Rank the Cavs teams all-time

[6.19.2016]

We have an individual players thread or three, but I was thinking because of the thread where we discussed the 88-89 Cavs losing to "The Shot," and come to think of it, that had to be one of the best franchise teams ever overall everything considered; it had the same regular-season record as some other very special team. We've also gotten some Kyrie trade fatigue, so time for something different for the offseason.

In keeping with another recent discussion, normalize training and nutrition between generations, etc. as you see fit.

1. 2015-2016 - duh
2. 2014-2015 - 53-29 regular season, won the first 2 Finals games in franchise history, against the first iteration of the Greatest Show on hardWood despite injuries, only 2 playoff losses before that finals
3. 2016-2017 - a lot of deficiencies on defense, but won 1 Finals game against likely the GOAT team, and had only 1 narrow playoff loss before then
4-T 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 - Best regular seasons ever, 66 and 61 wins. Lots of "what if's" in each season due to what happened the latter season against what appeared to be an inferior Boston team that went on to nearly win the Finals. The 08-09 season is harder to tell because of all the things that went wrong against Orlando, and how if we won we seemed to match up so poorly against the Lakers.
6 1991-1992 - another regular season matching our favorite year's. Matched 75-76 for getting closer to the finals than anyone else up to 07.

The 88-89 team might be 7th or 8th? When you look through the team history - and not an expert here who's watched the old games, but have watched quite a bit dating back to 2001 or so, but only a little before that - you have to go quite a ways down the list to get to the one other team that actually made the finals.

 

[CBBI]

I don't care that they didn't make the Finals, that 66 win 2009 Cavaliers season was the most fun I've ever had watching sports.

 

[Hydroponic3385]

I don't care that they didn't make the Finals, that 66 win 2009 Cavaliers season was the most fun I've ever had watching sports.

I dunno. Mid-June 2016 was pretty fun.

 

[bigfoot5415]

2016 Champions are the best but the 2017 team may have had the best offense we will ever see on our team. Unfortunately not everyone clicked when it counted, but they were dangerous as hell. Three guys won could get 30 on any night and about 5-6 that could drain a few 3 balls real quick.

2009 deserves a honorable #3. Their cohesion was phenomenal. Chemistry really did overcome alot of deficiencies. It truly took a fluke of a serious to overcome them.

 

[6.19.2016]

2016 Champions are the best but the 2017 team may have had the best offense we will ever see on our team. Unfortunately not everyone clicked when it counted, but they were dangerous as hell. Three guys won could get 30 on any night and about 5-6 that could drain a few 3 balls real quick.

2009 deserves a honorable #3. Their cohesion was phenomenal. Chemistry really did overcome alot of deficiencies. It truly took a fluke of a serious to overcome them.

14-15 has to be put ahead of any non-finals team IMHO. After starting slow, they looked like the best team in the league for long stretches - they had that 18-2 tear in Jan and Feb that ended with a win over GS.

 

[CBBI]

I dunno. Mid-June 2016 was pretty fun.

This is going to sound silly, but coming off the finals run in 2015, I was pretty certain that the Cavs were going to at least get back to the Finals. So I admittedly took that regular season and playoffs that year for granted.

Then once the Cavs lost Game 4, I genuinely didn't think they had any chance to come back and win. I watched Game 5 and Game 6, but even then I didn't think they had a chance in Game 7. And Game 7 I was a miserable nervous wreck the entire time and didn't even get any joy out of it until there was about 10 seconds left.

I was obviously happy afterwards, I just never felt a lot of fun that season in the moment until literally the last 10 seconds.

But 2009...

I was just super invested in every single regular season and playoff game. The Cavs had made the playoffs before, but that was the first year they truly felt elite. Even though there were plenty of warning signs they were paper tigers, I didn't give a shit.

It felt like every game at home was a ridiculous blowout where they would just ride the crowd into a crazy beat down and every game on the road was some ridiculously clutch comeback.

 

[K1rieIrving>AllOtherPG's]

It was a short time, but the 2015 no injuries post trades Cavs teams was the strongest we've seen imo, went 33-2 to end the season just destroying the league, absolutely elite defense with strong perimeter defense, toughness and rim protection, offense was just as elite.

Too bad those shitty playoff injuries ruined our season and the easy 4-1 or 4-0 sweep over the Warriors, luck is the most important thing in sports, and Lady Luck really fucked us that year unfortunately, Imagine how the league would've looked if we won that year, Warriors probably still don't have a ring and fade away.

 

[FrontPageNews]

I still think 14-15 was the best team we've had with mozgod and delly playing out of their minds. Our defense looked capable of shutting down anyone. Injuries were the only thing that slowed them down.

 

[6.19.2016]

It was a short time, but the 2015 no injuries post trades Cavs teams was the strongest we've seen imo, went 33-2 to end the season just destroying the league, absolutely elite defense with strong perimeter defense, toughness and rim protection, offense was just as elite.

Too bad those shitty playoff injuries ruined our season and the easy 4-1 or 4-0 sweep over the Warriors, luck is the most important thing in sports, and Lady Luck really fucked us that year unfortunately, Imagine how the league would've looked if we won that year, Warriors probably still don't have a ring and fade away.

Maybe I shouldn't have used the "duh" qualifier to separate '15-16 from '14-'15, as I realize there are different opinions about whether we "should've" won the latter because of injuries - and whether we had unrepeatable breaks go our way our championship year, which I don't think we did as we win that finals close to 5 times out of 10 - but for the sake of argument, injuries, suspensions, etc. are part of the game, and GSW had enough of a matchup challenge going with the first form of the Death Lineup in the playoffs that I'm not convinced we win in '14-15 if Lady Luck did keep us healthy.

Injuries and suspensions being part of the game also takes the insufferable "BUT TEH DREYMUNZ" type arguments away from Warriors fans for 15-16, and likewise I'm not sure they win that year with all of those things going their way.

As far as the Warriors fading away, it's worth speculating on the longer term "what ifs" as long as we're in the offseason, as we've done with the Chris Grant drafts quite a lot lately. One that ties into the older teams: What if we protected Del Curry from being in Charlotte's expansion draft? How does Steph becoming a star at, say, CVCA and having roots here instead of elsewhere affect his NBA trajectory, FA decisions, and such? And how do our teams with Del as part of the core do against MJ? Use butterfly effects and such as you see fit.

 

[JMoneyYourHoney]

It was a short time, but the 2015 no injuries post trades Cavs teams was the strongest we've seen imo, went 33-2 to end the season just destroying the league, absolutely elite defense with strong perimeter defense, toughness and rim protection, offense was just as elite.

I don't know where people get the 33-2 record, but we lost 9 games post-trades. That team was just beautiful. Teams who had hitherto abused us in the paint were befuddled and stonewalled by Mozgov, and Blatt had something great going when he'd sub out LeBron for Shumpert, who was the perimeter defender we had been so desperately lacking.

That squad reminded me of the '95 Indians...just brimming with confidence and swagger. I think we would have rolled the Warriors in 6 max.

Would have been indifferent to Durant's coward ass if it meant we had 2 titles in the bag, but at least we got the 1.

 

[rabman_gold]

*Warning: Really Long Post*

Hey, I remember making an 88-89 thread almost a half decade ago! I didn't even get a chance to watch live basketball until 96, but I feel pretty tuned-in to Cavs History.

In terms to historical teams, it's not fair to compare most of them that had LeBron on them (it's like comparing those Daugherty/Price/Nance teams to the Jordan-led Bulls that fed on them).

Let's start with the cream-of-the-crop:

• Best of the 70s: 1975-76
  • Strengths
    • Solid 10-man rotation
    • An incredible crowd
    • A coach-of-the-year
    • Made it to the Conference Finals
  • Weaknesses
    • Lacked a true difference-maker (like Kareem or McAdoo)
    • Unable to make up for injuries (Chones' foot injury)
    • The upcoming ABA merger ended any real chance to compete

• Best of the 80s: 1988-89
  • Strengths
    • A great regular season run
    • 3 legitimate all-stars
    • A great coach
    • A collectively high b-ball IQ

• • Weaknesses
    • Only 7 players deep
    • Injury-prone (despite having 3 all-stars)
    • Lack of toughness (ex. Laimbeer elbow to Price's head)
    • Fizzled after their hot 43-12 start

• Best of the 90s: 1991-92
  • Similar to 89 (great regular season)
  • And similar to 76 (reached conference finals)
  • They were the team that ended Larry Bird's career
  • But still injury-prone, no toughness, and tough competition

Even with all things considered, the Celtics were a proven champion (with Cowens and Havlicek), as well as the Bad Boy Pistons and MJ's Bulls. Probably wouldn't have made much of a difference.

But then I became a Cavs fan later on the 90s. I first watched a Cavs game on a chilly night, December 21st, 1995 (it's hard to remember, but I remember Stockton hitting the game winner)... But I didn't start paying deep attention to the NBA until 1998 (when we were gearing for the Pacers in the first round).

So I decided to rank the teams I watched after 1998, with and without LeBron.

Without LeBron, the best Cavs team had to be 1999 (the lockout-shortened season. Z's foot injury set them back while their young players didn't look as good. Kemp finally decided to let himself go. That was it for the Mike Fratello-coached Cavs.

The second best team without LeBron was from 2014. They weren't good. Mike Brown only coached for that one year and tried to get them to compete. Who could ever forget the great signings they made in Jarrett Jack, Earl Clark, and Andrew Bynum of all people?!

On the other hand, how in the world can 1 man make such a difference to a franchise? His 5 year playoff run from 2005-2010 is just as good as the top 7 Cavs teams ever.

• 2005-06 to 2009-10 (5 teams) VS 1975-76, 1988-89, and 1991-92 to 1995-96 (7 teams)
• 272 regular season wins (54.4 wins per season) VS 356 regular season wins (50.86 wins per season)
• 1 Finals berth, 1 Conference Finals berth, and 3 Conference Semi-Finals berths VS 2 Conference Finals and 1 Conference Semi-Finals

This doesn't even include the 3 straight Finals berths after LeBron came back in 2014.

So if I were to rank the best Cavs teams ever, I would put two separate categories: Regular Season success and Playoff success.

Regular Season Only:

• 2009 (the most successful R.S. in Cavs History)
  • They racked up wins
  • They had great chemistry, despite only having 1 real superstar
  • It proved that surrounding him with players competent in their roles could make ANY LeBron team a contender
  • They won a lot of games they didn't deserve to win (like against Sacramento when Pavlovic came in to play in the fourth quarter)
• 2010 (the second best regular season)
  • A lot of former great players on the team (Shaq, Z, Antawn, Anthony Parker, etc.)
  • Continued to cut through teams like butter

Postseason Only:

1. 2016 (the only championship Cavs team ever)
2. 2015 (better defensively while missing Love and Irving for most of the playoffs)
3. 2017 (better offensively; only team to win a game against the most successful playoff ever: Golden State Warriors 16-1)

TL;DR:

I can't compare teams from different eras because of how different the rules, players, and circumstances were.

1. Obviously, 76, 89, and 92 were the best from before the new century.
2. 07, 09, and 10 were the best from LeBron's first go-around with the Cavs.
3. But 15, 16, and 17 are probably the best Cavs teams ever.

 

[2 For The Brew]

The 1976 team is underrated as a team. We had a very strong chance of winning it all that year before we lost Chones to injury. We beat the defending Eastern Conference Champion Washington Bullets in a memorable series (still one of the very best as a series in Cavalier history -- winning buckets in last :02, :00 and :04 for Games 2, 5 and 7). We took Boston to six games without Chones -- Akron native Nate Thurmond played with so much heart in the series.

But for me the team that emotionally resonated more than any other was the 1984-85 team with rookie coach George Karl and a bunch of average or worse players (except for World, who was a great scorer and not much more). We were still suffering from the Stepien years. The team had a brutal start to the season - 2-19, just like a lot of recent seasons, and blown out most games. We then went 18-18 the next 36 games to get to 20-37 by Feb 23rd -- improvement, but nowhere near the playoffs. Then we went on a six-game West Coast roadie and won the first five, but lost six of nine games after than to get to 28-43 (beat the Barkley-Erving Sixers though). A SIX game winning streak (again beating the great Sixer team) got us close, and then a memorable home come-from-behind win against the Nets got us the 8th seed. We were out of the Stepien blight.

Our reward was facing the Celtics. THOSE Celtics.

We lost the first two games by 3 and 2. Both games featured typical homer calls, but we lost Game 1 on poor FT shooting and were just barely outplayed in Game 2. I went to the airport and was one of several hundred fans cheering the team through the concourse as they came home. None of us could believe we had kept it so close.

Game 3 - Bird hurt, didn't play, we beat them by 7. Those of us at the game chanted "We Want Bird!". That pissed him off, and he said so: "They don't want any part of me."

Game 4 - sitting next to the players' entrance at the Coliseum, chanting "We Want Bird!". In truth we all knew that would motivate him and that's dangerous, but we didn't care. We were defiant, combative, and so proud of our gutsy team that was hopelessly overmatched.

Late in the 4th, were down by two. Brutal game -- three Cavaliers foul out along with McHale. Boston keeps hitting FT. We can't close the gap and every Boston possession ended up with free throws. Calls were not going our way (of course). 117-115 -- this incredibly emotional season was over. We wanted Game 5. The team earned Game 5. It wasn't happening.

As the Celtics file out, McHale raises his arms like he won the title and laughs at us. The fans opened up like the Confederate artillary and threw everything they had at the son-of-a-bitch. He ducked and ran. Asshole.

I sat in my seat for 30 minutes after the game -- steaming, upset, angry and incredibly disappointed -- especially for our very special team, who fought so hard against incredible odds all season and against Boston.

No Cavalier coach ever had as good a season as Karl did that year. It was a miracle.

Before the next season I met George Karl at the Tavern of Richfield. He commented -- unsolicited -- that his plan for Game 5 in Boston was to not guard Danny Ainge at all. Hilarious. Most overrated Celtic of all time.

The 2016 Team was our greatest of course. The 1984-85 team deserves the respect of all Cavalier fans.

I just wish we had RealCavsFans (and the internet) back then. It would have been a fun season and the game threads in the playoff series would have been glorious.