State of the season 8 games in

 4-4 is a better record than pretty much anyone expected coming off a really cramped, road and expected playoff team heavy schedule.  Not to belabor this point but I am going to run it down a little bit.  The Cavs have played 8 games this season so far, tied for the most and three more than the Suns who are still at 5 total games.  With six road games the Cavs have played more road games than the Suns have total games, and the Cavs have not yet played any expected bottom feeders in the league.  Lets do a little compare and contrast with a team that has exceeded expectations in the East, the Bulls.


Chicago through 7 games has 4 home and 3 away, a small edge.  That single game is one less back 2 back and one more rest day.  Schedule wise they have played 4 games against teams in the bottom 6 in net rating (2 Det, NOP and Bos).  They have absolutely taken care of business against those teams, and also have a nice win against Utah at home, and a tight win and loss against Toronto and the Knicks.  The 5-2 Knicks are a similar story, 4 home games, 4 games against struggling teams and a win or two more than they would have over a neutral schedule.  


This is not to denigrate those teams, but to amplify why this Cavs squad is so exciting.  To be 4-4 and only -1 at this point opens up the door to a potential 44-46 win season at the top end.  


  1.  3 pt shooting regression.  If we regress every shooter who has taken 10+ 3s so far for the Cavs to their career averages then the Cavs would expect to have made 9.5 more at this point, which is 28.5 total points, or ~3.5 points per game more, or ~ 3 ppg more if you adjust for expected oreb and scoring on second chance opportunities they wouldn’t get.  That pushes their net rating to ~#11/#12 in the league currently.

  2. Offensive rebounding.  9th in the league so far, but their rate from game 3 on is 28.6% which would be good for #2 in the league.  Starting 3 bigs, with Love off the bench makes this level (top 5) achievable.  If those first two games end up anomalous and we are looking at a top 5 team in this regard that is 1-1.5 more pp/100 fairly easily over the season average.  If both the 3pt shooting regresses positively and offensive rebounding holds without subtracting from other areas these outcomes would project at ~ 8th best record in a typical year.


OK, so everything isn’t going to go THAT well, some things will get worse.  Once candidate is their foul rate currently tops (ie the lowest) in the league, but I did say at the outset that this was a low foul team at least in terms of individuals- from my defensive preview


LM and JA are low foul guys, Mobley majored in not fouling and graduated in one year with full credit in that department, Love doesn’t foul, our guards are decent at not fouling.  This is a start, keeping the fouls down, keeping teams of the line and from getting free points. 


They also should see some 3pt shooting regression against them, though not as much as they are due for as a team, but they could also do a ton better rebounding it defensively (currently 29th).  They also have been facing a slightly better than average offense with 5 games against top 15 offenses including the #2 team twice and 3 against bottom 15.


Talent wise, in particular as long as Lauri is working defensively as a 3, this team has enough to be a 0.500+ squad.  The Lakers game was a good example of how low end players eating mins can really drag you down.  Lamar Stevens missed several open looks at the basket, and I don’t fucking mean he had an open shot, he had an open shot while standing under the hoop and couldn’t dunk or lay it in.  Okoro isn’t a strong offensive player but he is both capable of getting those looks in those situations, and finishing them.  For a game that was a 2 point difference with under 7 mins to go those missed bunnies could have put them in a position to steal the game.  Or take the Celtics, who are scuffling along at 2-5 and the 25th worst net rating in large part because their bench is a rotation of fringe NBA players.  Richardson/Pritchard/Langford/Williams (the bad one) have combined for 430 mins, over 7 games that is 61+ with guys who are dragging down their decent rotations.  Their top 4 of Smart/Tatum/Brown/Williams (the good one) are +12.9 in 200 possessions together and every other combination is -6.  The Cavs currently don’t have that issue (in part because of their 8 man rotations) even with Garland, Okoro and Love missing a handful of games so far.  


The Near Term:


The Schedule lets up a bit now.  They have a pair of back 2 backs in November and 9 home games against 4 road games, with 4 games against bottom 6 dwellers in Net rating.  There are rough patches (@BRK/GSW/BRK) but not the travel/every team a playoff hopeful/no rest cramming that they started out with once they get through the next 3 games (2 road, every day off a travel day).  

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