Cleveland Cavaliers: Reflecting on a season of growth in 2018-19

As the Cleveland Cavaliers look forward to the future, it’s time to reflect on a season of growth in 2018-19.

The 2018-19 NBA season was a pivotal one for the Cleveland Cavaliers. The franchise is officially cooling down after a historic four-year run in which they reached the NBA Finals each year and won the organization’s first championship. This season was all about putting the past behind them and focusing on the current rebuild.

In peculiar fashion, the Cavaliers actually began their rebuild before the franchise even fell from the top. The first domino fell when Kyrie Irving demanded to be traded and the Cavs landed a deal that would help them gain a future draft pick that could aid in the doomsday scenario of LeBron James leaving.

Of course, James did leave once again. This time, he took his talents to the West coast and joined the Los Angeles Lakers. However, Cleveland was in a much better position this time around. With the draft pick they earned in the Irving trade, as well as the acquisition of Larry Nance Jr. and Jordan Clarkson, the Cavaliers had a jumpstart on this season’s rebuild.

Cleveland chose to draft Collin Sexton with the pick they acquired from the Boston Celtics. During NBA Summer League, Sexton showed signs that he was ready to attack a season head-on with high expectations.

Sexton would soon find out that the NBA is far different from college. The speed and intensity of the game proved to be too much for him at certain points in the season as he struggled early on.

Meanwhile, Sexton’s peers such as Cedi Osman, Nance and Clarkson all experienced some road bumps as well. Osman in particular had a rough time adjusting to his increased role in the lineup. Going from bench player to starter in just one year could be a shock to any young player.

The middle months of the season were brutal for Cleveland. The Cavaliers dropped game after game as they broke numerous records that no team should ever want to break. From December to late January, the Cavs lost 12 consecutive games. During this stretch, they became the first team to ever lose four home games in a row by 20 or more points.

As the season went on, the Cavaliers slowly rose above their struggles. Sexton began to fully translate his scoring ability to the professional level and hit his stride. Over the course of the final 17 games of the season, he averaged 23.1 points per game and even recorded a career-high 10 assists in the final game of the year.

This constant effort to improve his game is something that Sexton showed all throughout his rookie season. There is no doubt that his hard work helped inspire Osman and Nance, who also improved their numbers down the stretch of the season.

The Cavaliers finished the season with a 7-17 record after the All-Star break. This isn’t great, but it’s much better than the 12-46 record they had prior to the break. Although Cleveland may have finished the year with the second-worst overall record in the league (tied with Phoenix), it is obvious this team did a lot of growing this season.

This franchise has grown in two ways. For starters, it handled the departure of James much better this time around than in the past. Furthermore, the entire roster has shown development on the court and has played with excellent energy all year long. There is definitely a positive vibe in the air with this team.

Now that the 2019 NBA Draft and free agency are quickly approaching, it will be very interesting to see how the Cleveland Cavaliers build on this momentum. A home run draft pick and a few key signings in the offseason could land the Cavs back in the playoffs quicker than expected.