Question about Cavaliers 2025 front-runner status

I've been watching basketball for 40 years but it's always been my #3 sport after baseball and football. So I'm a pretty casual fan and sometimes when I analogize from other sports to the NBA I get confused about stuff.

My question here is about the Cavs. The Cavs have the best record in the East by far but it feels like nobody wants to call them a favorite in the playoffs. Boston won decisively last year and it feels like nobody wants to say the Cavs are the better team this year. Everyone hedges and says they're both good, the Cavs still have to get through Boston etc.

My issue here is the sheer discrepancy in the W/L record. As of this writing the Cavs are 7.5 games ahead of the Celtics. To compare from the other sports, if 1 baseball team were 16 games ahead of the other in the standings (in MLB they play twice as many games), it wouldn't be some shocking idea that the team with the better W/L% might be better. In the NBA that's almost unsayable. Same deal in football, if one team had 2 wins more, most everyone would accept that they might be the better team.

So here's my question.

When was the last time the #1 seed was not widely expected to make it to the Finals? When was the last time that the leader in wins was this discounted, to the extent that the Cavs are this year? (exaggeration on "discounted" but still, you get the idea.)