Do the Cleveland Cavaliers have to make a move to COUNTER the Magic’s trade for Desmond Bane?

Do the Cleveland Cavaliers have to make a move to COUNTER the Magic’s trade for Desmond Bane?

Let’s move on to our next topic, guys. Our next topic is brought to us by Buckeye State Credit Union. If you haven’t heard of him yet, meet your new favorite financial partner. Buckeye State Credit Union is a local institution offering everything from checking accounts to home equity lines of credit. And auto loans with some of the lowest rates in Northeast Ohio. Their Cleveland branch is in Shaker Heights, which is one of 5 locations across the state, making it easy to find one near you. But even if you can’t get to a branch, don’t worry. They make banking simple with digital banking. They make it personal and convenient as well. That’s what sets them apart at Buckeye. Their focus is you, their core values connect, simplify and adapt. Got everything they do, bringing people together, cutting through the clutter, and they’re innovative to learn more, visit BuckeyeCcu.org. Buckeye State Credit Union, your money simplified. So guys, the UCSS text chain was popping off about this yesterday, but the Orlando Magic. Made a blockbuster deal this weekend sending 4 unprotected first round picks, KCP and Cole Anthony to the Memphis Grizzlies for Desmond Bain. So before we dive into the deal itself, I wanted to ask this and Jason, I’ll start with you. Does this put even more pressure on Kobe to make some sort of big move or is any kind of reactionary move to another’s team’s big move a bad decision in the immediate aftermath. The worst thing you can do is try and react to what other people in the league are doing that teams will tell you that all the time. We’re gonna in game plans we’re not, we’re gonna play the way that we play we’re gonna make them react to us so I don’t think that you rush out and try and make a move. The Cavs are what they are nothing’s really changed. We talked about this all offseason. The big move was DeAndre. And it’s painted them into a bit of a corner with the 2nd apron. They knew that going in. Now obviously the season didn’t end the way that anyone thought that it would, but they knew what they were getting into when they made that trade. It took all of their trade capital to get Donovan here, and then they had to keep their powder dry for quite a while and you didn’t see a whole lot of moves out of them because they knew where the cap was going. They knew they’re gonna have to max out Evan, uh, and. Then they made the DeAndre move when they did, and that again has taken. Their capital because of the 2nd apron implications. So this is their team. Uh, I don’t, I’m not anticipating a big move. I’ve written that I don’t know how you bring Jared Allen back to this. I maintain that, but I don’t know that there’s a great Allen trade out there either. I don’t, I didn’t think Darius was getting traded before the surgery, before the toe surgery. I think it really complicates that now. This is who they are, and yeah, other teams in the East are gonna make their big moves. Orlando fired a massive bullet yesterday. And you can debate whether or not it was worth it for all that they gave up. They did. I was shocked at the price. I think a lot of people in the NBA were shocked at the price. But uh you can’t worry about what Orlando is doing necessarily. Yeah, they’re really big now. Like they, they were already a physical tough team and now they’re even bigger, particularly in the backcourt. It’s gonna make a tough matchup, but you can’t just run out and say, well, we gotta make a move to match Orlando and Desmond Baden because there’s a lot of other teams in the East. Whoever saw the Pacers coming, you know, I’ll go back to when, when the Cavs got Jaq it was to match up with Dwight Howard. Yeah, and that never even transpired. So when you start making those moves like that, uh, it typically doesn’t end the way that you think it’s going to, man, oh man, so I’m just looking, I’m just looking at the size. Uh, black is how, black is how, how tall. Anthony Black’s 6’7. All right. Bain, 6’5? Bain is 6’5, but he has one. He’s only one of four players in the NBA with a negative wingspan. So he is, uh, he’s 65 with 63 arms. So he’s not. — Not as long as
— yeah I mean, but he still got 4 inches on our boys, right? OK, let me just get you to get that. Uh, — let’s talk about uh what is uh
— 11 and they still got one they might bring, can they bring one of Wagner’s back? Uh, yeah, they’re, they’re both coming off ACL injury, but yes. See this is what I’m talking about, uh, these dudes, they paid a lot for it, you know, they paid for, they paid for, this is called a blood in the water, uh a move. They’re looking at Jayson Tatum. Up, Tatum might not be here for a whole year. Up, let me look at, uh, with the Bucks. Oh, and I already know the Celtics are gonna dismantle in some way, shape or form. Dame Lillard, you out for a whole year. Mm, we never believed in the Hawks like that. So now we, we gotta get through the Knicks. We gotta get through, uh, we gotta get through the Pacers, Cavs and, and then the Cavs, but they’re like they’re the Cavs, though we like playing the Cavs and one of their players is coming off injury, the one that’s always injured, and we already know what what’s up with with Jared Allen. They look at this, this thing, and I’m, I’m telling you this too. The Detroit Pistons are gonna be physical. Detroit and Orlando, they uh they smell blood in the water. They feel like it’s an opportunity to catch them, and the Cavs, yes, they peaked a little bit too early. I would have rather the Cavs sneak up on somebody, but they got 64 wins, so you’re never gonna sneak up on nobody. And you look at the way the teams is built. All those teams are built with long, lengthy physical guys that gonna be up, they’re gonna get up in you and make sure that they get they fill up your, your their presence on, on the court. And so my thing is now. Because the Cavs are where they are. Well, here in this no man’s land where it’s kinda like, man, I think they need to make a move, but there ain’t no move to be made. And I don’t, I, I’ve already said it 567, 1000 times. I don’t think the moves that you can have in your heart of hearts is Jared Allen or Or you know, or Darrius Garland. Garland’s gonna be out. Jared Allen is who he is. I marketing is a funny thing because we say core 4, we use Jared Allen as part of the core 4 because we, we needed something to build on when the whole LeBron era was coming to an end. He was one of the main pieces that we got earlier and was. OK, this is a piece we can build around, but to be honest, Jarrett does some things that can give you some points around the basket. He’s a hustler, but you can’t throw the ball in the Jarret out and tell him to go to work. You can’t throw him the ball on the elbow and tell him to go get busy. He’s not, he’s not a, he doesn’t have a bunch of post moves. He’s a rim runner, he’s an energy guy, and some of that stuff gets negated in the postseason, so it’s really not a core 3, it’s like a 3 and it’s 2 of the possible. Cause you don’t know what Darius Darius Garland gonna give you cause he’s hurt a lot. So to me, Orlando looked at Cleveland and said, we don’t believe you, you need more people. Yeah, this is tough, man. This is really tough because I, I don’t like our undersized backcourt to begin with. And Now you’ve got another team looking at the team that won the most games in the regular season. And doing something to counteract what they can do. And man, like you said it, Jay Indi Indiana kind of came out of nowhere. I mean, yeah, they made the conference finals last year, but everyone thought that was a fluke. And then when they’re up 2-1 on OKC, everyone thinks that was a fluke. They’re good, they’re good. They’re here. They’re good, they’re here and I’m with you on this point, 2G. Like you just can’t wave the magical trade wand anymore like you used to. There are too many cap considerations that need to go in to making trades that make a difference. And Jay, you started your point by saying, I think it’s a bad idea for any team to start making reactionary moves. You are who you are. Now you can change who you are in the offseason, but I just don’t see that magical trade out there that suddenly makes every other team in the East go, uh 00, the Cavs just made the move that everybody dreaded. Now, all that being said. I am floored by what Orlando, I, I’m, I’m looking at the pieces in this thing and I don’t know. Are they that close that they, that, and, and, and he is the missing link. Like this is a win a championship or move bust. They gave up more than the Cavs did to get Donovan Mitchell. Yeah, I think part of it, I didn’t realize I we were talking on the group chat yesterday. I, I know KCP had a little bit of a down year. I still think he’s a decent player, but he’s got a big, big contract, so I think you can break this up and say. I think he’s owed 45 $42 million over the next two years. — He’s making
— 22, — so 44
— dollars $44 million. So and this may segue into one of the topics that might want to talk about later with Okoro, but with 44 million, that’s a lot of money. Now I don’t, I don’t look at that as maybe is maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s more of an anchor contract than I’m giving it credit for, but if you’re saying this is a dead contract and we’re trying to get off this money. That’s probably worth 2 1st round picks right there. So if you break it up that way, it’s 2 picks for Desmond Bain and 2 picks to get off KCP. But when you’re trading 4 picks for a guy who’s never made an All-Star game. Who mind boggling is a good player. He’s a good player. — He’s
— a good fit more than he’s a good player. I mean, he is a good player, — he’s
— a top 50. 50. When you look at the assets that were given up to acquire a top 50, I am, and you know what I think that also if we already knew that we were in this era of moves are tough to come by, but my God, if that’s the asking price, what. Take that, take that, take their, let me see their line right here. They could also, by the way, when you see the lineup if they want to go with an extra guard instead of Wendell Carter Junior, you can slide in Anthony Black to that. They got some flexibility. — Now we talk we talk
— about. — I don’t know
— why I pick to win the next year. We talk about Mobley, right? They feel like they got the best unicorn. I was actually thinking about that driving in today if, if it’s a Cavs Magic playoff series, who’s the best player on the floor? I don’t know. Donovan still, I still think so too. Unless Mobley, if Mobley can take a jump next year, equal to his jump last year, I think he could be with Donovan. — As the best player
— Ben Carroll had moments in that where I thought this dude’s gonna be the face of the league. I agree. — I know he can
— shoot 3s. He could he could give you 40 and 20 lights. I’m sitting here looking at this. I said, why wouldn’t you make it if they think they got Ben Carroll as a unicorn that big doing they got Wagner, right? Desmond Bain ain’t no pushover. He, he, he fit right what they like to do. — He’s a rough
— rider like Indiana, they’re an energy team. — They get after
— it, man. — It’s coming from a culture of physicality and Jan
— Suggs is a football player masquerading as a point guard, tackling people. And we don’t and he is an all defensive type mentality and, and I think he made a second team on defense, right? It may have been the first team. He’s a phenomenal defender. Jalen Suggs is a phenomenal. — I’m
— not trying to play in those games. I’m not either. I give you the counter to the Orlando? I said this in the group chat last night a terrific. Jason and I did a what do you want for the next 5 years. I picked Orlando. I like Orlando a lot. So when I say this, I’m simply saying this is the devil’s advocate version of it and take that graphic again. We talk about Darius Garland’s playoff woes, not healthy enough. Suggs has missed more playoff games in fewer playoff attempts than Darius Garland. No kidding. His injury history is, he’s missed missed more games the last 4 years than Darius has, and he’s had one season in his career where he’s been over a 38% 3 point shooter, not a shooter. Franz Wagner, as good as Franz is, and I love Franz’s game. He doesn’t have a 3 point jump shot. He shot 29% from 3 this season. He shot 28% from 3 last season. Those numbers have gone down even further in the playoffs. Yeah, — but he
— gives you. — I’m just saying this
— I know, I know that’s not a tall? Franz is listed at 6. Big dude, very, very good player. Very, very, very, very, very good player. — I like him
— a lot. — Not a
— good shooter, great scorer to develop. Anthony, same thing, and I like Anthony’s game a lot, not a 3 point shooter yet. They got a lot of dudes outside of Bain who can score going downhill, getting to the paint. But if you’re looking at this team on paper now and these guys are all young and can develop and they may turn into better 3 point shooters, that is an area that you would look at and say, do they have the shooting required to win a championship? I’m not quite sure they have it at the moment, but Suggs has shown at least for that one season he could shoot. Wagner was a good shooter coming out of college. I don’t know what’s happened to him. Van Carroll, I’m not putting a ceiling on anything that dude can do. He’s a monster. And they still have some requisite pieces to make some deals if they wanna add more shooting, shooting was an issue when they played the Cavs in the playoffs and that hasn’t really been addressed. Well, Bain is a, is a good shooter. — Yeah
— 40% I think from this year. Uh, Bain shot 39.6% from three. So yeah, 40% shooter. First career is a 41% 3 point shooter. It’s good. It helps. I’m curious that you picked Orlando as the best core over the next 5 years in the East. I love. I know I do too. Banker and Wagner, those two alone at 6:10 and the playmaking, they both have. That’s like the requisite of what you want to build teams around. — So it was
— I think it was right. Yeah it draft picks are unprotected, right? Yeah. And if I knew they didn’t have any first round picks for the next 5 years, maybe I would have changed that, but we did this 2 weeks ago. See, that’s the problem when you go you’re in the playoffs and you play in these teams, you, you just start to and when you get stacked up and you start to see, oh wow, we play Ky Cunningham. It was a 67 monster at point guard. Oh, that was what I, I forget which one of the Thompsons they got who’s a monster on the ball that the saw Thompson running around here athletic freaking do what he wants to do. You’re like, wow, that’s kind of, you know, not to mention we’re still not talking about. Knicks, we’re still not talking about some of these other teams and the and the Pacers what they can do. Look, Windows is a very fickle thing. Uh, I haven’t seen somebody’s window play out like, like a fairy tale in a long time. People make multiple moves in races just to get where they’re gonna go. Um, I’d be interested interested to see what the Cavs do.

The Cleveland Cavaliers just got put on notice. With the Orlando Magic pulling off a blockbuster deal to land Desmond Bane—one of the best shooters and most underrated two-way guards in the league—every contender in the East just felt the pressure rise, especially Cleveland. Bane now joins a young, hungry Orlando core that’s ready to disrupt the playoff picture and push teams like the Cavs out of the spotlight.

So what’s Koby Altman gonna do? Staying quiet while the rest of the East loads up ain’t an option. The Cavs need more shooting, more toughness, and honestly, more answers. If this front office is serious about building a real contender around Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley, then it’s time to stop playing it safe. Whether that means reshaping the roster or making tough decisions around guys like Darius Garland, one thing is clear—the Magic made their move. Now it’s Cleveland’s turn.

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