The 15-16 Warriors were 73-9 and your mission is to take the 15-16 Cavs and add other '15-'16 players around LeBron to build a team that will *consistently* beat them. What is the most realistic configuration we can find that would beat the Warriors?

My first try: I replaced '15-'16 Love with '15-16 Melo and also '15-'16 Kyrie with '15-'16 CP3, and they got swept with two blowouts on the road and two close home losses: 0-4, let's try something else! Can a Bron-Melo-CP3 core work with different role players or do we start somewhere else?

GM LeBron needs help!!!

tbh: probably would replace everyone on the cavs.

I replaced Lebron with 96-97 Jordan.

The Jordan Cavs took Game 2 on the road by 14, but lost in 5.

what is the salary cap?

Traded Kyrie for Greek Freak. Lost in 5 to the Warriors twice

i kept the Kyrie for Freak trade, and then traded Kevin Love, J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson to Portland for C.J. McCollum, Ed Davis and Mason Plumlee, something that could actually happen in real life, considering that Love is from Oregon.

I did three 2-2-1-1-1 series. In the first, the Cavs lost in 7. In the second, the Cavs lost in 5, and in the third, the Cavs lost in 5.

This is frustrating. I feel like Dwight Howard or Pau Gasol might be the answer. Trying to find a way to make it work....

Posted by ashamael on 6/7/2016 5:50:00 PM (view original):
what is the salary cap?

Dan Gilbert is willing to spend anything! Challenge is most realistic scenario though, so I guess getting the salaries reasonably close would be part of it, especially because IRL Cavs have highest payroll in the league by far.

Anyone is expendable, but remember we gotta keep LeBron b/c he is The Savior! Also, '97 Jordan would have just literally murdered everyone else in the locker room (starting with Kevin Love), and so they wouldn't be able to field a team, so that time machine strategy would have backfired. ;)

Best get this done before WIS adjusts the Def ratings for the Dubs though, LOL.

I mean, if you give me free reign, I'll murder the dubs with what I can build. Got to keep it realistic...

Gobert/Whiteside/Deandre
KD/Kawhi
Lebron/Giannis
CP3/Rondo

for a mere 60m+

		Name	Team	Pos	Usage%	2pt%#	3pt%#	eFG%	OReb%	DReb%	Ast%	Stl%	Blk%
		Rudy Gobert	15-16 Jazz	C	14.2	55.6	0.0	55.9	11.8	26.2	6.4	1.1	4.3
		DeAndre Jordan	15-16 Clippers	C	15.4	70.1	0.0	70.3	11.3	30.8	4.4	0.9	3.9
		Kevin Durant	15-16 Thunder	SF	30.6	56.5	38.6	57.3	1.9	20.7	16.5	1.2	1.8
		LeBron James	15-16 Cavaliers	SF	31.4	57.0	30.8	55.1	4.4	17.9	23.8	1.8	1.1
		Chris Paul	15-16 Clippers	PG	27.1	49.7	37.0	51.7	1.8	11.3	38.5	2.8	0.3
		Hassan Whiteside	15-16 Heat	C	20.7	60.1	0.0	60.5	12.5	30.3	1.8	1.0	7.3
		Kawhi Leonard	15-16 Spurs	SF	25.8	52.4	44.2	56.5	4.5	17.4	9.4	2.5	1.8
		Rajon Rondo	15-16 Kings	PG	18.8	47.5	36.4	49.4	3.2	14.5	39.9	2.4	0.2
		Giannis Antetokounmpo	15-16 Bucks	SF	22.3	53.3	25.6	52.0	4.4	18.8	15.4	1.5	2.3

yeah. Easy.

Here is a team that has about the same salary (Under 43 million) and minutes (Over 19,000) that is realistic. Every player who's contract is expiring I released and only added players, like howard and conley, who will be free agents. This team won three out of three series I simmed with Warriors having home field advantage each time. They won in 7 the first two times then in 5 the third time.

Name	Pos	Usage%	2pt%#	3pt%#	eFG%	OReb%	DReb%	Ast%	Stl%	Blk%
15-16 LeBron James	SF	31.4	57.0	30.8	55.1	4.4	17.9	23.8	1.8	1.1
15-16 Kevin Love	PF	23.4	46.3	35.9	49.9	6.6	27.0	9.6	1.1	1.0
15-16 J.R. Smith	SG	18.0	43.5	39.9	53.5	1.9	7.9	6.9	1.6	0.5
15-16 Dwight Howard	C	18.4	62.3	0.0	62.0	11.0	27.5	5.5	1.3	2.8
15-16 Tristan Thompson	PF	11.7	58.5	0.0	58.8	12.6	22.1	3.4	0.8	1.3
15-16 Mike Conley	PG	22.4	44.5	36.2	47.8	1.5	8.8	25.5	1.8	0.6
15-16 Kyrie Irving	PG	29.5	49.9	32.0	49.6	2.8	7.2	18.8	1.6	0.6
15-16 Iman Shumpert	SG	13.2	44.3	29.4	44.4	2.6	13.9	8.8	1.9	0.9
15-16 O.J. Mayo	SG	17.0	41.8	32.0	45.2	1.3	9.0	13.7	2.0	0.4
15-16 Kevin Martin	SG	23.5	37.7	36.8	43.4	1.3	9.2	7.1	0.9	0.1
15-16 Ersan Ilyasova	SF	18.3	41.8	40.8	47.7	10.3	18.3	3.3	1.4	0.8
15-16 Channing Frye	PF	18.2	58.3	37.6	57.2	2.9	19.4	7.3	0.8	1.1

Easy!!! Get GM LeBron on the horn and get these men front office jobs and in The Chosen One's entourage!

A few other remarks:

1. What would it take to convince real-life LeBron to take on Dwight Howard at this point?!? Hmmm.... I think he would still want to run with Melo & CP3 against all reason.

2. What if LeBron questioned the validity of the Sim? That is, if someone ran the Warriors 82 game schedule through the SimMatchup, would their record really be 73-9 or close? If not, then we wouldn't have much confidence that the RL Dream Cavs could beat the RL Warriors if the Sim Warriors lose to teams they shouldn't in the sim. Well, someone did run the season (me), and it was close, somewhat: 67-15, with home losses to Memphis, OKC and the Clippers, and road losses to the Pellies, Clips (again), Denver, Dallas, Houston, Portland, Kings, Detroit, Bulls, Dallas (again), Memphis (again), and Spurs. So it is possible that the sim underestimates the Dubs just a bit. Now, I only ran through the season once, that is true, but unless the chances of finding 67-15 are the same as getting them to 79-3, the sim skews toward parity.

3. The real question is *why*---is it something about the Dubs players in particular that is impacting RL games more than the sim ones or just more 'randomness' that makes it difficult for extreme results (like 73-9) to emerge. I really wish I had tracked Steph's 3s to see if he got to 400. Another note--I left all the depth charts at default (because, well, otherwise it would have just been a huge pain, and this way it was at least fair). Also, as we know, D ratings haven't been added, maybe that would have an effect?

4. Maybe the easiest adjustment is to give the Sim Dubs homecourt throughout the entire Simmed Finals series, and see if any of these Sim Super Cavs can still consistently beat them. Their simmed home record was closer to RL.

5. In any case, it should be interesting to see how the real Cleveland LeBrons do in game 3. If the Death Lineup takes them out, we should totally start drafting a proposal to the Cavs!

6. Geez, I have too much time on my hands!!!

:)

Brian

The Cavs' interior defense is weak. Granted, Dwight will be a free agent and the Cavs can't sign him for anything reasonable, but Dwight shoots 62% from the field. He's still pretty athletic. If the Cavs can maintain their frontcourt depth and add Dwight somehow, he is the sort of player for which the Warriors have no answer. There are only so many centers big enough and athletic enough to contend with Dwight (Marcin Gortat, Tyson Chandler, maybe Myles Turner, Enes Kanter and Steven Adams, etc.) The Warriors have none of them.