Do the Cavaliers' injuries even matter with them heavily favored in the East?
Tuesday was one of those cringe-worthy NBA injury days, and most teams were only one day into training camp.
Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls faces yet another surgery after taking an elbow to the face, and Cleveland Cavaliers shooting guard Iman Shumpert is expected to miss a minimum of three months with a ruptured tendon in his right wrist.
It's notable that the injury bug once again bites the Bulls and the Cavs, two of the East's top teams, and no strangers to being banged up. Yet there's little debate that Cleveland is the squad to beat in the weaker of the two conferences, and many have even bequeathed the Cavs shoo-in status for next June's finals.
There are issues, however. Before Shumpert went down, the team was already refusing to place a firm timetable on Kyrie Irving's return to regular action, even if that possibly means him not suiting up until January. Power forward Kevin Love is expected to be brought along slowly as well, at least in training camp. Longtime big man Anderson Varejao is coming off a torn Achilles, which ended his season last December. And none of that is to mention that, as of Tuesday, Tristan Thompson, the man who so capably filled in for both last year, remained unsigned.
It's the sort of uncertainty that would have some professional sports franchises in panic mode. Yet for these Cavaliers in the NBA's subpar Eastern Conference, does any of it really matter?
As Cleveland demonstrated last season, what was done in the first half didn't count for much. On Jan. 13, they fell to 19-20, but still finished the regular season with 53 wins and the No. 2 seed in the playoffs - where they went 12-2 before losing The Finals in six to the Golden State Warriors.
| 2014-15 Cavaliers | W-L | ORtg | DRtg | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First 41 games | 21-20 | 105.6 | 106.7 | -1.2 |
| Last 41 games | 32-9 | 109.9 | 101.4 | 8.5 |
Of course, last season the Cavaliers were in trouble early. Love wasn't clicking with LeBron James the way it was hoped he would, observers were second-guessing rookie coach David Blatt, and the team had less depth than an episode of "The Bachelor." Enter Shumpert, J.R. Smith, and Timofey Mozgov via trades in January, with James completing an eight-game sabbatical to nurse nagging injuries, and the Cavs were reborn.
None of this is to suggest any absence of Irving, Shumpert, or possibly even Love is a good thing for Cleveland. Irving is the team's second-best player. He dropped 57 points on the San Antonio Spurs in a game last season, and his healthy presence was desperately missed in The Finals. For that matter, so was Love's, and the loss of both has since begged the rather pointless question of whether the Cavs would have beat the Warriors with everybody on board.
What puts the team in a marginally better position this season is depth added over the summer. While a backcourt rotation of Mo Williams, Smith, and Matthew Dellavedova probably won't strike horror into anyone, it's an upgrade over last season, when Irving was down. These circumstances are also against the backdrop of the team needing to cut down the soon-to-be 31-year-old James' minutes.
Yet the fact also remains that in a weak East, the Cavaliers wouldn't exactly be playing possum by de-prioritizing the first half of the season. They remain the best team in the conference, and would have to be extremely unlucky with injuries to finish any lower than third. When James starred with a Miami Heat franchise that won two NBA titles in four seasons, there was also less of a priority on the regular season. Only once in that span did the team land the No. 1 seed and win more than 60 games (although one season was a lockout-shortened 66-game campaign).
"(We'll) bring those guys along slowly," GM David Griffin said, referring to Irving and Love Monday, a day before he got the news on Shumpert. If the low end of Shump's prognosis is correct, the elite perimeter defender would be back at the start of the new year - the same high-end projection being whispered about Irving.
It's always been said that the NBA doesn't really begin until Christmas Day. The Cavaliers, with the solitary goal of a healthy playoff run in mind, could put that saying into full practice.