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The Cleveland Cavaliers are struggling at 2-5 and sit near the bottom of most NBA power rankings from around the web. All the power rankings seem to agree that Kyrie Irving is a star and that Anderson Varejao and Dion Waiters are good pieces to build on for Cleveland. Unfortunately, the power rankings also all agree the Cavs have the worst bench in the league.
In Seth Rosenthal's power rankings at SB Nation, the Cavs come in at No. 25. Rosenthal highlights the strengths and weakness of the Cavs succinctly.
The Cavs' bench is as awful as Kyrie Irving is wonderful and Kyrie Irving is EXTREMELY wonderful.
Cleveland comes in at No. 27 in Marc Stein's power rankings at ESPN and Stein points out that in addition to no bench play, the Cavs struggle mightily on defense. John Schuhmann of NBA.com has the Cavs at No. 27 and offers up an interesting fact:
The Cavs' starting lineup has now had a positive plus-minus in six of their seven games, including a plus-17 on Sunday in OKC. The Cavs lost that game by 15, just the latest example of how awful their bench has been.
Kurt Helin of Pro Basketball Talk has Cleveland at No. 25 and the Cavs are No. 23 in Matt Moore's power ranking at CBS.
Overall that gives the Cavaliers an average power ranking of 25.4. Cleveland hopes to find its way back into the win column against the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday.