![Cleveland Cavaliers Tristan Thompson [Image by Keith Allison / Flickr]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/10/27/660x290/b_502x220x82/cleveland-cavaliers-tristan-thompson-image-by-keith-allison-flickr_1658973.jpg "Cleveland Cavaliers Tristan Thompson [Image by Keith Allison / Flickr]")
When the 2017-18 NBA season opened, the Cleveland Cavaliers made some huge changes to their starting lineup. While the Cavaliers have seen great success and made it to three consecutive NBA Finals, they wanted to make some moves this year to try to improve enough to possibly overcome the Golden State Warriors by the end of this season. However, the changes didn't work out as well as hoped and they are making another change ahead of their Saturday game with the New Orleans Pelicans.
The Cavaliers lineups so far this season
The changes came due to some personnel changes for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The team traded their starting point guard Kyrie Irving for Isaiah Thomas, but the former Boston Celtics superstar is injured and won't be back until December - at the earliest. That means that the Cavaliers were moving to former NBA MVP, and another newcomer, Derrick Rose to start at point guard.
The Cavaliers also moved Kevin Love to center to give them more offensive stars on the floor at one time and moved former center Tristan Thompson to the bench. Finally, the Cavaliers signed former Finals MVP Dwyane Wade and named him the starting shooting guard over J.R. Smith.
The Cleveland Cavaliers opened the 2017-18 NBA season with a 3-2 record, and that just wasn't good enough. Derrick Rose missed the last three games with an ankle injury and his replacement Jose Calderon played so poorly in his absence that the Cavaliers moved LeBron James to point guard.
Kevin Love has admitted that his move to center was not something that he felt comfortable with but he seems to be playing well. Dwyane Wade is another story, going the first three games of his Cleveland Cavaliers career with single-digits in scoring. He asked to move back to the bench, with JR Smith taking his starting role back.
The new Cavaliers starting lineup
Cleveland Cavaliers beat reporter Dave McMenamin reported on Twitter that the Cleveland Cavaliers have a new starting lineup in practice on Friday. The new starting lineup looks very, very familiar - LeBron James, Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson, J.R. Smith and Derrick Rose.
While Derrick Rose is back from injury and ready to start at point guard again, that is the spot that Kyrie Irving played last year.
Other than that, it looks like the exact same lineup that the Cleveland Cavaliers played with last season - LeBron at small forward, Love back at power forward, Smith at shooting guard and Tristan back in the starting lineup at center.
