With a quarter of the season done, what's sustainable for the Cavs?

Danny Cunningham covers the Cleveland Cavaliers for 850 ESPN Cleveland and TheLandOnDemand.com

The Cleveland Cavaliers are now over a quarter of the way through the NBA season, having played 21 games after Monday night’s loss in Toronto. Up until this point, almost everything needs to be qualified with, ‘well, it’s still a small sample size.’

Now, it feels appropriate to drop that qualifier when speaking about how well the Cavs have played this season. While nothing at this point is attributed to just a blip in a small sample size, it is fair to ask what exactly is sustainable about this season and what isn’t.

Let’s dive in to a few things that are worth noting for the Cavaliers with 61 games remaining in the regular season slate.

Cavs place amongst the Eastern Conference’s contenders

As things stand right now, the Cavaliers sit alone in third place in the East. They’re behind both Boston and Milwaukee but ahead of several teams thought to be contenders in Philadelphia, Toronto, Brooklyn, and Miami. Toronto, Philadelphia, and Miami have all been bitten by a significant injury bug (just as the Cavs have) while the Nets have had to deal with drama that absolutely no one* could have possibly ever seen coming.

*everyone

As for the Bucks and Celtics ahead of the Cavs, those squads have been two of the best teams in the NBA. In the last two weeks, Cleveland has lost to Milwaukee twice on the road, with neither game being overly competitive. As for the Celtics, the Cavs did win both matchups with Boston so far this season, with both games going to overtime. Against teams that aren’t the Cavs this season, the Celtics are 17-2, which seems pretty damn good.

Verdict: Sustainable

Maybe the Cavs don’t finish the season in third place, but they do seem like a team that will be in discussion for a top-four seed in the East. Prior to the season, finishing third or fourth in the East may have been a bit of a lofty goal, but after the expectations readjust 21 games in, hosting the first game of a playoff season should be what’s expected.

It’s hard to see the Cavs catching either Milwaukee or Boston without one of those teams having to deal with a significant injury to star players, but in the same breath, all of the teams below the Cavaliers would have to be significantly better than Cleveland in the remaining 60-or-so games in order to catch the Cavs. If the Cavs continue to win at their current pace, they would finish with between 53 and 54 wins on the season. If the Cavs even get to 50 wins, they’ll have home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

The last time an Eastern Conference team won 50-or-more games and didn’t finish in the top four of the conference was the 1997-98 Atlanta Hawks. Chances are, that history isn’t going to repeat itself this season.

Donovan Mitchell’s offensive output

So far this season, Cavs guard Donovan Mitchell has had his best year to date. He’s averaging a career-high 28.9 points per game to go along with five assists while shooting career-best numbers both from the floor and from 3-point range.
He’s been everything and more than the Cavs could have anticipated when they executed a trade for him at the beginning of September. At times, he’s needed to be a volume scorer, and other times he’s needed to take a backseat to Darius Garland. Even with only averaging five assists per game, his passing skill level has been better than advertised according to the eye test.

The Cavaliers are nowhere near the top of the Eastern Conference standings without Mitchell on the roster. At this pace, he’s a lock to be named to his fourth All-Star team – with the game conveniently in Utah – and could make his first All-NBA team. The pairing of he and Garland hasn’t been able to share the floor as much as the organization would like – thanks to Garland’s eye laceration – but the early returns show this as an overwhelming success.

Verdict: A little murky

Mitchell is a great offensive engine, and he should finish the year averaging a career-high in points, as his previous high was 26.4 points per game. With that said, there are parts of his game so far that do feel a bit unsustainable.

One of the ways that Mitchell is shooting 48% on 5.3 pull-up 3-point attempts per game according to Second Spectrum. The only other player in the NBA that’s shooting 40% or better on more than five attempts per game is Golden State’s Stephen Curry (47.5% on 6.3 attempts per game). Even when lowering the threshold, there is not a player in the NBA taking two-or-more pull-up 3-point attempts per game that’s shooting a better percentage than Mitchell.

Simply put, he’s been the best pull-up shooter in the NBA this season.

Can that stay as is? Last season in Utah, Mitchell shot 35.6% on 6.2 attempts of that variety per game and he’s never shot higher than 36.3% in his career. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if this number drops a little bit, but it also could be made up for in a few different ways. These numbers also don’t speak to the quality of looks Mitchell is taking in this scenario compared to what it’s been in the past for him.

Other than that number, he is shooting a higher percentage from the floor and is averaging the second-most free throw attempts per game. Nothing of that seems to be a fluke.

No matter what, Mitchell is going to be awesome offensively, even if it’s not at quite this level.

Offensive rating – 113.9, seventh in the NBA
Defensive rating – 108.2, fourth in the NBA

We’ll deal with these two figures together and the net rating as a whole.
So far this season, the Cavs have taken a big step up offensively from last season where they averaged 111 points per 100 possessions. The addition of Mitchell, combined with continued growth from Garland and Evan Mobley naturally push this number higher than it was previously. Defensively, the Cavs have marginally improved from last season’s overall number of 108.9.

These things have led to a net rating of 5.8 compared to a figure of 2.1 last season. This places the Cavs third in all of the NBA through their first 21 games.

Verdict: Should improve

Defensively, the Cavs have gotten better than expected defensive play from Mitchell, but have been without their lynchpin defensively in Jarrett Allen for four games this season (1-3 record). When Allen is on the floor. In the 32 minutes that Allen averages per game, the team allows just 103.9 points per 100 possessions, the best number on the team of anyone that averages 25 minutes or more per night.

The team having more of a comfort level playing together is something that should help improve the unit as time goes on too. It sounds crazy to say, due to just how good the Cavs have been defensively to start the season, but they definitely haven’t reached their ceiling on that end of the floor. If they don’t finish in the top three in the NBA in defensive rating this season, it will be looked at as a massive disappointment.

Offensively, the team hasn’t reached its ceiling, either. The Cavs are still learning how to play together, especially Mitchell and Garland. The fact that they’ve put together a top 10 offensive unit through the first quarter of the season is something that should be looked at as super encouraging.

For as good as the offense has been, there haven’t been many nights where they’ve been firing on all cylinders. Those should start to happen more often as things roll along for the team. The ceiling on this end of the floor may not be as high this season – at least not until consistency is found on the wing – but it has the makings of a top 10 unit as long as Garland and Mitchell remain healthy.