CLEVELAND, Ohio — As the Cavs continue to search for answers amid their disappointing start, many fans and analysts have clung to a comforting narrative: the Indiana Pacers parallel.
The story goes that last year’s Pacers struggled early but eventually found their rhythm, making it all the way to the NBA Finals. On the latest Wine and Gold Talk podcast, cleveland.com beat reporter Chris Fedor systematically dismantled this comparison following Cleveland’s 127-111 loss to the Chicago Bulls.
“This whole thing about the Indiana Pacers and that comparison, like, just because something has happened in history doesn’t mean that it’s also going to happen for this particular team,” Fedor stated emphatically after the Cavs’ latest defeat dropped them to 15-13.
The false equivalence between these two situations ignores critical differences in team history and context.
Fedor highlighted perhaps the most important distinction: “They also went to the conference finals the year before that. The Cavs did not. The Cavs flamed out in the conference semifinals when they were heavily favored against the Pacers and a bunch of their weaknesses showed.”
This key difference undermines the entire comparison.
The Pacers team that struggled early last season had already proven they could reach basketball’s biggest stages. They weren’t trying to reach new heights — they were trying to recapture what they’d already achieved. In contrast, this Cavs core has never advanced past the second round of the playoffs.
Another critical difference Fedor noted is the roster continuity. The Pacers team that bounced back was essentially the same group that had reached the conference finals. The current Cavaliers, however, have undergone significant changes with additions like De’Andre Hunter, Lonzo Ball and Larry Nance Jr., none of whom have seamlessly integrated.
To podcast host Ethan Sands, the Indiana Pacers comparison never quite fit because it misses the emotional and structural arc of what this Cavaliers team is becoming. The more honest parallel, as Sands pointed out on the podcast, lives in Utah.
“If anybody wanted to compare this team to any team of recent history,” Sands said, “you compare it to the Utah Jazz from 2021–22 — Donovan Mitchell’s last year in Utah.”
Not the peak, but the comedown. The part where the record still looks respectable, the talent still registers on paper, and yet everyone involved can feel the erosion happening possession by possession.
Utah’s arc matters because it followed a blueprint Cleveland just lived through. The 2020-21 Jazz finished first in the West with 52 wins, then ran into a Clippers team that exposed them in the semifinals. The following season, the Jazz were still good — 49 wins, fifth in the West — but the connective tissue wasn’t the same. The same concepts were there, the same star was asked to create late, but the belief that the whole was greater than the sum quietly disappeared.
Sands’ rhetorical question lands because it’s uncomfortable: “Does the semifinals bounce sound familiar to anybody?”
The Cavs won 64 games last season, topped the East, and didn’t suffer their 13th loss until Game 69. This year, they reached that mark by Game 28.
What makes the parallel sharper is how it shows up night to night.
Utah didn’t fall apart because Mitchell stopped being great. They fell apart because greatness became a requirement instead of a luxury. That’s the space Cleveland is drifting into now.
Wednesday’s loss in Chicago — against an 11–15 Bulls team that entered having lost eight of nine was again about dependency. Mitchell, under the weather, still found 32 points and four 3s, still carried the offensive burden and still looked afterward like a player searching for answers that used to come more easily.
Sands put it plainly: “You cannot continue to ask Donovan Mitchell to be his ‘Spida’ alter ego self without the support from players around him, at least effective and efficient support around him.”
That context matters because Mitchell chose Cleveland believing this was different. More runway to grow into something sustainable. Support around him to make the workload lighter.
What the last month has shown is not that the Cavs lack talent, but that the ecosystem around their star is beginning to demand more than it gives back. That’s the same crossroads Utah reached before it broke apart its core. Sands’ comparison isn’t alarmist. It’s informed by history and shaped by timing.
Teams don’t usually realize they’ve lost their juice in the moment. They feel it first. And right now, the Cavaliers look and feel uncomfortably familiar.
Sands’ concern isn’t rooted in the standings. It’s rooted in pattern recognition — the same kind that made Utah’s unraveling feel inevitable long before the losses piled up.
While the Cavs can rightfully point to injuries as a factor in their struggles — missing Evan Mobley, Max Strus, and Sam Merrill — this doesn’t automatically mean an immediate turnaround when they return is in the cards.
As Cleveland prepares for a rematch with Chicago on Friday, fans would be wise to evaluate this team on its own merits rather than through the lens of a convenient but ultimately flawed historical comparison. The path forward may require adjustments far more substantial than simply waiting for the Pacers’ story to repeat itself.
Here’s the podcast for this week: