Cleveland Cavaliers Rank 28th in ESPN's Preseason NBA Power Rankings

With the Cavaliers season starting in under 24 hours (!!!!), here is where the Cavaliers stand according to the various Power Rankings around the Internet. Keep in mind that these are mostly meaningless because the season hasn't even started yet. Still, it's somewhat interesting to see what people think of the Cavs as the NBA season is less than 24 hours (!!!!) from tipping off.

ESPN's Marc Stein released his second round of Power Rankings today and has the Cavaliers at 28th. Here's what he had to say:

Those 10 Cavs with two seasons or less of NBA experience are in for a testing start, to say the least. After a shaky preseason for rookie Dion Waiters, and Kyrie Irving's trip to the dentist to remove four wisdom teeth, Cleveland soon leaves town for a six-game trip.

Seth Rosenthal of SBNation.com has the Cavaliers at 26th. Other than (thankfully) admitting that his power rankings are pretty arbitrary, he said this about the Cavs coming into the season:

Kyrie Irving is a majestic creature, but last year's offensively and defensively poor squad plus a couple rookies still looks like a pretty bad team. Note that this low ranking neglects the possibility that Kyrie Irving has taken up asexual reproduction and will bud additional Kyrie Irvings as the season progresses.

Finally, here is what FoxSports.com and Ohio's own Sam Amico had to say after placing the Cavaliers 25th on October 25th:

Extremely young team must figure out who's No. 2 option. Either way, Kyrie Irving gives Cavs a chance most nights.

My take is that the Cavaliers will probably out-perform these rankings by the end of the season. However, with so much youth and so many question marks surrounding who will score, these rankings are probably pretty fair and accurate at the beginning of the season. I don't understand how anyone could have this team below a John Wall-and-Nene-less Wizards, but that's just one man's opinion.

(Seriously, that team is starting A.J. Price and Trevor Booker tomorrow. Yes, the same Trevor Booker who said he "likes to get crunk" a week ago. But I digress.)

With a somewhat easy schedule to begin the season (their first three games are against a depleted Washington, a Rose-less Chicago, and a schizophrenic Milwaukee), it's not difficult to see how this ranking could be quite different come next week.

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Welp, there's my first official post for you guys here at Fear The Sword. I'll be working with Conrad and the rest of the phenomenal staff here to provide you guys with news, analysis, and hopefully a few laughs as we follow the Cavaliers and their season this year. I'm on Twitter at @Sam_Vecenie where I'll probably be mass tweeting a majority of Cavaliers games this year, along with my other random musings. Glad to be on board this year and hopefully you guys enjoy some of the stuff I write.