5 reasons the Cleveland Cavaliers can win the NBA Championship

3. Depth

LeBron James has three rings and eight finals appearances under his belt. Some of the past teams he carried to the finals should qualify as modern Herculean Labors. More recently, he’s led top-heavy, Big-3-type rosters to the summit of the basketball world. While the success of those rosters is obvious, they were also skeleton crews, devoid of playoff-caliber talent past seven or eight guys. The post-deadline Cavaliers is the deepest team Lebron’s played for.

What this year’s Cavaliers lack in front-end talent, they make up for in depth. Sure, unlike last year, they no longer rely on Kyrie Irving’s dribbling wizardry or big-shot making, but their mid-season overhaul brought in secondary players to fall back on like a network of support harnesses if things go south.

To refresh your memory here’s all their player movement from Feb. 8:

Shipped out: Jae Crowder, Channing Frye, Derrick Rose, Iman Shumpert, Isaiah Thomas, and Dwyane Wade.

Brought in: Jordan Clarkson, George Hill, Rodney Hood, and Larry Nance Jr.

I wrote about this at the time, but the Cavaliers dumped a washed-up six pack for superior players and better fits for their system. Cleveland can go 11 deep now, and that doesn’t even include the revitalized Jose Calderon or intriguing big, Ante Zizic. In the same vein, all that roster shuffling actually boosted their chemistry.