LeBron James finally wins one for the land and people’s first assumption is he’s going to take it easy during the upcoming regular season, to save himself for the playoffs. Yes, the same super-competitive player who got annoyed when people were referring to Steph Curry as the best player in the league. Something tells me he won’t be taking it too easy.

At the time of writing this, J.R. Smith has yet to re-sign with the Cavs (and still hasn’t put his shirt back on), but I’m going to assume he will, because it’ll be ridiculous if he doesn’t (re-sign, he can go shirtless for however long he likes).

Player Movement

Notable Ins	Notable Outs
Chris Andersen Memphis Grizzlies Mike Dunleavy Chicago Bulls	Timofey Mozgov Los Angeles Lakers Matthew Dellavedova Milwaukee Bucks

Cleveland Cavaliers Depth Chart

Point Guard	Shooting Guard	Small Forward	Power Forward	Center
Kyrie Irving Mo Williams	J.R. Smith Iman Shumpert Jordan McRae	LeBron James Mike Dunleavy Richard Jefferson James Jones	Kevin Love Channing Frye	Tristan Thompson Chris Andersen

Rotation Player Projections

POS	PLAYER	USG	MPG	PTS	REB	AST	STL	BLK	3PM	FG%	FT%	TO
SF	LeBron James	31.3	35	24.9	7.3	6.7	1.4	0.6	1.1	52	73.1	3.2
PF	Kevin Love	23.4	32	16.3	10.1	2.4	0.8	0.5	2.1	41.9	82.2	1.8
PG	Kyrie Irving	29.5	32	19.9	3	5	1.1	0.3	1.6	44.8	88.5	2.5
C	Tristan Thompson	11.6	32	9	10.4	0.9	0.6	0.7	0	58.8	61.6	0.8
SG	J.R. Smith	18.1	30	12.1	2.7	1.7	1.1	0.3	2.5	41.5	63.4	0.8
SG	Iman Shumpert	13.2	24	5.7	3.7	1.7	1	0.4	0.8	37.4	78.4	1.1
SF	Mike Dunleavy	14.4	20	6.3	2.4	1.1	0.4	0.3	1.1	41	78.4	0.7
PF	Channing Frye	18.3	20	8.7	4.2	1.2	0.3	0.3	2	44.1	78.6	0.6
PG	Mo Williams	22.9	15	6.8	1.5	2	0.2	0.1	0.7	44.1	90.5	1.2

Rise in Value

Tristan Thompson

With only Channing Frye as the only playable back-up big-man on the roster it’s hard to see Tristan getting less than 30 minutes a game, which should be enough to get him a double-double on most nights (don’t get your hopes up, I’m talking about the 10 point, 11 rebound kind). He doesn’t offer much in other categories, besides FG% and he needs to bring his block average up to at least 1 per game to be a decent draft option, but I’m confident he’ll get pretty close.

My only concern is the Kardashian curse not that he’s dating Khloe, but my wife assures me that isn’t really a thing.

Player Summaries

LeBron James Still Elite

I touched on this earlier, but LeBron James is still LeBron James, and I don’t see any signs of him taking a back seat to Kyrie now that he has won a championship in Cleveland. Sure, he’s more likely to be sitting out in back-to-back games, which Cleveland have 18 (tied for most in the league), but when he’s on the court it’s hard seeing him playing less than 33 minutes a game, unless it’s a blow-out.

Kevin Love Punt-blocks

I think we need to let go of the idea that Kevin Love used to be a 25 and 12 player in Minnesota, because he hasn’t played for the Timberwolves for the past two seasons. As of now, he’s a 16 and 10 player, who can get you 2 3PM a game and is a nice punt-block big-man. And that’s OK.

Kyrie Irving Punt-assists

Kyrie lit it up in the NBA finals, but he’s still a point-guard who doesn’t give you starting point-guard assist numbers. That aside, he’s a great punt-assist point-guard given his contributions to PTS, 3PM, STL and FT%.

J.R. Smith Deep League

At this point we know who J.R. Smith is, he’s a fantasy basketball 3&D specialist (3PM and STL), who can get hot in any given week and win you the three-point category on his own. He’s a fun player to own in H2H leagues, but he can hurt you in Roto formats. Ride the pipe at your own risk.