Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
Former Cleveland Cavaliers guard Iman Shumpert revealed that the Cavs won the NBA Finals in the 2015-16 season despite a lot of dysfunction within the team.
“It really was dysfunction,” Shumpert said. “We won because of dysfunction. Real talk. We just had a squad that it was like, dog, we wanna win so bad that it’s like you got all type of issues coming up. You knew Kai (Kyrie Irving) wanted to be Batman. You feel me? You knew I didn’t wanna play 2-guard no more. I don’t wanna share minutes with J.R. [Smith]. I actually like playing with J.R. I don’t wanna go back – I don’t wanna sub him out. We had all type of random little problems.”
The 2015-16 season was a bit of a wild one for the Cavs from start to finish, as the team fired head coach David Blatt during the season, paving the way for Tyronn Lue to take over.
In 41 games during the regular season, Lue led the Cavs to a 27-14 record before they went 16-5 in the playoffs to capture the title.
It’s interesting to hear Shumpert’s perspective of the season, as even with all of the dysfunction, the Cavs were able to stay together to come back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals.
Cleveland lost three of the first four games of the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors in 2016, but it won three games in a row to capture the first title in franchise history.
Irving hit a legendary shot in Game 7 to secure the win for the Cavs, and LeBron James had one of the most amazing blocks in NBA history on Andre Iguodala in the closing minutes as well.
Some of the dysfunction that Shumpert pointed out from the 2016 season eventually boiled over as Irving was dealt from the franchise to the Boston Celtics after the 2016-17 season. Cleveland still made the Finals in the 2017-18 season, but it lost to Golden State in that matchup.
Still, fans should remember the second stint that James spent with the Cavs as a great time in franchise history. Not only did the Cavs win the NBA Finals in 2016, but they made four straight appearances in the NBA Finals, marking one of the most successful runs for any franchise in the NBA.
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