Cleveland Cavaliers

The deal with the devil that you make when you have LeBron James on your team, is that tomorrow never comes. You're always building for the present, future be damned.

The problem with that is what happens if/when LeBron skips town?

LeBron's defection to Hollywood a season ago, as expected, left the Cavs a shell of themselves.

To the team's credit, the rebuild began straight away, with veterans like George Hill, JR Smith and Kyle Korver all jettisoned. In fact, no Cav over the age of 27 played in half of their games last season. Not that it was all planned as 30 year old Kevin Love was limited to just 22 games due to injury.

That robbed the team of it's best player but also the front office of an important trade chip, with teams reluctant to bet on Love's health.

That's delayed the rebuild, but Love's play (and ability to stay) on the court means he should get traded, adding draft picks to a young back court of Collin Sexton and Darius Garland and wing Cedi Osman.

Like all post LeBron rebuilds, this might take a while.

Washington Wizards

The Wizards are currently 5-8 and tied with Orlando for the 8th seed in the Easter Conference. So why are they a lock to miss the playoffs? The short answer: defense.

This team is a blast to watch. They race up and down the floor, zip passes from corner to corner and fire from deep at a rapid rate. The team currently have 6 players scoring in double figures, led by Bradley Beal's 30.3 per game.

Box plus/minus tells a story with these Wizards, though.

On offence 7 players are in the positive and six of those are regular rotation pieces, with rookie Rui Hachimura not far off on -0.1. On defense? Thomas Bryant at 0.3 is the only rotation player not in the red.

There's no silver bullet or knight in shining armour coming to save this team, either – despite what injured point guard John Wall may think.

Wall has always been an astonishing shot blocker for a guard, but his overall defense has really only topped out as above average. But at age 29, with a history of serious leg injuries and, shall we say, conditioning issues, will Wall be the same player he once was at either end of the floor?

The Wiz will be a fun ride this year, but the offence surely isn't sustainable. They'll be on the outside looking in.

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