What to make of the Cleveland Cavaliers standing pat at the NBA Trade Deadline
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Danny Cunningham covers the Cleveland Cavaliers for 850 ESPN Cleveland and thelandondemand.comThe NBA trade deadline has come and gone as the Cleveland Cavaliers did not make a trade for the first time in the tenure of President of Basketball Operations Koby Altman’s tenure.
The day itself featured a number of moves of different levels ranging from the Phoenix Suns acquiring superstar forward Kevin Durant from the Brooklyn Nets to the Los Angeles Lakers swapping Patrick Beverly for Mo Bamba. It total, almost every team across the league made a move as second round draft picks were swapped for role players as if they were prize tickets at a local carnival.
The Cavs chose not to take part in the festivities, instead publicly believing that the team is good as it stands right now, even if there are areas where upgrades could have helped out. An additional wing defender and 3-point shooter is never frowned upon acquiring, the Cavs just couldn’t find one that was deemed to be worth their somewhat limited assets.
Not making a move just to make a move
Altman certainly could have made a move if he decided to do so. The Cavaliers were active throughout the day and throughout the last couple of weeks, according to sources. The Durant trade was a major ripple effect on the market in the sense that it added the Nets as a potential seller. That never materialized as they didn’t make another significant trade despite having players such as Royce O’Neale and Joe Harris that made sense for a number of teams, including the Cavs.
“Just from a trade standpoint, we just didn't feel like anything was going to really move the needle for us,” Altman said on Thursday afternoon. “We could have made a move that was lateral, multiple moves that were lateral, that I didn't think appreciably made us better.”
Moves like that may have included trading for a guy like Cam Reddish, who was traded from New York to Portland on Wednesday. He was widely known to be available prior to that deal that netted the Knicks Josh Hart in return, but their interest in Reddish wasn’t very strong, a source said.
There are certain times when teams need to shake things up, even if the move doesn’t increase the talent level significantly, just to do it. The Cavs aren’t in that position right now. They feel, both publicly and privately, that their team is in a good place. Altman mentioned that in a later answer when asked about whether or not the Cavs would be serious players in the buyout market.
“I promise you character is really, really important for us,” Altman said. “That locker room is -- it's incredible. And I don't know other locker rooms, I'm not in other locker rooms, but I know what we have going on is a rare thing where guys love playing for each other, it's genuine. There's relationships there, they care about each other.”
Making a move for the sake of making a move might have appeased some, but it wasn’t something that was necessary. Whether or not an upgrade, no matter the price, was necessary and not done, remains to be seen.
“Don't just do something to do something,” Altman said. “Let's be very, very intentional with what we're doing. It's different when you're in asset collection mode. It's different when you're trying to accumulate picks. That becomes a different motivation. I think where we are now is being very, very intentional to how you're going to help this young core grow and set them up for success. And if the move wasn't there to do it, don't do it.”
Isaac Okoro’s impact on the market
All season long, the thought has been that the Cavs needed to make an upgrade on the wing to improve their 3-point shooting. That’s been a fair take, especially early on when Isaac Okoro struggled mightily from the outside. After missing his first 12 3-pointers of the year, Okoro has shot just a shade under 40% from beyond the arc. That’s almost a three-month sample size, too.
His improvement certainly made what the Cavaliers considered to be a ‘lateral move’ a little bit of a higher threshold.
“I think we've been hammered since this off-season about, ‘What are you going to do at the wing?’” Altman said. “But we've always wanted the solution to be internal. That's the ideal, right? You're developing within and helping guys achieve from within.
“Between him, Dean [Wade], Cedi [Osman], we always wanted to hopefully have that be internal and not use more assets and go outside and hope it works. That’s the other part too. At the deadline, you're making these deals and hoping that it fits. You're ingratiating a new person to this system, everyone has to adapt around this person, you have to change the way you play a little bit to accentuate their positives. Keeping the continuity and let the internal growth happen I think was a big part of it. And seeing those signs certainly gave us pause to Isaac's only 22 years old and he's getting better every single day. Let's let that play out.”
Whether Okoro can keep his play up, that includes shooting 50 percent from beyond the arc since the start of 2023, is yet to be seen. If he can, the Cavaliers will fare much better in the playoffs and look great in hindsight in terms of their inactivity at the trade deadline. If he can’t more questions will arise.
Declining to trade for another win that surely would have meant less of Okoro is certainly a bet that his upside will continue to show.
Valuing draft picks
Across the league, a number of role players were traded for a bevy of second-round draft picks. Jae Crowder was sent from Brooklyn to Milwaukee for the price of five second-round picks, Gary Payton II was traded from Portland to Golden State for the same price, Josh Richardson was sent to New Orleans from San Antonio for four of them, among others.
This is partially because so many teams have their first-round picks already traded away. For example, the Utah Jazz essentially control the first-round draft capital of the Cavs, the Houston Rockets control Brooklyn’s, Oklahoma City has the rights to the Clippers’ picks, and so on. This means that fewer teams, like the Cavaliers, even have the ability to trade first-round picks.
That changes what the market looks like.
The other thing that changes the market is the number of teams that are buyers and sellers. Before play begins on there are 16 teams that are within five games of being .500 one way or the other. There are only six teams in the entire NBA that are more than five games below .500.
That drastically decreases the number of sellers while increasing the number of teams that can realistically have some sort of postseason – whether it be playoffs or play-in – aspirations.
When those two factors are combined, the result is second-round picks being overvalued as currency. There may be a market correction at some point, or this may just be the way things are from now on.
“I think to be in the marketplace and to be competitive, you're going to have to really hand over a lot of your draft assets and we'll see what works,” Altman said. “A lot of the times it's risky, but I think you're right in terms of the marketplace, it's definitely changed and there's just a lot more pick assets going out.”
A possible late addition
With the trade deadline having passed, eyes now shift to whether or not the Cavs will be among the active teams on the buyout market. Their needs certainly didn’t change on Thursday, but the cost of acquiring talent, and the method for doing so, certainly does.
The Cavs do have an open roster spot should they find a fit in the buyout market. There will be a number of guys across the league that were traded on Thursday – and some who were not – that will reach agreements to become free agents. Once those names start to trickle out, we may begin to hear about the Cavs having interest.
“Depends who becomes available. We have a roster spot and then it has to fit,” Altman said.
The character aspect of it that was mentioned previously really sticks out here, too. If the Cavs don’t think that a player will fit in to the locker room, Altman made a point to say that’s not a risk they’re willing to take.
