Cavs news and links for Friday, September 12.
We’ve made it to the end of the week. Here’s your Cleveland Cavaliers news and links for the day.
The Cavs head into the season without any changes to the top nine players in their rotation barring an unforeseen jump from Jaylon Tyson. Meanwhile, their competition has improved, most notably the Philadelphia 76ers, New York Knicks, and even the Orlando Magic with the addition of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Still, this may be the Cavs’ best chance to get through the conference with this core.
The Boston Celtics are far and away the top team but could be poised for a letdown season. Championship hangovers are real. There’s a reason we’ve only seen one repeat winner in the last ten seasons with the Kevin Durant Golden State Warriors being the only one. That team was also the most recent champion to advance out of the second round the following season. The energy and motivation needed to win a championship combined with the constraints of the CBA have left us with a league that won’t yield the repeat runs to the Finals we’ve seen in previous eras.
The Celtics seem likely to break that streak, but the same could be said about nearly all of those previous championship teams that didn’t make it out of the second round. The Denver Nuggets seemed like a lock for the conference finals last year, as did the Warriors the year before.
The conference would be wide open at the top if the Celtics follow the recent trend. The talent gap between seeds two through six in last year’s Eastern Conference playoffs is thin. There isn’t much, if any, difference in skill between the Cavs and whoever you consider to be the second-best team.
Rondo single-handedly ended LeBron’s first stint in Cleveland. He led Boston in points (20.7), assists (11.8), and steals (1.8) in the second round of the 2010 playoffs. His performances were timely as he picked up 19 assists in Game 2 to steal homecourt, provided a 29-point triple-double in Game 4 to retake control of the series, and shut the door in Game 6 with 21 points and 12 assists. The Cavs were able to contain Boston’s big three, they couldn’t contain Rondo.
This wasn’t the type of player we saw in Cleveland over a decade later. The Cavs picked him up in January 2022 to replace Ricky Rubio. He looked good in his first seven-minute stretch with the team by grabbing six points, four boards, three assists, and a steal early on, but fell off drastically from there. That was his high point in Cleveland. He wasn’t able to show any glimpses of the player he previously was.
Rondo stayed with the Cavs for the remainder of the season but wasn’t very useful. This ended up being Rondo’s last season in the league. A year later he was accused of domestic violence but the case was dismissed after an agreement was made with the victim.
