The undefeated Cavaliers are just getting started as a threat in the East

The scary part isn’t the 15-0 start or the depth of this talented roster. It’s not their blistering offense under new coach Kenny Atkinson or the development of Evan Mobley, who in his fourth season is finally becoming everything he was promised coming out of college.

No, the part that should send the rest of the league reeling as the Cleveland Cavaliers prepare for their long-awaited NBA Cup showdown with the Boston Celtics is much simpler: If the Cavs’ game window were an NBA game, haven’t they even taken off their warm up jerseys yet.

This team is just getting started.

As the top contenders adjust to the parity party the new collective bargaining agreement has put on the league, the Cavaliers have the advantage of arriving fashionably late.

Former champions like the Denver Nuggets and Milwaukee Bucks were built under the old system and now struggle to keep their game windows open while complying with apron rules and more punitive tax penalties. The Cavs were still growing and maturing in recent seasons as the new CBA was negotiated and implemented.

Now, there may not be a team other than the Oklahoma City Thunder as equipped on their cap sheet for what lies ahead as the Cavaliers.

The Cavs had the benefit of seeing teams like the Phoenix Suns struggle against the limitations of the second apron and struggle to supplement their roster with talented role players, so Cleveland turned the other way.

Instead of breaking up the core of a team that advanced to the conference semifinals last year, Cavs president Koby Altman doubled down with lucrative extensions for everyone. Over the summer, Mobley, Donovan Mitchell, Isaac Okoro and Jarrett Allen all signed deals totaling 14 years and $503 million to stay in Cleveland.

That kind of stability ensures the Cavs have six of their top players — those four plus Darius Garland and Max Strus — under team control for at least the next three years and, in some cases, even longer.

Just as importantly, the Cavs haven’t been a tax team since LeBron James started in 2018. They began this season just a few million dollars in the luxury tax and have plenty of time and opportunity to slip under the line if they choose to delay the start of their tax clock just yet a year.

Cavs owner Dan Gilbert has never been shy about paying taxes. Cleveland had the league’s highest tax bill the year it won the championship, and it remains among the franchise leaders in total luxury tax.

The Cavs weren’t expected to become a tax team until next season, when Mobley’s max extension begins, but their historic start could force them to rethink their position before the trade deadline.

They are still limited in available draft assets to trade after acquiring Mitchell, though they can offer trade rights to their 2030 pick, and their 2031 first-rounder is now in play if a potential trade partner is interested in scouting current eighth graders.

Those are the kinds of conversations and decisions Gilbert and Altman will welcome after an incredible start to the season has them opening their championship game a year earlier than expected.

Nevertheless, if the dreaded second apron and revamped penalties for repeat offenders teach the league anything, it’s to avoid the treacherous waters until and unless the roster is without glaring weaknesses.

The Cavs took advantage of learning from the teams that went before them and wisely signed as many players to extensions as they could before even worrying about the tax.

“There are two or three teams last year that went over the second seed that had tough summers,” Altman said before the season. “If you don’t reach that peak and you can’t get better, what does it matter? And you have this astronomical tax bill.”

Boston already has one championship and is now trying to shift eras from the days when heavy spending wasn’t as punishing to this more punishing tax world. The Celtics are well into the second apron now, but won’t face their first real stress test until next season, when Jayson Tatum’s $300 million supermax begins, along with extensions for Derrick White and Sam Hauser. The Celtics could be staring at a tax-penalty payroll north of $450 million next season, which would obliterate the Warriors’ previous record of $384 million. It’s no wonder, given those price tags, why the Celtics are now for sale.

The skyrocketing tax penalties are also what pushed Marc Lasry out of the NBA and allowed billionaire Jimmy Haslam, who also owns the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, to buy half of the Bucks.

Gilbert is one of the NBA’s richest owners after taking Quicken Loans public in 2020. How high he’s willing to go on taxes remains to be seen, but it’s an issue the Cavs won’t have to worry about anytime soon future. They won’t even hit repeat offender status until the 2027-28 season – and that’s if they stay in the charge this year. If they wiggle out of it before February, they won’t have to worry about repeat offender status until 2028-29. Mobley and Allen are the only two players still under team control.

“There’s definitely a part of us that looks at it and says, keep your best players under contract as long as you can,” Altman said. “Until you get to this zone where almost the NBA doesn’t want you to be in — keeping your most talented players under contract. Then it just becomes a discussion about how much Dan will go into the tax. We never have been afraid of. It’s more strategic when you do it and when you become repeats. We’re lucky to have ownership that’s not afraid of the number. It’s when we go in and how good we can be we are in.”

The Cavs already have their answer to the second question. They are really, really good. And that’s just the first quarter.

(Top photo: Jason Miller/Getty Images)