Former Cleveland Cavaliers big man and current ESPN NBA analyst Kendrick Perkins believes that the Cavs will be evaluated strictly on what they accomplish in the playoffs in the 2025-26 season.
Cleveland was the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference in the 2024-25 campaign after winning 64 games in the regular season, but Perkins doesn’t seem to care too much about regular-season wins for the team going forward.
“And they should be the favorites, right?” Perkins said of the Cavs in the Eastern Conference. “And that’s why I said, unfortunately, whatever they do in the regular season — they could win 70 games. No one’s going to give a damn. They’re going to be — we’re going to evaluate them, what they do in the postseason because, again, a Donovan Mitchell-led team has never been to a conference finals.”
Mitchell has been with the Cavs for the last three seasons, and Cleveland has made the playoffs in each of those campaigns. However, the Cavs have yet to advance past the second round, and they’ve only won two total games in the second round in three seasons.
In the 2022-23 season, Cleveland was knocked out in the first round of the playoffs by the New York Knicks in just five games. Then, in the 2023-24 campaign, it needed seven games to get past the Orlando Magic in the first round before losing in five games to the Boston Celtics in round two.
In the 2024-25 season, Cleveland looked to be turning things around in the playoffs under head coach Kenny Atkinson, as it swept the Miami Heat in dominant fashion in the opening round. Unfortunately, Cleveland fell apart from there, losing to the Indiana Pacers in five games in the second round while dropping three games on its home floor.
The Cavs have most of their core from last season’s team back, as Mitchell, Jarrett Allen, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, De’Andre Hunter, Max Strus and others are all on the roster ahead of the 2025-26 season.
With the Pacers and Celtics losing superstars in Tyrese Haliburton (Indiana) and Jayson Tatum (Boston) to Achilles injuries, the Eastern Conference is wide open in the 2025-26 season.
If the Cavs come up short in the playoffs again, one could question whether or not the current core is good enough to win a title.
It seems that Perkins wants to see Mitchell and company take the next step in the 2025-26 season to prove that the Cavs belong in the championship conversation.