Cavs Roll Out a 2K Fever Dream Lineup with Harden and Mitchell

The Cleveland Cavaliers are officially rolling out a starting five on Thursday that sounds like a late-night NBA 2K experiment where someone accidentally turned off the salary cap.

According to Underdog NBA, Cleveland will start James Harden, Donovan Mitchell, Peyton Watson, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen.

This is the kind of lineup that makes you wonder if the equipment manager needs to sneak a second basketball onto the court. Harden and Mitchell sharing a backcourt is a usage-rate fever dream, while playing two traditional bigs in Mobley and Allen means the paint is going to look like a rush-hour traffic jam.

Then there is Peyton Watson, who might just be out there getting his steps in and waiting for a defensive assignment while the other four guys figure out who gets to shoot.

So far, the sheer talent overload is working. The Cavaliers are sitting at a flawless 3-0 after outscoring the Brooklyn Nets, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Washington Wizards in a trio of high-scoring shootouts. They have not scored fewer than 121 points in a game yet this season.

For the fantasy managers and prop bettors trying to read the tea leaves, this rotation is a nightly headache. Trying to predict which guard goes off or which big cleans up the glass is basically a coin flip when the floor is this crowded with former All-Stars and high-end prospects.

We will see how this supersized, ball-dominant experiment looks when they take it on the road against the Atlanta Hawks. If Cleveland keeps putting up 125 points a night, nobody is going to care how weird the spacing looks on paper.