You should believe in the Cleveland Cavaliers as championship contenders

Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Mike Sykes

Happy Friday, folks! Welcome back to Layup Lines. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you’ve got a great weekend ahead of you.

We’re about an eighth of the way through the NBA season, which isn’t very much. Teams have only played about 10 games or so at this point. There’s not a large enough sample of anything to make any determinations about everything.

But you know how the conversations about this league go. It’s always about who can make it to the end of the race instead of where teams are currently at. Who are the real championship contenders? How do you separate the real from the fake.

The conversation surrounds the usual suspects. In the West it’s the Thunder, Suns, Timberwolves, Nuggets and Lakers. That’s the championship circle at this point.

But in the East? All anyone seems to talk about these days is Boston — especially with the Knicks, Bucks and 76ers all floundering in their own ways. The path for Boston is supposedly easy in yet another all-time bad Eastern Conference.

COOPER FLAGG SHOULD GO EAST: Robert Zeglinski makes the point that the East needs the Duke sensation more than the West.

But why aren’t we talking more about the Cavaliers?

Cleveland is the only undefeated team left in the NBA, for now. We’ll see if that lasts on Friday night when they go up against the Golden State Warriors, who have the NBA’s best point differential at +15.5 through eight games.

Regardless of the outcome in this one, you should believe in the Cavaliers. Not just as one of the best teams in the East, but as a strong contender to dethrone the Celtics and make it all the way to the NBA Finals.

Cleveland has given you every reason to believe this season. The team’s +12.1 point differential is the best in the East today. Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley all look like All-Stars. Jarrett Allen has been elite defensively and a plus on offense. The wing depth that has been a sore point for this team over the last few years actually seems pretty good now.

Best of all, Kenny Atkinson is pulling the right threads. One of the major problems with JB Bickerstaff’s Cavaliers last season was that the combinations of players he threw together just didn’t work as well as you’d have wanted.

To be fair to Bickerstaff, a huge part of that was health. But it also came down to his overall decision-making.

For example, this season the Cavs’ second most played lineup of Garland, Mitchell, Mobley and Allen plus Isaac Okoro has played 31 minutes together and has a +22.2 net rating. That combination looks awesome together — especially defensively.

But that same lineup only played five minutes together in three games last season — even with Okoro’s improvement as a shooter.

Subtle moves like that are what puts these Cavaliers over the top. The talent has always been there, but Atkinson is pressing the right buttons now. Things are working.

Obviously, things will slow down at some point. The Cavs won’t go 82-0. And this team has to stay healthy to remain in that championship circle.

But it’d be a huge mistake for you to overlook the Cavs right now.

Bronny   NBA G League

Bronny James should finally have more opportunity to play. The Lakers have sent him to the NBA G League to play for the South Bay Lakers — the Los Angeles affiliate team.

Not only is it a huge deal that Bronny will finally get some reps, but he’s also making a huge difference for the G League already.

Our Bryan Kalbrosky writes that his game immediately sold out. That’s extremely rare, folks.

Here’s the impact:

“But when the former USC guard makes his debut for South Bay, that is exactly what he will expect as the team announced a capacity attendance with tickets being re-sold for as much as $271 to sit courtside.

South Bay ranked last in attendance the season before last, drawing an average crowd of 441 fans per game. The venue has a small capacity of less than 1,000 people, for what it is worth, but drawing any interest to the Lakers G League affiliate is no easy task.”

I’m not sure I’d count being famous as an accomplishment on its own. But the fact that Bronny is this sort of draw is impressive.

This could be a huge deal for the G League moving forward depending on how long he plays there.

Shootaround

— Speaking of Bronny, here’s Bryan again with more on why him going to the G League is a good development.

— Take a look back at the rivalry between Devin Booker and Luka Doncic here.

— Joe Mazulla has to be the funniest coach in the NBA and the best part is I don’t think he actually tries to be.

— JJ Redick is already fed up with D’Angelo Russell. Can’t blame him.

That’s a wrap, folks. Thanks so much for reading. Have a great weekend. We’ll talk to you soon. Peace.

-Sykes