Historic Season-Opening Winning Streak Could Hurt Cleveland Cavaliers in Long Run

Nick Galle|published: Mon 18th November, 09:17 2024

Nov 17, 2024; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers guard Darius Garland (10) celebrates after hitting a three point basket during the first quarter against the Charlotte Hornets at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn ImagesNov 15, 2024; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers guard Darius Garland (10) and guard Donovan Mitchell (45) celebrate after the Cavs beat the Chicago Bulls and moved to 14-0 on the season at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images

Only one team has been where the Cleveland Cavaliers are trying to go.

Even though it gave star Donovan Mitchell the night off, Cleveland beat the Charlotte Hornets on Sunday to capture its 15th straight win to open the season. Of the three other teams to accomplish that feat in league history, two of them failed to earn a 16th consecutive victory.

The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors are the lone team to ever see 16-0, and they ended up winning their first 24 games to set an NBA record.

If Cleveland wants to have any chance of matching Golden State’s 24-0 mark, it will have to get through the defending champion Boston Celtics on Tuesday, undoubtedly the Cavaliers’ biggest hurdle to date.

There are those who believe that this run by Cleveland is just a fluke, that the Cavaliers aren’t actually a dangerous team and are simply just playing above their pay grade for the time being.

Make no mistake about it; Cleveland is good. Really good.

But there is, of course, such thing as peaking too early. And in this case, there is such thing as peaking—way too early.

Stacking up wins early in the season is always a good thing. Putting together a historic winning streak? No one is going to complain about that either. However, playing at this high level is unsustainable for the Cavaliers. It’s not a matter of if they’ll lose; it’s when.

Please do remember that. Cleveland is not going 82-0, so don’t you dare bet on it, no matter what FanDuel says. In a post on X, the popular sportsbook released a graphic showing the odds of the Cavaliers going undefeated here in 2024-25.

Listed at +100000, that wager isn’t actually live on the books—as far as we can tell. Crafty advertising/marketing on FanDuel’s part, but we wouldn’t be surprised if some townie in Cleveland has an unlit cigarette in his mouth, his lighter in one hand, and some cold hard cash in the other as he waits at the cash counter for that line to drop.

As we were saying, winning is good. We know that. But a loss here and there to keep you humble and on your toes isn’t the worst thing, either.

Suppose the Cavaliers do go on to break the Warriors’ record. The hard truth is that we won’t even be talking about it come June if it isn’t the Cavaliers up on that stage hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

We also have no clue how Cleveland will respond to a loss. Maybe one setback sparks a 15-game losing streak, and just like that, the Cavaliers are suddenly playing .500 basketball. We doubt that’ll happen, but we just don’t know how this team will handle adversity.

Cleveland won’t ever admit it, but that first loss is going to feel like a huge weight lifted off its shoulders. And when that perfect record finally has a blemish, that’s when we’re going to be able to tell if the Cavaliers are true contenders. Should they get caught up in a nasty losing streak, maybe we’ll be looking at them a little bit differently. A quick bounce back? In that case, something special might be brewing in Cleveland.

So, if you’re the Cavaliers, just hope you get that first loss out of the way soon. Save your best basketball for spring, because season-opening winning streaks unfortunately don’t translate to banners.