What is wrong with you people?

 What is wrong with you people?  Seriously, what is wrong with Cavs fans/commentators and their combination of love for the Mitchell trade and hate for the Cavs team after the trade?  Yes I’ll use an example, and yes I’ll generalize from it.


The Chase Down Pod, two (alleged) Cavs fans who blew up over the Mitchell trade and are thrilled with it just predicted the Cavs to win 50-52 games and win a, singular, playoff series.  


Junk.  Garbage.  Inconsistent takes everywhere.


Back up to last season.  Going into the All-Star break the Cavs were on a 49.5 win pace, and they had already lost Sexton 11 games in, and Rubio at game 34.  Darius had missed 11 as well, so this team had been hit with a pair of major injuries, several minor injuries and was still on a nearly 50 win pace.  


The trade for a 26 year old, 3X all-star is going to make us roughly as good as we were with Rubio and Lauri and pre Garland’s leap (24/8 post all-star break) with no 2nd year leap from Mobley, no improvement from Okoro etc, and lots of missed time (Rubio -14 games, Lauri -20, Darius -11).  


FLAT????  You expect the team to be flat after trading 4 first round picks in the offseason and you LIKE the trade.  Oh dear god, the analysis fails.


For the record I still hate the trade, much of what follows is positive because of the team structure in place before landing Mitchell and the upside for a high 50s win total was already there as was the expectation of a low 50s win total before this deal.  My issue with the trade is not the regular season outcomes but the likely playoff outcomes combined with little flexibility to make adjustments once these issues become reality.  


Point #1- if we take two guard combos where both guards were of all-star caliber in recent history I grab pairing of Wall/Beal, Mitchell/Conley, Booker/Paul, and DDR/Lowry.  In mostly healthy seasons the average ortg outcome for this group was 5.2, just barely outside the top 5 with no seasons outside of the top 10 across 11 seasons.  


But I cheat, badly, to make it look worse than it is.  I dropped Harden/CP3 and Curry/Klay*, and those 4 years (dropping the injury riddled seasons and the +Durant) we get two top and two 2nd ortg seasons, and tossing in the one Harden/Westbrook year we add in a 6th place finish.  


Functionally it’s a disastrous season (ie injury or worst fit imaginable) for the Cavs not to have a top 10 offense next year, and the median outcome is probably 5th or higher for a mostly healthy year.  


Defensively a below average season would be a large disappointment, most likely due to a lack of improvement from Mobley and the inability to find a workable rotation at the SF position.  Last year the 5th ranked offense and the 15th ranked defense would be a +2.5 team, which projects to ~48 wins.  


Again this is pessimistic.  The Cavs were 7th defensively last season with a rookie PF, their All-star C missing 26 games.  Their defense crashed post all-star break with Allen missing a lot of time and Moses Brown replacing him.  5th and 7th is more of a baseline for this team, which would be a +4.9 rating last season and a 54 win expectation.  


That is the average outcome for the ‘no torn ACL/achillies seasons.  


I think we have a much better analog for this team though.  The Suns over the last two seasons have two high end guards, and a pair of strong defenders between Bridges and Ayton in the frontcourt.  Their 5th starter in Crowder is better than the uncertainty that the Cavs have, but the Cavs depth in Love/Levert and the eventual return of Rubio (assuming Okoro wins the starting 3 gig) is better as well.  The Suns last two seasons were


57.5 wins, 4.5 ortg, 6th Drtg, +6.7 net rating.  


The Cavs should be aiming for top 2 seed in the East and ought to be considered one of the conference finals favorites going into the year, not a 50 win 4 seed who just is happy to be there and maybe win a playoff series.  


*I also dropped Jrue/Middleton, but I think that is actually fair since they are options #2/#3 on their team and we don’t have Giannis.

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