoff at his defense — it’s a reminder that he came into the league known more as a defender.
This Cavs team defends a full eight points per 100 possessions better with Mitchell on the court, which is even more astounding when you consider that he shares the court with players that have horrible defensive on-off ratings, including Garland.
3. The most underrated player in the league
Most names near the top in xRAPM appear reasonable. Since the metric takes into account not just lineup data, but also box-score, play-by-play, and NBA.com advanced stats, the stars tend to rate highly.
For instance, the top two spots in xRAPM belong to the clear MVP favorites, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokić. Behind them are several players that have been in and out this season but are obviously impactful when playing: Joel Embiid, Luka Dončić, Kawhi Leonard, and Jimmy Butler.
And then there's a name in the top 15 that makes you pause: Dean Wade.
Before you throw out the metric in its entirety, consider the lineup part of the equation: Last year's Cavs team outscored opponents by 10 points per 100 possessions with Wade — and only drew even without him. This year, his 16.3 OnCourt rating beats the likes of Jokić and Jayson Tatum, to name a couple.
When the lineup data for one player points in one direction so consistently, there's probably something to it, even if his current top-15 ranking seems like an aberration.
Wade doesn't have highlight blocks or draws lots of charges. No, his contributions are hard to see in the box score, mostly because it's simply his basketball IQ and footwork that make him such a good defender. Opponents have a hard time driving on him.
An example of his team-friendly efforts: Wade will often box out opponents while facing them. This tends to make his boxouts more successful — Wade isn't distracted at all by the ball. While he doesn’t usually collect the rebound himself, he helps his team grab it and at the same time improves his on-off ratings.
In my breakdown of Scoot Henderson, I noted the damage created by live-ball turnovers. Wade lives at the other end of that equation, with the second-best turnover rate in the league — and a top-15 lowest turnover percentage season of all time. No live-ball turnovers mean no opponent fastbreaks, and better defensive efficiency. And when the Cavs do face a fastbreak, Wade can stifle it and create a Cleveland scoring opportunity, as in the following clip:
Championship hopes: More realistic by the day
Oddsmakers have a clear top tier for the NBA title: Boston and Oklahoma City, favored to meet in the Finals, just as they were when the season began.
What’s more, Vegas has Boston as a slight favorite against the field to win the Eastern Conference title, with Cleveland and New York the most likely runners-up. Still, that’s a big step up for the Cavs, who were sixth in the East in preseason championship odds — and 14th in the NBA.
Something’s got to give: All five teams in NBA history with a .840 win percentage or better have made the NBA Finals. And Cleveland, in fact, is on pace to tie the NBA record of 73 wins, matching the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors, the only one of those five teams not to win the title.
But it’s not just wins and losses. The Cavs have a net rating that would be fourth-best ever for a full season, behind only the 1995-96 and 1996-97 Chicago Bulls (of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman) and this season’s OKC Thunder.
To put it more simply, any team playing as well as Cleveland is a serious title contender, no matter how much it might have to prove in the playoffs.
I think Boston, the reigning NBA champion, is still the team to beat. But with almost half the season gone, these Cavs and their phenomenal shooting have proved they just might be the team to do it.
Because this stat depends slightly on how you compare a team's offensive rating to the league average, there are other teams in the conversation for No. 1. But the Cavs are No. 1 or in a virtual tie by nearly any such measure going back to 1996-97, the first season for which we have play-by-play data.