CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cavs are sitting at 6-6, and that matters a lot more than the sky-is-falling chatter would have you believe.
They’ve been uneven, sure. They’ve had nights that made the whole operation look shaky, including the opening-night collapse against Philadelphia when they blew a 29-point lead and Monday’s flat loss to a struggling Charlotte team. But a .500 record is a long way from disaster, and it’s a long way from the kind of record that usually triggers a teardown.
That’s why Charles Barkley’s halftime verdict during Cleveland’s 115-107 win over the Knicks on Wednesday night landed so hard.
“Man, the Cavs suck.”
Barkley went further, arguing the team should have been broken up and saying, “This will be the third year … James (Harden) is older, but this is the third year in a row they’ve had a good record … and you think they’ll get a different result? They’re not going to get a different result. So they suck."
The problem with that line of thinking is that it doesn’t match what the Cavs actually are right now.
This is not the same group that rolled into last season. The team broke up its “Core Four” of Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen and Darius Garland when Garland was traded to the Clippers for Harden in the middle of last season.
Dean Wade was in the starting mix at small forward early last season, and later De’Andre Hunter filled that spot. Both are gone now, along with Garland.
That’s three of their top seven players from the start of last season.
And while Harden can still drive people nuts with his heavy dribbling and spotty defense, the Cavs’ own front office and coaching staff have a strong argument on their side. Team president Koby Altman and coach Kenny Atkinson both believe Cleveland would not have reached the Eastern Conference finals without him. Garland’s slight frame and injury history, meanwhile, have made him a playoff concern.
The bigger point is that change has already happened here. Garland for Harden was a major shift.
Peyton Watson in the lineup at small forward is a meaningful upgrade over Wade or Hunter. This isn’t a team standing still.
Still, the loudest sports talk answer is always the same: fire the coach, trade starters, start over.
That’s the world the Cavs are living in, even when it makes little sense. There was even a recent radio discussion suggesting Cleveland needed a hard-nosed coach like J.B. Bickerstaff - the same Bickerstaff the Cavs dismissed in the summer of 2024.
And that’s where the history gets interesting. Cleveland fired Mike Brown twice.
Brown left and eventually coached the Knicks to the NBA title. The Cavs also moved on from Bickerstaff after he took them out of the lottery and into the playoffs.
He landed in Detroit and finished runner-up to Boston’s Joe Mazzulla for NBA Coach of the Year last season. Atkinson then came in and won the 2025 NBA Coach of the Year award.
That’s a pretty strong coaching tree to dismiss so casually.
The average NBA coach lasts three years with one team, and the Cavs have cycled through Mike Brown, Bickerstaff and Atkinson - all of them proven coaches with real résumés. Sometimes the smartest move isn’t the loudest one.
There’s also the roster reality. Cleveland’s offseason moves to get below the dreaded second apron of the salary cap led to the departures of veterans Max Strus and Dennis Schroder, while Wade and Keon Ellis also left via free agency. That opened the door for a younger bench, and the long-term picture looks better because of it.
Meleek Thomas, Tyrese Proctor and Jaylon Tyson are part of that group. Thomas is just 20 and already averaging 13 points in 23 minutes.
A rookie who spent one year at Arkansas, he’s shooting exactly 48% from the field and from 3-point range. He gives the Cavs another scorer and shot creator behind Mitchell and Harden.
Proctor, in his second pro season, is averaging 6.8 points in 17 minutes. At 6-foot-4, he can handle both guard spots and even some small forward. He should be getting more than 17 minutes a night, and Atkinson has started to lean on him more.
Tyson has been dealing with an ankle issue, while Sam Merrill has been out with an elbow injury. Tyson is healthy now, and his energy fits with what Cleveland gets when Proctor and Thomas are on the floor.
Merrill’s absence matters. Last season, the Cavs were 37-15 when he played and 15-15 when he was hurt.
Over his career, Cleveland is 136-62 when he appears in a game. That’s not a small thing, and right now they miss him.
The bigger lesson may come from last season’s turnaround. On Dec. 27, the Cavs were 17-16 and dealing with injuries and chemistry issues.
From there, they went 35-14. The late-season additions of Schroder, Ellis and Harden helped, but so did Atkinson figuring out his rotations and the team settling into better basketball.
That’s why patience still belongs in the conversation, even if nobody likes the word.
It applies to the young players. It applies to the coach sorting through different lineups.
And it applies to Harden, too. He’s 37 and has played only 56 games with the Cavs, including 18 in the 2025-26 playoffs.
In some ways, he and Cleveland are still figuring each other out.
Harden has also said he wasn’t in great shape when he got to training camp because he barely played over the summer while waiting on his contract. Agents generally tell players to stay out of pickup games during negotiations, since an injury can wreck a deal. He’s known for starting seasons slowly before finishing strong, and the Cavs are waiting to see whether that pattern shows up again.
So yes, the Cavs can be frustrating.
But 6-6 is not a collapse. It’s not a reason to blow everything up. And it’s certainly not enough to declare this team finished when the history says Cleveland often ends up looking a lot better than it does in November.
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