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Written by Ollie Weistub, 01/28/2024
The Cleveland Cavaliers Whole Season - Greatly Exceeded Expectations
So far this NBA season, the Cleveland Cavaliers have arguably been the best team in the NBA, and absolutely nobody expected it! The Cavs started off this year on a blistering 15-0, causing NBA fandom to go crazy. Currently they are sitting atop the Eastern Conference with a league best 36-6 record, making them on pace for 70 wins- the best in franchise history and the third best record of all time. Every single Cavs role player has stepped up significantly, as they have 4 players with legitimate cases to be all stars in Evan Mobley, Donovan Mitchell, Jaret Allen and Darius Garland, and they have a case for the 6th Man of The Year in Ty Jerome. Nobody genuinely expected the Cavs to be this incredible, including sports sources such as ESPN, who didn’t even have Cleveland as a top 12 team in the league in their preseason rankings. Overall, the Cavs have had an A+ first half to the NBA season, and they have exceeded expectations beyond what was imaginable pre-season.
Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers - Unexpectedly Terrible
If there was one word to describe the 76ers season so far, it would be injuries, or bad. So far this season, the 76ers are on a 7 game losing streak, and sit at 11th in the Eastern Conference, and they are supposed to be contending for the championship. They are 8 games worse than the Pistons, and the only teams in the whole NBA that are worse than them are clearly tanking. Before the season, the 76ers were expected to be a top 5 team in the NBA and rival Boston, some even saying with the addition of Paul George and the expected improvement of Tyrese Maxey they would be title favorites. So what happened and why do the 76ers… suck? The main person to blame for the 76ers being such a disappointment is Joel Embiid, who was expected to be an MVP front runner, but has played only 13 games. Embiid started off the season saying he would never play in back-to-back games again, and he has sat out on nearly 3 times as many games as he has played this year. Even in the few games Embiid has played he hasn’t been great, shooting the ball on terrible efficiency and having a negative +-. One other person to blame for the 76ers being so bad is Paul George, who the 76ers spent 50 million dollars on during the off-season. Not only is Paul George arguably having the worst season in his career, due to a combination of injuries and terrible efficiency. Not only this, but Embiid and Paul George have played just 13 games together this year and are making a combined 100 million dollars a year. This isn’t just a terrible waste of money for the team though, because of these salaries the 76ers are nearly in the “second apron”, which essentially means that if they take in a few more million dollars of salary from trades their team is fully locked in and they can’t make any trades. While the 76ers knew this going into the season they didn’t care, because they thought that they would contend for a championship, but clearly this team is not even close to that. Overall, the 76ers had huge expectations for this year and haven’t just been bad, they have been shockingly terrible and they are one of the biggest disappointments of the whole year.
Karl Anthony Towns Trade- Exceeded Expectations (for the Knicks)
On October 2, 2024 Karl Anthony Towns who had been a Timberwolve for his entire 9 season NBA career was traded to the New York Knicks. At the time, most people said that the neither team really won the trade, or that New York shouldn’t have given up Julius Randle or Donte Divencenczo, but so far this season the Knicks have been elite, sitting third in the Eastern Conference with the fourth most wins in the entire NBA, and its crystal clear Karl Anthony Towns has had a lot to do with this. So far this year KAT has been top 5 in MVP rankings from the NBA almost every weekly ranking, having by far the best year of his career averaging the second most points in his career so far (25.1) and the most rebounds (14) on career best efficiency. He has played almost every game for the Knicks and been insanely instrumental in the team's success. One way of showing how much the Knicks won the Karl Anthony Towns trade, is that last season the Timberwolves were the 3 seed in the Western Conference and won a bit more than 7% more games than the Knicks. So far this year the Timberwolves are the 11 seed and have won 12% less games than the Knicks. While you could argue the Knicks leap in success is because of other moves they made in the offseason, it is now unarguable who won the Karl-Anthony Towns trade as he is having the best year of his career, and at the time of the trade lots of people had no clue if he was going to be good for the Knicks.
Honorable Mentions:
Exceeded Expectations:
Clippers, Rockets, Pistons
(Overall team success)
Malik Beasley
(How he went from unknown to many NBA fans to one of the best 3 point shooters so far this year
Anthony Edwards
(Three point shooting)
Cade Cunningham
(Being criticized for his lack of team success to one of the best guards in the whole NBA)
Dyson Daniels
(Going from someone being a rotational player to one of the best defenders in the NBA)
Victor Wembanyama
(Taking a leap and proving he has an unknown ceiling)
Tyler Herro, Norman Powell
(Overall huge leap, both frontrunners for MIP)
Disappointing/Failed Expectations:
Mavericks
Going from finals team last year to a play-in team so far)
Pelicans
Injuries ruining their whole franchise
Luka and Kyrie backcourt
Slight down year from Luka in the few games he's played, along with Kyrie being injured)
The Heat
Bam Adebayo completely fell off, along with Jimmy Butler not wanting to play basketball for them and demanding a trade)
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