With less than a fortnight separating the Cleveland Cavaliers from their first game of the 2025-26 regular season, they likely are dead set on winning one piece of hardware above anything else, and that’s the Larry O’Brien Trophy. The proof that Cleveland can win at a high level with its “core four” is already there — it’s just a matter of whether the team can finally exercise its playoff demons this season.
But with Cleveland rightfully eyeing a title, it’s also worth noting that an incredibly successful season collectively could result in some of its players taking home major awards. Here are three Cavs who could very well win major awards this season.
Donovan Mitchell (Award: Most Valuable Player)
In recent years, the top options on teams with the league’s No. 1 records have been in the MVP race. Just last season, Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander spearheaded a 68-win team, and he was crowned MVP.
The season prior, Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum finished sixth in voting for the award after he helped the iconic franchise to a league-best 64 wins. Before that, Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo came in third place as he led the Bucks to the best record in the league in the 2022-23 season. The same trend applied to Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker in the 2021-22 season, and there are other examples as well.
Simply put, if you’re the best player on the team with the best record in the NBA, you’re going to be in the mix for the award. Mitchell has a great opportunity to continue that fascinating pattern in the looming season.
To this point of his tenure, Mitchell has been the Cavaliers’ best offensive player, and if he can follow in the footsteps of someone like Gilgeous-Alexander and be the top scorer on his team during a historically successful season, he will have a strong foundation for an MVP-caliber season.
Fortunately, the 29-year-old is a prolific bucket-getter, and with his knack for scoring the ball inside and out, he’s proven he has the skill set to rank among the league leaders in scoring. He’s averaged as many as 28.3 points per game in a season in his Cavaliers career, and for his NBA career, he’s dropped 24.7 per contest.
It would take a special season for Mitchell to take home the MVP award, but if his usage is high enough (especially with some key guys sidelined to start the season), he’s more than capable of such a campaign. If he were to win MVP, he would be the first Cavalier to do so since franchise icon LeBron James.
Evan Mobley (Award: Defensive Player of the Year)
Mobley isn’t a spicy pick to win the Defensive Player of the Year by any means, as he already has one such award under his belt. He won the award for his standout fourth season in the league, the 2024-25 season.
It didn’t take long for Mobley to establish himself as an elite defensive player after joining the NBA. In just his second pro season, he earned a spot on the All-Defensive First Team and finished third in voting for that campaign’s Defensive Player of the Year award.
Still, Mobley winning another Defensive Player of the Year in the coming season would be special in the sense that the distinction would put him in rarified air. He would join a select list of players to win the award more than once. The list includes just 10 players in league history, and Minnesota Timberwolves star Rudy Gobert and Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard are the only active players in that group.
The biggest factors that could hold Mobley back from winning his second Defensive Player of the Year are his health (hitting that 65-game threshold is no guarantee for anyone), possible voter fatigue and the return of San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama. Currently, Mobley faces long betting odds to win the award.
Darius Garland (Award: Clutch Player of the Year)
Garland’s underwhelming and injury-riddled stint in the 2025 NBA Playoffs seemingly has made a lot of people forget about just how great a 2024-25 regular season he enjoyed. Part of why he enjoyed such a successful season was how he fared for the Cavaliers in clutch moments over the course of the long campaign.
He received the sixth-most voting points for the Clutch Player of the Year award last season and was one of the top late-game players in all of basketball. Garland dominated so many fourth quarters from a scoring standpoint, as he dropped eight-plus fourth-quarter points in 24 different games.
Some of those performances helped the Cavaliers snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, as for example, he scored 18 points in the fourth quarter in a March win over the Brooklyn Nets after they trailed by 18 points in that contest at one point.
Garland managed to blend his impressive volume as a scorer in crunch time with fantastic efficiency. Of all players who scored at least 90 clutch points last season, he had the second-highest shooting percentage at 53.4. Garland buried 45.0 percent of his 3s in the clutch to boot.
The 25-year-old came up short of winning the Clutch Player of the Year award last season after what star Jalen Brunson did for the New York Knicks in crunch time, but a similarly clutch season from Garland should be enough for him to seriously contend for the hardware this time around.