The Cavs Worst Nightmare Just Came True…

The Cavs Worst Nightmare Just Came True…

For the second straight year, the Cavs have failed to make the conference finals despite an unbelievable regular season, earning the one seed in the East. They lost to the Pacers in just five games in the second round and now go into the offseason with a ton of questions. Is this team good enough? It’s two straight years now, playoff disappointment, or they just a really good regular season team. They won 64 games and then didn’t even win more than one game in the second round of the postseason. Is the back court too small with Donova Mitchell and Darius Garland together? Do they need to break up that combination? Does Jared Allen and Eva Mobley work well enough together in the playoffs if you can’t finish games with them together? Do they need to break up the front court? Can you win a title with Donovan Mitchell as your best player? Are they just a good team but not a great team? There are a lot of questions in Cleveland. The positive thing for them is they don’t have to do anything this off seasonason from a contracts perspective. Everybody on the team with the exception of Tai Jerome, everybody that matters on the team is signed for at least the next couple of seasons. So there’s no looming Donovan Mitchell only has one year left on his deal. So he’s going to ask out. You have to do something. There’s nothing like that for Darius Garland. There’s nothing like that for Evan Mobley. If they chose to make changes to the roster, it would be a choice. It would not be forced upon them from a contract perspective. It might be forced upon them from a money perspective, which we’re going to get to later, but they don’t have to do anything if they don’t want to with the exception of, like I said, Ty Jerome. And there’s definitely a decision to be made there for Cleveland given the overall expense of the roster. He had an outstanding season, but there were definitely some issues for him in the Pacers series where they were just really hunting him on defense. They realize he just can’t really guard anybody at all. And that’s going to be a massive issue for them. So, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he ends up elsewhere depending on what his market is in free agency. So, given the fact that they don’t have to make any changes, if they did, it would be for one of two reasons. One, they just aren’t good enough and they need to shake it up. They need to change up something about their roster. Or it’s a money thing. Let’s start with the first thing. Let’s start with is the roster good enough. Clearly, this is a very good basketball team. They ran into a red-hot Pacers team that’s been playing awesome the second half of the year. They dealt with multiple injury issues. Evan Mobley had some issues. Darius Garland wasn’t healthy for the entirety of the Pacers series. Donovan Mitchell had some problems as well. And during the regular season, they did everything right to make sure that that didn’t happen, that they didn’t get hurt. They rested their guys all year. They didn’t play their main guys a ton of minutes at all. They still got the one seed. They made a mid-season move for someone in DeAndre Hunter that I think really helped them and then things just didn’t go their way in the postseason. Sometimes that’s how it is. But their team is built around two guards and two bigs. Neither of which you could argue fit super well together. So the question is, is it time to break up one or both of those pairings? Let’s start with Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland. Obviously, having an AllNBA guard and an all-star guard together is a great thing to have, but defensively there continue to be issues between each of them. Teams actively hunt Darius Scarlet on defense in every single postseason series, and him not having a bigger defensive guard alongside him in the back court is definitely detrimental to Cleveland overall. And remember last off seasonason there were a bunch of rumors around Darius Garland maybe not being happy in Cleveland especially if they chose to bring back Donovan Mitchell potentially forcing his way out. What were the trade destinations for Darius Garland? Things got pretty dramatic and then obviously Mitchell comes back they have an awesome season but it’s possible that they reexplore some of those conversations given how the end of the season went especially with Garland. And if you were to go down that path and you’re thinking about trading away Darius Garland, you’d want a a really good wing to connect the team and then you would assume that Donovan Mitchell would be the primary guy, the main focal point of your offense and that that would be good enough if you kind of spread out Darius Garland’s value throughout the rest of the roster. Now, it’s a little bit difficult to find really good Darius Garland destinations with that in mind because it’s hard to do like a win now trade when you’re sending away Darius Garland. For example, like the Nets would be interested in Darius Garland. They’d be interested in him as like a foundational piece for them. They could trade Cam Johnson who would really help the Cavs spacing. He’d help them on the wing and then they could give them the eighth pick in the draft and then the Cavs could use the eighth pick in the draft to go and get somebody else. It would also help them from a money perspective because the Nets have the cap space to just take on Darius Garland’s contract without sending out anything in return. So, it would save the Cavs some money. But, I don’t really know what you’d be getting for the eighth pick in this draft. And that seems like a really risky move for the Cavs to move on from Darius Garland when you don’t really know what else you’re getting outside of Cam Johnson. But I certainly think the Nets would be interested. If you want to get super weird, there’s some other options as well, like maybe you call and ask the Magic about France Vagner because they really need a a point guard. They need a creator. They’ve needed a guard for forever and France would be perfect for Cleveland depending on what they did then moving forward with Jared All and Evan Mobley together. And that would be a really good fit for them. But it’s just not often that you see those kinds of trades with two foundational pieces within the same conference. The point is Garland’s really good and trying to flip him in a win now move is going to be difficult given what the Cavs need. Trading away a guard for a connecting wing multiple pieces is just going to be difficult. And that’s the situation they put themselves in by pairing these two guys together in the first place. And for what it’s worth, I absolutely think that it can work moving forward. It was just a weird postseason for Garland and for the Cavs overall from an injury perspective. The more likely option for them, I think, in terms of breaking up the team is in the front court. Clearly, there’s a lot of discussion around Evan Mobley just being at the five full-time. Why would he play alongside Jared Allen? And then moving Jared Allen to a new situation and getting some pieces back that would help them on the perimeter. It seemed like the LA Lakers absolutely needs a fiveman like Jared Allen. That would be a perfect fit for them. He’s a long-term costcontrolled asset. They could trade Ruy Hachimura and Don Connect to the Cavs. And then the Cavs could have Ruy at the four alongside of Moley. they’d have Connect as a long-term piece and a shooter for them. And if it doesn’t work, Ruy’s contract runs out in 2026. So, it’s saved them some money, which we’re going to talk about later with the money situation overall in Cleveland. So, that would be at least relatively interesting. But again, this is a team that just won 64 games. Do you really want to break that up and change things up so dramatically when they don’t have another big option on the roster? There’s going to be a lot of conversation about breaking up the front court, but if they trade away one of those bigs, they need a backup big on the roster because they don’t currently have one. They those guys each serve as the de facto backup big on the roster. Now, beyond that, if you want to get super weird, there are plenty of rumors out there about them getting a a star, a superstar, right? Like there’s Giannis rumors out there about Cleveland. What would it take for them to get him? Here’s the problem for Cleveland and the really the the big thing that’s looming over their offseason. They’re a second apron team. So if they’re trying to get Giannis or one of these other guys that make $50 plus million dollars a year, they can’t send out more than one salary in exchange. So like even if they wanted to try and do Giannis and Koozma for Moy and Garland, something crazy like that, they can’t do that deal because they can’t send out both of those salaries and they don’t have a salary that individually matches up with Giannis or Kevin Durant or someone else’s 50 plus million salary. So realistically, unless they did some other things to get under the Second Apron, it’s not possible for them to add a player like Giannis. And the second apron is is really hanging over all this for Cleveland that really we talked earlier about how there’s not really an urgency and they don’t have to do anything this offseason. The only urgency that does exist beyond playoff disappointment is the money situation in Cleveland. When you’re in the second apron, when your roster is as expensive as Cleveland’s is, it gets kind of scary, especially when you don’t have access to most of your future picks, which is the case for the Cavs. because if they don’t make some changes this offseason, they’re pretty much locked into this group unless they cut some costs. And again, they won 64 games, there’s a realistic path for them to have made the conference finals or the finals this year. They’re clearly very good, but coming off of back-to-back playoff disappointments, it’s difficult to just say, “Okay, let’s run it back.” When the money situation is the way that it is. They could try and dump Jared Allen or Max Strus or DeAndre Hunter to try and get under the apron to try and give themselves some extra flexibility. That also would involve not resigning Tai Jerome either. And yes, it gives them flexibility, but it also actively makes them worse after again winning 64 games. And honestly, given the state of the Eastern Conference, I think the Cleveland Cavaliers do mostly nothing this offseason. If they were to make a semi big move, I would think that it would be trading away Jared Allen to the Lakers or to a team that needs a big and maybe getting two pieces back. Maybe getting someone that can play at the four alongside Moby and getting a backup big. I think that would be a pretty ideal scenario for them to try and get out of some of the money of Jared Allen’s contract, try and give them a little bit more flexibility and then see what the group looks like after that because it’s just a weird situation that they don’t know what their best fiveman unit is. And oftent times the the unit that they end the game with doesn’t include Jared All and Evoli on the floor together. So like why are you playing those guys to start the game in the first place? It’s just a weird combination in both the back court and the front court that is now made that much worse by the fact that they just have not performed in the postseason in back-to-back years. But honestly, if it’s me, I think they got the coach right. I think they got the roster right. It was just bad injury luck and a really good Pacers team that they ran into towards the end of the season. And on top of that, I would not be so quick to change up a roster that just won 64 games. it look like maybe the favorites in the conference when the Eastern Conference is going to be as wide open as it looks to be next year. Jason Tatum is probably out for the year next year. The Celtics in whatever form they were title favorites before. They will not be on that level going into next season. It’s not that they aren’t a threat at all. They still have a great roster. There’s still a lot of decisions to be made there. But that isn’t necessarily the top level threat that it was at the beginning of this season. And if you just eliminate the Celtics from the conversation at the top of the Eastern Conference, all of a sudden you’re looking at, of course, Indiana, New York, maybe the Bucks, depending on what happens with Giannis and this Cleveland Cavaliers team. Like, all of a sudden, things open up for you in a real way to where your path towards making the finals isn’t as difficult next year as it looked going into the postseason this year. And I don’t really think they’re scared of any of the other teams in the Eastern Conference other than the Boston Celtics, which gives a lot of credence to this concept of let’s just run it back. Maybe we trade Jared Allen, maybe we try and cut some costs, but at the end of the day, we won 64 games. Like, we’re a very good basketball team. And it was just a weird end of the season. And we’ve seen over the years teams overreact to one year to one set of injury disappointments. And the Cavs aren’t in a position where they have to do that. Unless they’re that scared of the Second Apron, unless they really don’t believe in their front court or their backcourt combination, unless they really just don’t want to pay as much money for this roster as they’re going to, there’s no reason for at least next year them to not just run it back and see if they can have a better postseason performance. It’s not something that we see very often in the NBA anymore. Teams want to make massive changes every offseason when they don’t have the kind of postseason success that they wanted to. But that would be my recommendation for Cleveland. See what the value is out there for Jared Allen. Maybe you change up some of the front court stuff. You really want to lock in what your best fiveman unit is. And beyond that, run it back and try and make another run at a weekend Eastern Conference next season. Obviously, that carries risk because of the second apron stuff. Because of the lack of future first round picks, you never really know what’s going to happen with the Donovan Mitchell thing. They could run it back next year. Someone gets hurt. They win 45 or 50 games. They’re out in the first and the second round again. Next year, all of a sudden, you’re a second April team. You don’t have your future picks. Everybody’s unhappy. You don’t have a combination of players that you really like. Garland, Mitchell, Mobly, all these guys are good, but getting a little bit older, maybe getting a little bit more expensive, you don’t exactly know what the future of your team is. That’s a real possibility, but it’s also a real possibility that if the Cavs just run it back, they’re in the finals next year and all they have to do is just do

For the 2nd straight year, the Cavs have failed to make the conference finals. Despite an unbelievable regular season earning the 1 seed in the East, they lost to the Pacers in just 5 games in the 2nd round and now go into the offseason with A TON of questions around potential trades with Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen, and Giannis Antetokounmpo

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