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The Cleveland Cavaliers have lost five straight games and find themselves at or near the bottom of the latest sets of NBA power rankings.
Injuries have really hurt Cleveland this year, with star point guard Kyrie Irving and rookie shooting guard Dion Waiters both missing a significant amount of time. SB Nation's Seth Rosenthal, who has the Cavs at No. 28 in his rankings, notes just how awful those injuries are for the team:
The Cavs without Kyrie Irving are pretty bad. The Cavs without Kyrie Irving AND Dion Waiters are like a very dark, deeply disturbing traveling interactive theater art piece.
Other pundits are even less generous to the Cavs. ESPN's Marc Stein has Cleveland as the worst team in the league, down five spots from last week. Both NBA.com's John Schuhmann and Sporting News' Sean Deveney have the Cavs at No. 29, which is second-worst in the league. Luckily, Irving will be back on Tuesday against the Los Angeles Lakers.
The San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder are battling it out at the top of the rankings. Rosenthal and Stein have the Spurs on top, while Schuhmann and Deveney have the Thunder.