His team finished atop the regular season Eastern Conference last year, and all expectations are that the Cleveland Cavaliers will be again in that vicinity in 2025-26.
But Kenny Atkinson’s coaching resume qualifies him to look West, too, and he believes people may be sleeping on a group of players sittin’ on the dock of The Bay.
While Oklahoma City is odds-on to repeat their conference dominance and maybe even repeat as league champion — and Houston with Kevin Durant is poised to crash that party — the Cavs’ leader is saying the Warriors, the team for which he spent three years as an assistant before taking over in Cleveland, are ready to come out and play.
And win.
The in-season acquisition of Jimmy Butler last year altered the Golden State course, giving Steph Curry a different and in some ways better scoring counterpoint than departed Splash Brother Klay Thompson. Things were looking up, but Curry went down — and out for the remainder — with a hamstring injury after 13 minutes (and 13 points) in the second round series opener against Minnesota, and the Warriors were gone in five games.
Atkinson now thinks it would be foolish or worse to overlook them.
“Especially with Al (Horford), and they added (De’Anthony) Melton, too,” he told Heavy following a Sunday morning shootaround at TD Garden before that evening’s preseason meeting with the Celtics. “They did a great job with the roster. And they’ve got Steph (Curry) and Draymond (Green) still. If they’re healthy in the playoffs, they can beat anybody.”
Anybody?
“Yeah, I think they’re that good. And they’ve got great coaching.”
Kenny Atkinson Says ‘I Never Talk About Winning or Championships, What Place We’re Going to Finish
Meanwhile, the Cavaliers have the reigning NBA Coach of the Year.
So, Kenny A., who’s gonna win the East?
“Ha-ha-ha-ha,” he replied. (Yes, I went back over the recording to count the “ha”s.) “Wide open, they tell me. That’s what everyone says.”
Not a confident answer, Mr. Atkinson.
“Seriously, you know, I never talk about winning or championships, what place we’re going to finish. I never do that with my guys. It’s just the daily work, the daily process, the daily grind. That’s just the way I look at it, and I’ve always looked at it that way.”
Perhaps part of his thinking is rooted in the knowledge gained from 16 years on an NBA bench that success on this level is so fragile.
“Yeah,” said Atkinson. “You have to stay healthy to win in this league. So some of it’s luck; some of it’s preparation. We know that, but it’s hard. It’s hard to win in the playoffs. You’ve got to have a lot of things go right.
“We got out of the gate great against Miami (4-0 first round sweep), then ran into a juggernaut quite honestly in Indiana (4-1 loss to the Pacers in next series).
“But we’ll be in the mix again, so… good challenge. We made some tweaks strategically, and we’ve had some adds. We’ve added Lonzo (Ball, from Chicago for Isaac Okoro) and Larry (Nance, Jr.) and TB (Thomas Bryant). So we tweaked the roster, and we’re going to tweak some stuff strategy-wise and see where we’re at.”
‘You Have to Keep Building & Getting Better Individually & as a Team’
A key may be getting the Donovan Mitchell-led club revved up again for the vaunted First 82 Games after winning 64 last year and seeing it all go poof.
“Yeah, but I think if youâre about improvement, then you have to keep building and getting better individually and as a team.” Atkinson said. “There’s no, ‘Ah, the regular season doesn’t matter. We’ve done that already.’ We’re not in that mindset at all.”
And, hey, the playoffs and opportunity for redemption are just six months away.
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