Following a heartbreaking playoff exit, the Cleveland Cavaliers core is embracing the pressure of chasing a title in a new-look Eastern Conference.
The Cleveland Cavaliers were knocking on the door of an NBA Finals run last season. Then they ran into the red-hot New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, who wound up sweeping the Cavs and going on to win the Larry O"Brien Trophy over the San Antonio Spurs.
It was a disappointing ending to a season that came with some lofty expectations for the Wine and Gold. The frustrations of the franchise falling short still linger, but the bar remains extremely high for Cleveland as a new season fast approaches.
The good news is, the Cavs players aren't running from that. With great power comes great responsibility and instead of running from those expectations, they're running towards them.
"The city is hungry, we all know that," Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen said at media day this week. "They want to win. They want to see a championship here again. I feel like they beleive in us, but part of them has doubt. Everybody wants to break the doubt, I wanna break the doubt, the team wants to break the doubt. And we wanna do it for the city."
Cavaliers fans should love that response from Allen, who several years ago authored the infamous comments about the "lights being too bright" during a first-round playoff exit to those same Knicks.
Several years later, he and his Cavaliers teammates aren't afraid of the bright lights associated with being a championship contender, granted some seem to think their window is closed after the reshuffling of stars that took place this summer.
LeBron James spurned the Cavs to join forces with Jaylen Brown in Philadelphia. Giannis Antetokounmpo took his talents to South Beach, joining the Miami Heat. Oh, and the Knicks are still a juggernaut after winning it all.
In a loaded East, Cleveland has become a bit of an afterthought to NBA pundits. Nothing has changed for those inside the building, though. Allen wasn't the only one to emphasize that, either.
"There's still a fire," star guard Donovan Mitchell said. "I think, losing the way we did, I joked about it at the end of the year, but having to be around that noise all summer ... we kind of all, without even saying it, understand what's what's in front of us, the opportunity that we have in front of us."
While they may not have landed any of the league's big offseason fish, the Cavaliers didn't sit on their hands either. Late in the summer, President of Basketball Operations Koby Altman pulled of a trade with the Denver Nuggets for young wing Peyton Watson. It was another sign that the organization believes that championship window is still wide open.
Cleveland is a victim of its own success. It's the nature of the beast in sports when you taste any ounce of success. In three weeks' time, another championship chase begins.
