Why an NBA Scout Doesn’t Believe the Cavaliers Have Enough for a 2027 Title Run

Make no mistake about it: It’s championship-or-bust for the Cavaliers this season.

The Cavs needed a pair of Game 7 wins over the Raptors and Pistons to secure a spot in this past season’s Eastern Conference finals, in which they went on to get swept by the red-hot Knicks.

Cleveland doubled down and went all-in this offseason by sending its last tradable first-round pick to the Nuggets for Peyton Watson and re-signing Donovan Mitchell and James Harden to massive contracts. A speculated reunion with LeBron James did not go as they had hoped.

“I expected Cleveland to get where they got [last year],” an anonymous NBA scout told Sports Illustrated. “I knew they would probably learn from the year before, and they did. I think the questions with them start with Kenny Atkinson. Is he a good enough coach? I didn’t like how he schemed in the playoffs. They didn’t have any answers for the Knicks. Now James Harden is older and I don’t know how their pieces are going to match.”

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One of those new pieces is Watson, a two-way wing who is an outstanding defender and emerging offensive threat. He averaged a career-high 14.6 points on 41.1% shooting from three-point range for Denver last season.

“Watson, to me, needs another two years of development,” the scout said. “He's too sloppy with the ball. He's not consistent enough. He's really loose when he drives the ball, which is just inconsistent.

“He just can't be consistent with it. His upper body's really weak, and he's not strong and tight on his drives. He doesn't shoot it well enough consistently, I don't think, to say that's going to be what you do, but he doesn't handle the ball in traffic well enough. So he's not a game-changer. He played with the best player in the league in Denver [Nikola Jokić] and he couldn’t find that consistency. That’s a red flag.”

One under-the-radar offseason loss for Cleveland is Dean Wade, who logged 5.8 points on 43.9% shooting from the field last season. Wade is now in Philadelphia as a perfect fit in that new-look 76ers rotation.

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“Losing Wade is going to hurt them,” the scout said. “For what he is, he does a lot for them. I mean, he guarded a lot of positions. He’s tough. He doesn't need credit. He's just an under-the-radar guy that plays hard and does his job on both sides of the ball. So who's guarding guys this year?”

Cleveland is running it back with the rest of the roster, though. Evan Mobley met the NBA’s minimum 65 games played last season but didn’t collect any votes for any award after taking home the Defensive Player of the Year the season prior. Mitchell, the heart and soul of the Cavs, signed a four-year contract worth $275 million with Cleveland in July. He’s in for the long run.

“I thought Mobley was going to break out two years ago when he won Defensive Player of the Year,” the scout said. “But he really hasn't grown since that point. He's taken a little bit of a step backwards offensively. I thought he would've developed in more areas of his game. I always felt like he had to really get the three down in order to take another step. He has not.

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“Mitchell is a great guy,” the scout continued. “Great scorer. Can go off any night. Is he a 1A on a championship team? I don’t know. He's definitely a 1B player. And if he had James Harden five, six, or maybe seven years ago, then it'd be like, O.K., that would be a duo. But now he has an aged Harden. I think he just needs another guy with him. I mean, he's a heck of a player. I just don't see him being a 1A guy in a playoff run. He could do it in the regular season, but yeah, I have not seen it in the playoffs.”

Offseason recap

Who’s in: James Harden (re-signed), Donovan Mitchell (re-signed), Peyton Watson (sign-and-trade), Thomas Bryant (re-signed), Mario Hezonja, Khalifa Diop
Who’s out: Keon Ellis, Larry Nance Jr., Max Strus, Dean Wade, Dennis Schröder, Georges Niang

Ellis became a nice piece off Cleveland’s bench when the Cavs acquired him midseason from the Kings, although he didn’t contribute much in the playoffs. Strus actually played more games in the playoffs (18) than the regular season (12) due to a Jones fracture in his left foot. He’s a Clipper now. Wade, as mentioned above, will be a key contributor off the 76ers’ bench.

SI’s prediction for the 2026–27 Cavaliers

Record: 51–31 | Predicting the 2026–27 NBA Standings: Which Teams Will Rise, Fall and Surprise?

Despite the scout’s unfavorable outlook, our NBA team at SI dot com is pretty high on the Cavs this year. Chris Mannix picked the Cavs to lose to the 76ers in the Eastern Conference finals, and both Liam McKeone and Blake Silverman have Cleveland losing to the Spurs in the NBA Finals. Sure, no title in our prognostications, but if all stay healthy, the Cavs should be right in the thick of it into late May and early June.

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