By the Numbers: Five Figures That Explain Last Season's…

By the Cavaliers Nightly Desk · Sunday, October 4

Cleveland sits at 0-0 with no games played yet in 2026-27. Every figure below comes from last season, and together they point at where the roster held up and where it didn't.

Cavaliers Nightly artwork — Illustration by Hoops Nightly.

How good was last season's 52-30 team, really?

Cleveland finished 52-30 with a net rating of plus-4.1, ninth in the league, built on a 118.3 offensive rating that ranked sixth against a 114.1 defensive mark that ranked 15th. That gap says the engine ran through buckets, not stops. It does not say the defense got fixed, or that the formula survives a new season opener.

Which five-man unit actually worked last season?

The Mitchell-Allen-Wade-Mobley-Tyson group outscored opponents by 15.4 points per 100 possessions across 80 minutes, running a 115.4 offense and a 100 defense, the best two-way look on the roster. Eighty minutes is a small sample. It proves the pieces fit together; it does not prove Atkinson gave that five enough run to matter.

What went wrong with the Mitchell-Hunter-Garland-Mobley-Tyson five?

That group played 89 minutes and got outscored by 14.7 points per 100 possessions, bleeding a 126.3 defensive rating with Garland on the floor. It's the clearest red number on the sheet. It does not explain why, and Garland isn't on the current roster at all.

What happened to Jaylon Tyson's minutes by the end of last season?

Tyson averaged 26.9 minutes for the season but just 8.3 over his final five games, a 15.7-minute fall. That's a real benching, not a rotation tweak. It does not say why Atkinson pulled him, and nothing about his 13.2 points on 44.6 percent shooting from three explains a drop that steep.

Why did Cleveland's margin collapse down the stretch last season?

The Cavaliers scored at plus-2.8 per game across the full season but fell to minus-5.7 over their final ten, a nearly nine-point swing. That lines up with Tyson's benching and the struggling Mitchell-Hunter-Garland-Mobley-Tyson five's minutes. It does not prove one caused the other, and no injury or trade on record explains the fade.

The verdictLast season's numbers point at a defense and a bench rotation that broke down before the finish line, not a roster that needs blowing up. Whether Atkinson fixes it gets tested in preseason, not on a spreadsheet.

Is Darius Garland still on the Cavaliers roster?

No. He does not appear on the current roster list, even though he was part of last season's lineup data.

Did Jaylon Tyson get hurt or benched last season?

The record shows only a steep drop in his minutes over his last five games, from 26.9 down to 8.3 a night. No injury was reported for him, so it reads as a benching, not an injury.

By the Cavaliers Nightly Desk, written from the club's data and the reports on file, with every name and number checked against them. How the desks work.