2022/23 Cavs projection

 Our starting point here is the players the Cavs have kept from last season to this season (counting Sexton and not dropping anyone year which would have to happen).  How good was this group last season?  In 5,000 possessions with 5 of Allen, Mobley, Lauri, Sexton, Garland, Rubio, Okoro, Osman, Love, Levert, Wade, Windler and Stevens the Cavs were +5.6/100 with that 13 man rotation.  That net rating would have tied them for 4th in the entire league and 2nd behind the Celtics in the East, with a projected record of 55-27.  That is a little favorable to the Cavs because I am not running top 12 rotations for every other team, but this is just a starting point.

A healthy Cavs team from last season with no additions and no internal improvement would project at a 55 win pace, an 11 game increase on last seasons win total, and a number that typically gets attached to a top 4 seed in the East (and would at times be the #1 seed).  I count 8 players that are favorites to be better next season, which includes their 5 young rotation pieces, Dylan Winder, Lamar Stevens and Caris Levert (whose time with the Cavs was the worst stretch since his rookie year and at 28 should bounce back), two who could improve, be flat or regress in Dean Wade and Lauri Markkanen, and three who are favorites to be worse in Rubio, Osman and Love.  In terms of mins played last year this is a 3.5 to 1 edge without counting Lamar and Levert in the improvement camp.  

The 5 seasons of improvement for Okoro, Garland and Sexton combine for an average of ~5.5/100 per season of age (dropping Sextons 300 min sample this past season).  Lets be conservative, the players are older now (though we are including Mobley here) and going from bad to decent is easier than from decent to good, or good to great.  Going with 1/4th the increase gets us to +1.4/100 across 8 players, flat for 2 players and negatives for 3.  If we run the same sized negative for those three (-1.4/100) and don’t adjust for mins at all we get a naive increase of 1.4 for 5 players, with an expected 1,200 mins per player in that group, * 2 for possessions and we get 12,000 possessions, which gets us a net gain of 840 points across the whole season which pushes the Cavs net rating up by 2 pp100 to +7.6.

I could come up with a list of reasons to inflate this number (Mobley improving at the same rate Garland did the past two years) or ding this number (Rubio was involved in their best lineups and he might not play, and if he does it will be limited and he could be significantly worse, not just 1.4/100 worse), but that isn’t the point of the exercise.  The question here is are we looking at a team going up, staying flat, or declining due to their internal age structure, and clearly the Cavs are pointing in the upward direction.

New additions:  Neto, Lopez and Agbagi.  Likely impact low.  Remember this is measured against the top 13 above, not the full season from last year as we have already deleted the Goodwin, Brown, Rondo minutes from the team.  The largest potential impact here is Agbagi or Neto taking time away from Osman who was a large negative last season and is in the ‘likely to decline’ as he was coming off an above average year for himself.  Even if Ochai took 1,000 mins from Osman, and played them at +3 better than Cedi he would add only +0.15 to the net rating.  

Ceiling this season:  59 wins.  Why 59?  Because I was too lily livered to type 60.  A reasonable projection with good health and good growth puts them well into the 50 win column, they have some good high (though not elite yet) end talent and lots of depth with some players proven to fit well together.  With exceptional health outcomes, and/or a leap from a youngster and that number bumps up into the high 50s.  60 is tough because their health outcomes can’t be that good with Rubio starting the year on the injured list, Wade coming off surgery and a roster of players who all have been dinged up from time to time.  

Floor:  46 wins.  Ignoring the chances of a catastrophic injury this is what I get to.  They had a projected win loss of 47 last year, have more depth, and more growth from their youth.  Still you can lose close games, have injuries to the wrong guys at the wrong time and the league gets tougher every year.  

Where does that put the Cavs in terms of the East? Running through by end of season standings last year

1. Miami: Without another move they should be worse, they lost a solid rotation player and have as many likely to decline mins as likely to improve mins on their roster.

2. Boston: Could well improve, if healthy Brogdon is a good fit and Gallo is still regular season playable, though healthy Brogdon is no guarantee, they have little front court depth and have some aging questions. Likely improve record wise especially since they were 8 wins shy of their pythag.

3. Milwaukee: Flat or decline. They are entering the 'we have few young players in the rotation and lots of old ones around our generational talent phase', sorry did I say entering, I meant are fully entrenched. Hill or Mathews (or both) could just be useless this year and Giannis looks to be at an elite plateau and no longer rising.

4. Philadelphia: Better. 13-5 with Harden in the regular season and on net added some pieces.

5. Toronto: Better. Young (though more mid 20s guys than early 20s up and comers), the only real concern is that they leant heavily on their starters with all 5 averaging 35+ mpg. Can they hold up if they go that route again?

6. Chicago: Flat. Already Lonzo has a worrying knee issue, and 33 year olds coming off career seasons tend to decline even it if is just back to his age 30-31 seasons that is a drop for DDR. Vuce is also 32 and on the edge of defensive mobility limitations already. They have some young players and with breaks health wise (Caruso and Ball) then they will win 50+ games, but odds are to many players are missing time and a little aging counteracts improvements from Pat Williams etc.

7. Atlanta: Flat to slightly better. Dejounte is a big add, but this is similar to the Jazz adding Conley a few seasons back where the Jazz lost Rubio, Crowder, Korver and Favors to get the deal done (and also added Bojan). If you look at Dejounte against Wright its a HUGE upgrade, but if you look at Dejounte against Wright, Gallo and Heurter who combined for 5,300 mins of play at ~+3/100 then the net addition is smaller. That doesn't make the move bad on its own, but it might take another year to refill depth or have a breakout from Hunter/Okungwu/Johnson to get them into the top of the East.

8. Charlotte: Worse.

9. Knicks: Better but not by nearly enough.

Everyone else: Not worth mentioning in this context.

Median outcome for the Cavs is ~52 wins this season, maybe a bit lower as they don't have a lot of long track record healthy players and plenty of question marks. That puts them in a battle for the 4/5/6 spot with Milwaukee and Toronto. Above average outcome is 55 wins and in the 2/3/4 seed race with Miami and Philly, ceiling is 59 and the 2 seed with a shot at the 1 if Boston has injury struggles.