The Cleveland Cavaliers are the Central Division champions.
In the NBA, it isn’t a big deal to win your division title, it really just guarantees you home court advantage in your first round playoff match up. And remember, in pro basketball, more than half the teams qualify for the post-season.
In baseball and football, winning the division makes you stand out more, as less than 40% of the team make the playoffs.
That’s why the Cavs really didn’t celebrate clinching the division, it’s just a step toward their ultimate goal, which is the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
Still, it is a symbol of how far the franchise has come not only from last season, when they won 33 games, but also from earlier this season, when they were once 19-20.
Since then, catapulted by a win over the hapless Lakers, the wine and gold have ripped off 32 victories against just seven defeats. Had they played the entire season at such a pace, they would be rivaling Golden State for the league’s best record.
For Kyrie Irving, who is blossoming into one of the league’s best players before our very eyes, and Tristan Thompson, who spent the first three years of their NBA careers struggling to attain wins, it has to be very satisfying indeed.
Just think of the switch for them, from coming to the arena every night hoping for a win to now expecting a victory.
For Kevin Love, one of the league’s top players but stuck on bad teams, winning the Central is proof that making the sacrifices he had to make by playing with LeBron James and Irving made it all worthwhile.
We think about how lucky J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert have to feel. They started the year with high hopes, especially after beating Cleveland on opening night, but quickly the Knicks’ season feel into a deep abyss, perhaps the NBA’s worst team.
They both have to think they hit the lottery with both contributing to a team that has a chance to win a world championship.
Timofey Mosgov has to have the same feeling, coming from a team that will lose 50 games this year to another that has won 50. And he is the nightly recipient of lob passes from the league’s best players, and has the most alley-oop dunks since putting on a Cavs uniform.
James Jones has to look at the season as a rejuvenation of his career, playing more minutes than he has since the 2011-12 season. He produced when given a chance and became a guy who earned the trust of David Blatt.
As for Blatt, a man who was said to be clinging to his job when the Cavaliers dipped below the .500 mark, it is vindication. If nothing else, he should get credit for putting his new pieces of the puzzle together quickly. There wasn’t much of an adjustment period at all.
And for James, it is the first step in delivering what he said he wanted to do when he returning to Northeast Ohio. He wanted to bring a title to the seemingly sports cursed area.
He changed the culture of the locker room and prodded, pleaded, and taught Irving how to play winning basketball, not just put up numbers. There is no question that the strides made by Irving this season could not have come without the influence of the man who is still the best player on the planet.
So, although it is a small step, the organization should take pride in its accomplishment. After a struggle early on, the Cavaliers go into the playoffs as one of the hottest teams in the NBA.
It was a long bumpy ride to get to this point.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 