I was recently doing some research for a video on teams I thought could beat their over/under win totals [(video can be found here for those interested)] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsbwI99js4o&t=310s) and couldn’t help but feel the Cavaliers could be overlooked entering the regular season.

This is accounting for regular season only, as we all know playoffs can be matchup dependent, etc. Though the Cavs will have a lot of continuity in terms of their whole rotation returning and they also had a lot of bad injury luck last year. Of their core four players (Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen), only Allen didn’t miss at 25 or more regular season games. So assuming they’re healthier, I wouldn’t be stunned if they ended up being a pretty high seed. Interested to hear what others thought.

  • refreshing_yogurtBEnglish
    1·
    23 hours ago

    Of their core four players (Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen), only Allen didn’t miss at 25 or more regular season games. So assuming they’re healthier

    This kind of projection fails to look at how games actually played out when these guys missed time. For example, they went 14-4 without Mobley and Garland, which far outpaced their record with them in the lineup or when all 4 were together. They were a 56 win pace team without Garland and a 45 win team pace with him.