Last Season:	50-32
Preview prediction:	58-24
Oddsmakers:	49-33

Our offense went into stagnant mode so often last year, it was often painful to watch. I swear if they ran a high school motion offense last year, they would’ve won 5 more games. The fact that this team won 50 games is a miracle to anyone who watched every one of their games last season. It’s a testament to how good LeBron really is. Additional movement with and especially without the ball will work miracles here - cut to the hole and LeBron will find you.

Stats guru John Hollinger shared similar sentiments in his Cleveland preview, but in an even more incendiary way:

So that's what is so amazing about the Cavs' season -- it's not that they won 50 games. It's that they won 50 games even though the season was a total disaster. Their big three free agents couldn't possibly have been any worse, their point guards were ruinously bad and the wingmen who replaced Hughes for half the year would have had trouble starting in the Big Ten.

As Hollinger noted, the Cavs' big free agent signings accounted for 3 of the top 4 declines in Player Efficiency Rating from '04-05 to '05-06: Larry Hughes (#1), Donyell Marshall (#3), and Damon Jones (#4). When you look at it that way (and Hollinger often does), it's hard to argue with the YAYsports assertion that things could have been a lot worse. LeBron's continued development, team continuity, and decent play from everyone else should propel the Cavaliers to a much better season in 2006-07.

And yet, Vegas doesn't agree—the over/under on Cleveland regular season wins is actually down to 49. If The Cavalier is a betting man (and this certainly suggests that he is), I'd have to assume that he's pumping a substantial portion of his Who Shot Mamba? royalties into the over. Barring the unthinkable injury, I'm expecting a significant improvement as well.