The Cleveland Cavaliers will make the play-in tournament this season

NBA Cleveland Cavaliers (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)
NBA Cleveland Cavaliers (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images) /
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The Cleveland Cavaliers have an intriguing young core heading into the season and are hopeful to be competitive once again. 

19-63, 19-46, and 22-50.

These are the records that the Cleveland Cavaliers have finished within the three years ever since LeBron James made his departure for Los Angeles. It’s no secret that Cleveland has struggled to establish an identity post-LeBron, but this season presents something the Cavaliers haven’t had much of late. Hope.

The Cavaliers are starting to reap the fruits of their labor as they have an exciting young core heading into the season. The “Sexland” (Darius Garland and Collin Sexton)  combo both showed excellent improvement last season.

Jarret Allen came over in the James Harden trade and cemented himself as Cleveland’s center of the future. Issac Okoro flashed star defensive skill and offensive upside in his rookie campaign.

The Cavaliers had some luck on their side this offseason when they ended up with the third pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. The past three times the Cavs ended up in the lottery their selection has fallen outside the top three. Cleveland ended up selecting forward Evan Mobley, adding an extremely versatile, skilled big man with sky-high potential.

General manager Koby Altman and crew have put together a young core they can build with moving forward. Now, the focus of this team has to be creating a competitive, winning culture once more in Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.

The past few seasons have been anything but a winning culture in Cleveland. From the dubious saga of Jim Baelin as head coach to the temper tantrums of supposed veteran leader Kevin Love, the Cavaliers have struggled to establish a winning way. For the sake of the franchise moving forward this season has to be a different story.

I believe this year could be different from the past three seasons for the Cavaliers. It seems like the team is all in on head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and buying into his philosophy.

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If this young team can buy in fully and lock in I think they could have a season where they end up in the play-in tournament mix.