The Cleveland Cavaliers’ odds to win the NBA championship can be found as low as +300 and as high as +1200 following a trade deadline where they shipped out six players and two draft picks and brought in four new players.
Isaiah Thomas, Channing Frye, Iman Shumpert, Jae Crowder, Derrick Rose and Dwyane Wade are all gone while Rodney Hood, George Hill, Larry Nance Jr. and Jordan Clarkson are the new reinforcements. The shakeup was needed with the Cavs’ locker room doing its best reenactment of Mean Girls and the in-fighting playing a part in the club flirting with the worst ATS record in an NBA season according to the Covers database.
Cleveland’s overtime win and cover against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night gave the club just its 15th ATS win in its first 53 games this season. The Cavaliers are in third place in the East but still the favorite (between -150 and +150) to win the conference and make it to a fourth straight Finals.
The Westgate SuperBook moved the Cavaliers’ odds to win the title from +1000 to +1200 but oddsmaker Randy Blum told Covers that had little to do with the trade flurry.
“We were adjusting some stuff because we took a big bet on the [Houston] Rockets from one of our house players,” Blum wrote in a text message.
Offshore sportsbook TheGreek went the other direction and lowered Cleveland’s odds from +450 to +300 in response to the trades made on Thursday. TheGreek is one of the few shops which still list the Cavaliers as the second favorite to win the title behind the Golden State Warriors. Most books have moved Houston ahead of Cleveland.
The question remains – is Cleveland a better team after the trade deadline than it was before all the player movement?
“Without question, yes,” Covers Expert Matt Fargo says. “The guys they traded were either horrible defenders or guys who did not fit in offensively.”
Some NBA observers will wonder how the Cavaliers could trade a player like Thomas, who finished fifth in NBA MVP voting last season, and come out better with marginal starter-level talent in return?
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First thing, bettors should know Thomas was not the same player for Cleveland as he was for Boston a season ago. The Cavaliers net rating was -18 (meaning they were outscored by 18 points per 100 possessions) with Thomas on the floor and +3 without him since he came back from the hip injury at the beginning of January.
It wasn’t just Thomas’ poor play that was a negative. He was also causing rifts behind the scenes – most notably in his role questioning Kevin Love’s early exit in a blowout loss against the Oklahoma City Thunder back on Jan. 20.
The new starting lineup and full rotation will be younger, and include better 3-point shooting. Nance, in particular, should be what the Cavs hoped Crowder would be – minus the 3-point shot - a mobile big man who can guard multiple positions and is comfortable switching on screens.
Cleveland plays at Atlanta on Friday night to play the Hawks and it could have a short bench. Oddsmakers have yet to release a line on the game.
