Vegas sets Cavs win total at 58.5

[KobesFinger]

Argument for the over: The Cavs won 66 and 61 games in Lebron last two seasons with the team, and that was with a much weaker supporting cast, and Mike Brown as the coach.

Argument for the under: The Cavs only won 33 games last year, the new cast has never played together, Love and Irving have both had frequent injuries, and David Blatt has never coached an NBA game

Personally I think 58.5 is about right, could go either way.

I'd add to that

Over: The Big 3 Heat won 58 games in their first season and this Cavs team has a better bench and more well rounded team

Under: We're still yet to see how Kyrie and Love adapt to no longer being first option, plus the defence is suspect without seeing them play

[SamuraiSWISH]

I think they win 60 to 62 games. If they solidify their defense. If not, which is a big question to begin with, I see 55 being more plausible. They have a new coach too, so we'll see how things go.

[gyu]

Really surprised by raptors. What have they done over last season to justify it?

[RedBlackAttack]

Argument for the over: The Cavs won 66 and 61 games in Lebron last two seasons with the team, and that was with a much weaker supporting cast, and Mike Brown as the coach.

Argument for the under: The Cavs only won 33 games last year, the new cast has never played together, Love and Irving have both had frequent injuries, and David Blatt has never coached an NBA game

Personally I think 58.5 is about right, could go either way.

I think it is quite a lot to ask out of a team of guys and a coach who are essentially meeting each other (in basketball terms) for the first time this week. Putting the 58.5 wins in context, Miami exceeded that mark one time in their four years together (and it was in Year 3).

I actually do think this Cavs team has more talent with higher upside than any of those Heat teams had, but LeBron is also going to be 30 this year and some of the key pieces are still relative pups in the NBA (Irving is 22, Waiters/Thompson are 23).

If they approach 60 wins in their first year together, I'd be pretty surprised personally.

[Legends66NBA7]

Really surprised by raptors. What have they done over last season to justify it?

Cut the dead weight (Salmons, Novak) and added improved parts (Williams, James Johnson) to a team that was on 54-55 pace when they traded Rudy Gay. There's no reason to add much more, since they were already a solid team.

DeRozan and Valanciunas just came off the FIBA tournament and they both went 8 games deep with their respective squads. Infact, all the starters for the Raptors were playing together in the summer in California.

With a deep back court and the only concerning weakness being back up center (which isn't a problem considering you Val playing more), I don't see why they don't improve on their record unless the majority of the key players get injured.


EDIT - I don't think Masai has even finished trading more players yet either. If someone takes Fields and/or Hayes, then we are probably have a 15 man roster looking like this:

PG - Lowry/Vasquez/Cherry
SG - DeRozan/Williams/Hamilton
SF - Ross/J.Johnson/Caboclo
PF - Amir/Patterson/Hansbrough
C - Valanciunas/Stiemsma/Nogueria

That would be what my ideal choice of the roster after preseason, but we'll see what happens.

[inclinerator]

i have them winning exactly 58.5

[Paul George 24]

i have them winning exactly 58.5

and defeat by the spurs again