Where do the Cleveland Cavaliers go from here?
It is a question that will keep Cavs executive Koby Altman awake at nights, if it hasn’t already, for some time. Dan Gilbert, the team’s owner, will be seeking the answer, if he hasn’t already, for some time. The players may be asking that question of themselves.
And there may not be an answer that ends in a championship.
“I’m disappointed for the group,” Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson said after his team was swept in embarrassing fashion on its home floor in a 130-93 Game 4 loss. “From a coaching standpoint, normally you’d say, ‘Man, I wish roster-wise we had this,’ but I can’t say that. Ownership and front office gifted us with a wonderful roster, a talented roster, so I feel bad for the group, because you want to fulfill your expectations. So, that’s disappointing.”
The Cavs are stuck, you see. They have reached their ceiling, which, as it turns out, isn’t that much further than the limitation we figured them for — the second-round ceiling they met each of the previous two seasons. The same sub-title upper limit that James Harden has hit throughout his 17-year career. Great but not the greatest.
Yes, together Harden and the Cavaliers reached the conference finals, each for the first time since 2018, but no, they could not win a single game against the New York Knicks.
Why anyone thought the marriage between Harden and the Cavs would end in anything but disappointment is beyond me. It cost them Darius Garland, an oft-injured 26-year-old two-time All-Star, but an age-26 two-time All-Star nonetheless. (Altman threw in a second-round pick, along with Garland, for Harden in February.)
Garland was to be part of the Cavaliers’ future if they were to have one. Now, theirs is as uncertain as any team’s in the league. Sure, they still have Evan Mobley, but he has a ceiling, too, and it won’t be, as we once thought, a Kevin Garnett-like future for him.
Mobley is no 1A. Nor is Donovan Mitchell. Or Harden. Certainly not Jarrett Allen. No compounding effect makes them greater than the sum of their parts. These Cavs capped out with Garland as a 64-win outfit and with Harden as a conference finalist, but there is no other reason to believe they can achieve anything greater as a unit.
Not after they were overwhelmed by the Knicks. So, what to do now? They cannot possibly justify paying Mitchell, Harden, Mobley and Allen the $170 million it would cost to keep them together next season, not for a team ill-equipped to win it all.
Harden holds a $42.3 million option to play for the Cavaliers next season. He joined them in search of an extension, and on one hand they would be crazy to give him one. On the other hand, can they really afford to have traded Garland for nothing?
If Harden picks up his player option, and they try to run this back one more time, what does that portend for the future of Mitchell, who has one more guaranteed year left on his deal? More of the same? Could we envision a future in which he declines his $53.8 million option and enters unrestricted 2027 free agency? And if we could easily envision that future, why wouldn’t the Cavs trade Mitchell now?
Anything is on the table for the Cavs this summer, including flipping Mobley for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Or adding LeBron James to the existing core. Neither may result in a title, but either sure would be fun, and that may be all Cleveland needs.
Seriously: Pair Mitchell with Antetokounmpo, and see if they can carry each other where both want to go. Maybe Harden and James come along for the ride. Maybe it ends as it did for Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, but at least they will have tried. At least the Cavs would have done something other than stare at that same ceiling.
That, of course, would require the Milwaukee Bucks to sign off on a Mobley-for-Giannis swap, which would require them to believe in Mobley as a central building block for the future. That may not be their best option available for Antetokounmpo.
It may be the only option available to Cleveland, should the Bucks decline a Mobley-centric offer. The Cavs, then, if Harden leaves, if Mitchell leaves, could be looking at a future with Mobley as their central figure. So, why not get what they can for Harden, Mitchell and Allen now, and build around the only young All-Star Cleveland has left?
Problem is, they already traded their other young All-Star. They are pot-committed to winning with this roster, which was a heck of a thing to put on Harden. But they’ve done it, and there’s no turning back. They might as well go all in, offering Mobley for Antetokounmpo and doing whatever they can to sign LeBron for a veteran exception.
Because what other move could possibly take these Cavaliers from where they are now, winless in the conference finals, to where they want to be, not only beating a team like these Knicks to win the East, but being able to compete with the West?
Another question to keep Altman up at night.