Cleveland Cavaliers: Despite a hot start, the Cavs should be active at the trade deadline
The Cleveland Cavaliers will be active at the NBA Trade Deadline
Through the first month of the 2020-21 NBA season, there might not be a more pleasantly surprising team in the Eastern Conference than the Cleveland Cavaliers. They’re 8-8, taking advantage of several slow starts from playoff-likely teams, and are currently sitting in the sixth seed of the East.
Despite their strong start to the season, though, the Cavs are likely a strong candidate to be big sellers at the NBA Trade Deadline in March. After being thrown into the James Harden blockbuster trade, the Cavs now have too many big men than they could play.
Amongst players that play the 4 or 5 for the Cavs, they have six players essentially battling for three or four rotation spots – Andre Drummond, Jarrett Allen, Larry Nance Jr., Taurean Prince, JaVale McGee, and Kevin Love.
The expectation is that one, at least, of those rotation-worthy players are destined to be traded over the course of the next two months. Don’t be surprised if they deal more than one of them, too.
While it may seem like the unpopular opinion, especially with the start that they’ve gotten off to this season even without a healthy Love, it’s looking more and more like a foregone conclusion at this point.
The Cavaliers will look to flip a number of their bigs for draft capital. Andre Drummond & Kevin Love could both be moved, per source. I'm told Jarrett Allen is off the table.
— Jason Dumas (@JDumasReports) January 25, 2021
In the middle of a rebuild, despite their strong start, it would make sense for the Cavs to try and promote Jarrett Allen; he’s likely going to be their center of the future. And it would make sense for them to move both Love (who they’ve shopped in the past) and Drummond (who may not be seen as a primary building block for this team).
I’m not sure how Love would fit on the Brooklyn Nets and how feasible it would be to make a deal work, considering Love’s high cap number, but that would be an interesting wrinkle.
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As impressive as the Cleveland Cavaliers have been to start the season, I’m not sure their 8-8 record is good enough to stand pat at the NBA Trade Deadline. If there are assets to be had at the deadline, Cleveland needs to do its part in trying to collect them.