The Cleveland Cavaliers are as close to crisis as they have been since LeBron James returned home in 2014. The Cavaliers’ total scoring margin is only +10 on the season despite being nine games over .500. Cleveland has the No. 29 defense in the land, and is at real danger of falling to No. 30 ... behind the Sacramento Kings. The Cavs are a full six games behind the Celtics — with whom they executed a mammoth summer trade — for the No. 1 seed, four behind the Raptors for No. 2, and just 1.5 games ahead of the Heat and Wizards for the No. 3.
Cleveland, who thinks it can win the East again, let alone knock off the Golden State Warriors, is a bad week from losing home-court advantage in the first round.
The bounty from that summer trade that sent Kyrie Irving to Boston has yet to be realized. Isaiah Thomas is getting back into the flow after a long recovery from a hip injury. Compounding that rust-shaking struggle is the fact that he has to learn how to be a score-first, ball-dominant guard on a team starring LeBron. It will take some time.
Likewise, the Nets’ pick Boston sent to Cleveland in the trade will take some time to make an impact. Rumors are rampant that the Cavaliers, under general manager Koby Altman, are looking to upgrade the roster significantly. Names bandied include DeAndre Jordan, Lou Williams, and George Hill. Trading for Hill would not require the Nets’ pick, though Cleveland trading its own 2018 choice in a Hill deal would prevent the Cavs from moving the Nets’ pick as the team’s 2019 selection is owed to the Hawks due to the Kyle Korver deal. All things equal, if the Cavaliers want to keep the Nets’ pick on the trade table heading into the Feb. 8 deadline, the next available first-round pick for them to use is their 2021 choice.
The question the Cavaliers face is whether they should try to leverage that Nets’ pick to improve the roster now. Swirling around the debate is the lack of clarity about LeBron’s future, given that he is a free agent in July and has been circumspect about his plans. There are also massive financial implications of any trade given that LeBron will command the max (and refuse, rightfully, to take a dollar less) should he stay. Isaiah is also expecting a big payday as a free agent. It’s not our money, but Cavs ownership has been sensitive to high payroll and enormous luxury tax bills in the recent past.
Those who argue the Cavaliers should trade the pick note that the Nets aren’t actually historically bad this season. Seven teams currently have worse records than Brooklyn. If the standings hold, that Nets’ pick would most likely be the No. 8 overall selection. Ricky O’Donnell has Collin Sexton, not exactly a household name, in that spot in his most recent mock draft. If the Nets stay in their current position in the standings, there’s a 2.8 percent probability the pick would be No. 1 overall, and a 10 percent probability it would land in the top three. (If only lottery reform went into effect a year earlier, the odds of that Nets’ pick landing higher would be greatly increased.)
The Cavaliers would be absolutely foolish to trade the Nets’ pick without protecting it through at least No. 1 overall, meaning that the pick would convey this year unless it ends up No. 1. A prudent team would protect it through the top three given the high-end talent believed to be available in 2018.
No star truly worth chasing is going to be moved for a top-one or top-three-protected Nets’ pick! The value of the pick is in the chance it becomes Luka Doncic.
Doncic is the stalking horse of all of these discussions. Smart people have been claiming he’s the best player in Europe right now. Not the best young player, not the best player likely to enter the NBA draft in 2018 — the best player. He’s 18 years old. Analysts and scouts are having trouble translating his European statistics into what they could be in the NBA because no international prospect has ever been this awesome at this young an age.
Doncic is potentially a generational talent. If the Cavaliers have a chance to land him this summer — and they do, even if the odds are smaller than desired — they must protect that chance at all costs.
If it means the Clippers say no to a Jordan deal, so be it. The Clippers should honestly understand that reasoning better than most given what happened the last time L.A. and Cleveland made a deal involving high-end draft picks.
Back in 2011, in the first season after LeBron’s exit from Cleveland, the Cavaliers were awful. The Clippers were pretty bad, too. Blake Griffin was an exciting rookie, but L.A. was concerned about Baron Davis and his mammoth contract. So the Clippers sent Davis to Cleveland for Mo Williams in a salary cap dump that saved L.A. about $5.5 million in payroll space over each of two seasons. The cost to the Clippers: Their unprotected 2011 first-round pick. The Clippers then were roughly as bad as the Nets are now.
That pick became No. 1 overall and Kyrie Irving.
It remains one of the most foolish trades of the decade, papered over only by David Stern’s basketball reasons and the Clippers’ eventual Chris Paul coup.
Now the stakes for the modern Cavaliers are much different than they were for the 2011 Clippers. Cleveland is trying to win another championship and convince LeBron to stay. The Cavaliers want to land a player or multiple players who can turn the No. 29 defense in the league into something capable of slowing down a Stephen Curry-Kevin Durant attack.
Jordan and Hill are quality defenders. They could certainly help. But are they the difference between whatever it is we’re seeing from Cleveland right now and a team that can beat the Warriors? That seems completely delusional.
And if they couldn’t help Cleveland beat the Warriors, how likely is their acquisition to keep LeBron in Ohio?
It’s a heavy calculus that Altman and the Cavaliers’ front office has to consider. No one can read LeBron’s mind. We don’t know if Jordan is even available as the Clippers fight for an unlikely playoff berth, or if the protected Nets’ pick would get Cleveland the big man. We don’t know if Marc Gasol or another languishing All-Star is on the table. We don’t know if some Warrior is going to get injured. We don’t know if the Raptors are going to show up to the postseason. We don’t know if Gordon Hayward is going to come back early. We don’t know if the Rockets are going to do the heavy lifting for the Eastern champs — or maybe even finish off the seemingly unstoppable Warriors themselves. We don’t know so many things that really matter in this decision, if there’s even a decision to be made.