Reasons to doubt every NBA championship contender

Cleveland Cavaliers

Reason: Where is the leadership on the Cavaliers?

The Cleveland Cavaliers shouldn’t be two games over .500 with a 22-20 record. The Cavaliers shouldn’t be in the fifth spot in the Eastern Conference playoff hunt. They should be better.

One of the biggest reasons why the Cavaliers have looked out of sync this season isn’t because of all the new moving parts, it’s because of the lack of leadership and accountability that this organization has.

Every week in Cleveland we hear a new report on their team. One week Kevin Love wants to go play for the Lakers. The next week LeBron James wants to play with Dwyane Wade again. We’ve even heard how head coach David Blatt won’t make it to the end of the season.

The lack of leadership not only is hurting the Cavaliers in their off the court lives, it’s starting to affect their play on the basketball court. It’s the reason why the Cavaliers play such bad defense allowing 100.5 points per game, which is 19th overall in the league.

Whether its players who don’t play hard defensively, players who don’t close out on shots, or even players who grab food during timeouts. It all comes back to a lack of blatant leadership.

We knew that when the Cavaliers added LeBron James and Kevin Love to play with Kyrie Irving that winning was going to become a process.

James said this in his letter announcing his decision to come back to Cleveland:

"My patience will get tested. I know that. I’m going into a situation with a young team and a new coach. I will be the old head. But I get a thrill out of bringing a group together and helping them reach a place they didn’t know they could go."

If they don’t get this fixed the Cavaliers might not go to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Next: Houston Rockets