Let's just do a comparison
Irving > Thomas
Hayward > Horford
Horford > Bradley
That is the top 3 players, all are better than their counterpart last year
That's really bizarre math. Why wouldn't we do that comparison like so:
Irving > Thomas (Today, with an injured Thomas. Not necessarily last season.)
Horford == Horford
Hayward > Bradley
So really, it's not exactly a case where all three of our best players now are better than all three of our best players last year. Horford is Horford. Yes, he may play better with a year in this system. But he'll also be a year older and the system around him will be with totally new teammates. And being a 'glue' guy, a lot will be on his shoulders to make all these new parts work together.
Irving is an improvement over Thomas if Thomas is injured. But he's not an improvement over the Thomas that played last year. And it remains to be seen how long Thomas will be injured this year or if he'll be able to recover.
Hayward is, no argument from me, a big improvement over Avery.
So you are really looking at an improvement in at ONE of the 'big 3' spots over last year.
Now, I consider that a pretty significant improvement, actually. Because having just one extra elite scoring option should be a massive help all by itself.
But it is silly to characterize that as having upgrades at all three of the 'three best players'.
Whether the rest of the rotation works out as better remains to be seen. I firmly believe have a lot more _talent_ in the rest of the roster. But they are desperately short on _experience_ and the obvious chemistry that last year's roster had. Much of that lack of experience should be mitigated by the time the playoffs get here, but it will still be a thing.
Overall, because of Hayward and the aforementioned overall bump in talent, AND because more teams in the East are going to suck, I DO think this team will win more games than last year. I'm down for about 56-58 wins.
But I can also understand a lot of the concerns being expressed.
And if Thomas does come back close to full strength by the time the playoffs get here, CLE if still going to look like a very tough wall to climb over.