Channing Frye says ‘not a chance’ 2025 Cavs beat 2016 Cavs, claims current team ‘doesn’t have a bully’

To this day, the 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers stand out as the most successful team in the history of the franchise. The Cavaliers were spearheaded by forward LeBron James, guard Kyrie Irving and big man Kevin Love and captured the 2016 NBA title after they beat a Golden State Warriors team — that had won 73 games in the regular season — in the championship series.

Former NBA big man Channing Frye played for that Cavs squad, and he thinks the current iteration of the Cavaliers wouldn’t stand a chance against that title team.

“Not a chance on God’s green earth,” Frye said. “Not a chance. Not a chance. Not a chance. Because the Cavs don’t have a bully. This Cavs team doesn’t have a bully. And at the end of the day, we had a bully. We had two. We had Bron and Kyrie. And at the end of the day, we’re going to get a layup. Evan Mobley, you’re great. You ain’t guarding LeBron like that. And also, if you think about the shooters we had, we were a better shooting team than this team.”

It’s worth noting that the current Cavs squad is on track to finish with the most wins in any one season in franchise history. Cleveland is on pace to win a whopping 69 games, while the 2015-16 Cavaliers won 57 games in the regular season.

This season’s Cavaliers also just tied a franchise record for most consecutive wins with their victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday night. Cleveland came out on top by five points and picked up its 15th win in a row. The Cavaliers can set a new team record with a victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday.

But for as well as the Cavaliers have fared in the regular season, this core ultimately has yet to prove that they can advance deep into the playoffs. Guard Donovan Mitchell is in his third season as a member of Cleveland, and the team hasn’t advanced past the second round since he joined the team.

In the 2023 NBA Playoffs, Cleveland lost to the New York Knicks in the first round despite being the higher seed. The Cavaliers won their first playoff series with Mitchell in the fold in the 2024 NBA Playoffs when they beat the Orlando Magic in seven games, but Cleveland was then eliminated by the Boston Celtics in a gentleman’s sweep in the following round.

Until the current Cavaliers prove that they can win at a high level in the playoffs, the 2015-16 team should be favored in a hypothetical matchup, though fans will never get to see the two squads face off.