Future Power Rankings: Cavs Ranked #2

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ future had hopes prior to this off-season. Two former #1 picks, two former #4 picks and two other mid first round picks all littered the roster. Then the Cavs won the NBA Draft Lottery in the best draft in 10 years. A lot of hope, not a lot of substance. With all the change over the Cavs’ future looks very bright, as covered by ESPN’s Future Power Rankings (Insider, Costs $):

"The bar graphs reflect the average points given by the voters for each category.The Cavs jumped a whopping seven spots from No. 9 to No. 2 in this year’s FPR. Adding LeBron James and Kevin Love had everything to do with it.The Cavs jumped from No. 13 to No. 1 in our players category. Adding the best player in the NBA and another top-10 player to your roster while giving up young players who have yet to contribute anything will do that. The core of James, Love and Kyrie Irving looks like the best big three in basketball. When you add in support players such as Dion Waiters, Tristan Thompson, Anderson Varejao, Shawn Marion and Mike Miller — the Cavs look like a stronger edition of last year’s No. 1 team — the Heat.The Cavs’ market value also got a big bump. The team ranked No. 21 last year and moved all the way up to 11 this year. No, global warming has yet to take hold in Cleveland. But James himself is a destination and already has shown the muscle to lure free agents. (There was no way Love or Miller would have come to Cleveland without James.)The team will actually have significant cap room for 2016-17, but we expect most of that will be used up re-signing James and Love. Still, there’s a willingness to spend and the Cavs will have some flexibility in two years. The Cavs also can swap picks with the Bulls and they own a future Grizzlies pick down the road, which brightens Cleveland’s fortunes a bit as far as the draft goes.As for management, our panel wasn’t willing to give them full credit for James (that was the city of Cleveland’s doing), Love (that was LeBron’s doing) or dumb luck (that’s the NBA draft lottery’s doing). They got lucky, but hey, sometimes luck is the thing you need the most in the NBA.Now the Cavs are as well positioned as any team in the NBA to take home an NBA title or two.— Chad Ford(Previous rank: 9)"

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Some of their rankings, shown in the picture, are obvious. The player scored looks like it almost doubled while the money and draft status dropped. All of that is due to the presence of LeBron James and Kevin Love. The players make the team better, but take up salary cap space, giving the team worse draft picks. The Memphis pick should be of some value. Ford wrongly says the Cavs can switch picks with the Bulls, it is actually the opposite and negative for the Cavs if they have a worse record than the Bulls.

The lack of respect for management is to be expected but will it ever change? Much like Chris Bosh never got the love he might of deserved playing with James and Wade, will Dan Gilbert and David Griffin ever get respect for managing the team? Obviously a lot of things played a role in getting this team together, mostly James’ hometown being right down the street almost. Yet Pat Riley got a ton of credit for bringing his Big 3 together, even though the players themselves made most of it happen.

Either way the Future Power Rankings just put a number on what we all know: The Future is Bright in Cleveland. Many would argue much brighter than the #1 ranked Spurs, but who cares right now right?

What do you think of the overall and individual rankings given to the Cavs?

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