Were the 2016 Cavs a historically great team? Comparable sitiation in some ways to the '01 Lakers?

[ardee]

I've been reading through Sansterre's top 100 teams project. (It's REALLY good by the way)

He has them ranked 16 overall. I must admit I've never thought about exactly where they ranked overall, but when you think about it intuitively, the team that beat a 73 win team over 7 games has to be pretty darn good right?

I think a good way to think about them is by comparing them to the 2001 Lakers.

Both had underwhelming regular seasons. We know what the Lakers' problems were. The Cavs weren't AS disappointing, I mean, they were the 1st seed after all, but you have to think a healthy LeBron-Kyrie-Love should be looking at least in the low 60s in terms of wins and a 7.5+ SRS (they were 57 and 5.45 respectively).

Then they both flipped the switch come Playoff time.

In Round 1 '01 Lakers eviscerated a very solid Blazers team (4.5 SRS) by 14.7 ppg.
In Round 2 they easily beat a very good Kings team (6.1 SRS) by 9.2 ppg
In the Conference Finals they absolutely MURDERED a VERY good Spurs team (7.9 SRS) by 18.2 ppg (!!!)
In the FInals they beat a middling Sixers team (3.6 SRS) by 6.8 ppg

In comparison, the '16 Cavs

In Round 1 easily beat a mundane Pistons team (0.5 SRS) by 8.5 ppg.
In Round 2 they eviscerated a solid Hawks team (3.5 SRS) by 12.5 ppg.
In Round 3 they slaughtered a solid Raptors team (4.1 SRS) by 15.5 ppg
In the Finals they BARELY won over a historically great Warriors team (10.3 SRS) by 0.5 ppg.

So some parallels emerge. After an underwhelming regular season, both teams ran through their conferences with large blowouts against every team they faced. The Lakers obviously played better teams up until the Finals, but what the Cavs were able to do as well was obviously also very impressive.

Then in the Finals, while the Lakers beat a meh Sixers team, the Cavs had to win against the winningest regular season team of all time. That has to count for something right?

I feel like when you think of the Cavs as an '01 Lakers that faced slightly worse opposition in the first 3 rounds (but still wrecked them), but then had to face the '96 Bulls in the Finals and barely won in 7, they would start to be regarded better, wouldn't they?

If the '01 Lakers are a top 5 team of all time (I think they are), should the '16 Cavs be considered for top 10 perhaps?

[70sFan]

I don't think 2016 Cavs should be in top 10 discussions. They have mediocre RS for champions standards and even though their postseason was really good, they faced very mediocre competition in EC. I mean, +4.1 SRS as the best opponent before the finals is nothing special at all.

They should get a lot of credit for beating Warriors, but that's not enough to be ranked inside top 10 for me. They have a solid case for top 20 though.

[xinxin]

The ‘01 lakers were a middling RS season team since they decided to coast and save their strength for the playoffs. They were the defending champs, with PJ at the helm. They already knew how to win & what it takes in the playoffs.

& true enough when the playoffs came around, they blew out everyone, except for that outlier game 1 of the finals

The ‘16 Cavs on the other hand, needed a Draymond suspension, injuries to Steph, Iggy & Bogut to win in a Game 7.. plus, this was the eastern conference that you’re talking about .. leastern conference was a real thing from 2000-2020…


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[ardee]

I don't think 2016 Cavs should be in top 10 discussions. They have mediocre RS for champions standards and even though their postseason was really good, they faced very mediocre competition in EC. I mean, +4.1 SRS as the best opponent before the finals is nothing special at all.

They should get a lot of credit for beating Warriors, but that's not enough to be ranked inside top 10 for me. They have a solid case for top 20 though.

But they annihilated them.

And then in the Finals, they faced a GOAT level team, while the Lakers played a mediocre team.

So it kinda should balance it out some of the way, is my logic.

I might be a bit biased here because 2016 was my favorite NBA year (favorite sports year and honestly favorite life year in general in a lot of ways), and probably my third favorite title team after the '09 and '10 Lakers.

I don't think they should necessarily be top 10, but even top 15 for example would make them in my opinion historically great.

[coastalmarker99]

That 2017 Cavs team in my personal view would have wiped the floor with that 2016 Cavs team plus that 2016 GSW team.

The 2016-2017 Cleveland Cavaliers are slept on for an all-time great team, mainly because they lost 4-1 to potentially the best team of all time.

But people forget that they were essentially 2 shots away from being 12-0 in the Eastern Conference and being tied 2-2 with what many consider to be the GOAT team.

[homecourtloss]

The ‘01 lakers were a middling RS season team since they decided to coast and save their strength for the playoffs. They were the defending champs, with PJ at the helm. They already knew how to win & what it takes in the playoffs.

& true enough when the playoffs came around, they blew out everyone, except for that outlier game 1 of the finals

The ‘16 Cavs on the other hand, needed a Draymond suspension, injuries to Steph, Iggy & Bogut to win in a Game 7.. plus, this was the eastern conference that you’re talking about .. leastern conference was a real thing from 2000-2020…


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Steph played every game in that series.
Bogut was a net negative the Entire series.
Iggy…every player had nagging injuries by that time.

Does Kevin Love being injured not count and actually missing 1.5 games? How about the Cavs destroying the Warriors playing Ancient Jefferson as a PF?

[letskissbro]

Seems people are forgetting the fact that Kyrie missed half of the regular season that year and was a shell of himself until basically the first round of the playoffs. 57 wins is pretty good all things considered.

[RCM88x]

Seems people are forgetting the fact that Kyrie missed half of the regular season that year and was a shell of himself until basically the first round of the playoffs. 57 wins is pretty good all things considered.

Yeah all things considered the fact they won 57 games is really impressive. They ran Delly and Mo as their PGs for basically half a season and we're really stronger during the first half of the season than they we're in the second. The Frye trade really saved that regular season though, spacing he provided helped a lot even if he was a non factor in the Finals.

Shame what happened to Mozgov that offseason, if he would have been healthy for that season they would have been even better.

[Statlanta]

No. They did not beat a historically great team in the Finals.