CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cavs sit seventh in the Eastern Conference, caught in the play-in tournament with half the season gone. But according to the Wine and Gold Talk podcast, chasing wins might be the worst strategy the team could pursue.
This isn’t about tanking. It’s about recognizing the fundamental difference between regular-season success and playoff viability — a distinction the Cavaliers seem to be wrestling with internally.
“I don’t even know that it’s so much about a record. I don’t even know if it’s so much about where they finish in the standings,” cleveland.com Cavs beat reporter Chris Fedor explained on the latest episode. “I think it’s about Evan Mobley becoming the guy that he was last year. I think it’s the underachieving players on this team getting back to the level that they were at last year.”
Fedor’s point cuts to the heart of Cleveland’s paradox: the team can win games now without solving their deeper issues. But doing so might actually prevent them from developing the identity and approach they’ll need when the playoffs arrive.
The podcast highlighted a particularly troubling pattern — the Cavs can ride Donovan Mitchell to plenty of regular-season victories, but that approach has proven ineffective in the postseason.
“Donovan Mitchell’s high usage, he can will this team to 46, 47 wins, get them home court advantage in the first round of playoffs. But I don’t know how productive that is for the rest of the team,” cleveland.com columnist Jimmy Watkins observed.
The podcast discussion frames Cleveland’s second half as a critical developmental period.
Rather than fixating on climbing from seventh to fourth, the team should be far more concerned with questions like: Can Evan Mobley recapture his form? Can Darius Garland stay healthy? Can Kenny Atkinson find his optimal rotations? Can players like DeAndre Hunter become consistent contributors?
These developmental goals might actually conflict with pure win maximization in the short term. Mitchell carrying a massive load might yield regular-season victories but stunt the growth of others.
As the hosts discussed, we’ve seen this movie before — the Cavaliers went on an impressive win streak in 2023-24 with Mitchell and Jarrett Allen carrying the team when Garland and Mobley were injured, but it didn’t translate to postseason success.
The Wine and Gold Talk crew didn’t hold back when discussing the NBA’s regular-season problem, which enables this kind of shortsighted thinking.
“Is there any bigger indictment of the NBA regular season than a team who has essentially been in crisis for the first half of the season? Just saying, we gotta load manage these guys,” Watkins said. “The good news is the season is too long, and the Cavs still have way too many games left. And with those way too many games, they have plenty of time to scratch their way through a disappointing Eastern Conference. The bad news is there’s way too many games, and that contributes to a lack of urgency across the league.”
This lack of urgency allows teams to postpone difficult decisions and avoid confronting fundamental flaws. For Cleveland, those flaws were exposed in last year’s playoffs despite having home-court advantage.
What’s the solution? The podcast suggests that head coach Kenny Atkinson needs to prioritize finding optimal lineups and rotations over short-term results.
“See if he can find what he believes is his best five-man lineup. See what he can do about finding the best three man grouping, see what he can do about finding the best two-man groupings,” Fedor explained. “Whatever it is that is going to be informative and helpful for this team when springtime rolls around.”
For Cavs fans, this means reassessing how to judge the team’s second half. The standings might matter less than the evolution of the team’s identity and the development of its core pieces. The real measure of success isn’t whether they finish fourth or seventh — it’s whether they’re prepared to win when the games truly matter.
Here’s the podcast for this week: