Cleveland Cavaliers Join the Ranks of the Longest Unbeaten Starts to an NBA Season

Of all the NBA franchises that could have started the new season with a perfect 12-0 record, it’s highly doubtful many would have picked the Cleveland Cavaliers as contenders.

They haven’t gone beyond the conference semi-finals since 2018; in fact, they’ve only qualified for the postseason twice in the past five years.

But the 2016 champions, who made it to four straight editions of the NBA Finals between 2015 and 2018, are showing signs of their former greatness.

New Energy

What’s interesting about the Cavs’ unbeaten start to 2024-25 is that the basketball online betting odds still only consider them to be a +1700 chance of going all the way to the NBA Championship; confirmation that it’s not how you start, but how you finish.

The basketball tips will continue to favor the likes of the Boston Celtics (+300), Oklahoma City Thunder (+500), and New York Knicks (+800), but even so, Cleveland has shown enough so far to suggest that they can gatecrash the party.

New head coach Kenny Atkinson has evidently brought fresh energy to the table, invigorating a roster that is essentially unchanged from that which got trounced by the Celtics in the Eastern Conference semi-finals last season.

But a 119-113 win at Chicago on November 11 extended their unbeaten start to the campaign to 12 games, and it will take an extraordinary drop-off for them not to saunter into the play-offs from here.

CAVS WIN! #LetEmKnow pic.twitter.com/IZCsYzZi32

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) November 12, 2024

Donovan Mitchell is reaching all new heights – he served up 36 points, four steals, and eight rebounds against the Bulls, while Jarrett Allen is growing into his role as something of an on-court lieutenant for Atkinson.

Mitchell has called upon his teammates to continue this form deep into the season. So can the Cavs carry their momentum all the way until the end of the regular campaign and beyond?

24-0

Of course, it will be nigh-on impossible for Cleveland to go unbeaten throughout the entirety of the term.

The best-ever start to an NBA season came from the Golden State Warriors in 2015-16. They won their opening 24 games, before finishing the regular campaign with an outstanding 73-9.

Golden State @Warriors Guard @StephenCurry30 named 2015-16 @Kia NBA Most Valuable Player! #KiaMVP pic.twitter.com/B9tBIII2eC

— NBA (@NBA) May 10, 2016

And, something that will no doubt catch the Cavs’ collective eye, is that the Warriors were able to parlay their early season form into success in the playoffs… albeit they would suffer defeat to, you guessed it, Cleveland in the Finals.

To offer some context as to how good the Warriors were that year, the previous best start to a season came courtesy of the Houston Rockets in 1993-94: a mere 15-0, however, before they lost to the Atlanta Hawks in their 16th outing.

Fans of omens might like to know that the Rockets won the NBA Championship that season, beating New York Knicks in the seventh game of the series, so between them and Golden State as mentioned above, clearly there are plenty of positives to be taken from a fast start to the season.

Maybe 2024-25 will be the season that Cleveland returns to the NBA’s top table?

(Disclaimer: Devdiscourse's journalists were not involved in the production of this article. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)