The Cleveland Cavaliers have made a big mistake.
It’s easy to like what the Cleveland Cavaliers have done over the last few offseasons.
Since the departure of LeBron James, the Cavs have done exactly what they’ve needed to do – they’ve slowly built and haven’t made any real outrageous reaches via trade or free agency. However, all of that is not moot after Cleveland completed a sign-and-trade for Lauri Markkanen to cap off what has been a chaotic offseason even for NBA standards.
Officially, it was a three-team deal in which the Cavs will receive Markkanne, the Portland Trail Blazers will get Larry Nance Jr., and the Chicago Bulls land Derrick Jones Jr. and a couple of draft picks.
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Cleveland also won the right to pay Markkanen $67 million over the next four seasons. Even though this won’t be considered a terrible deal, as Markkanen has been productive over the first few seasons of his career, I’m also not sure he’s worth this type of money.
Thus, this is the first mistake that the Cavs have made since the start of their new rebuild. There are plenty of teams in which acquiring Markkanen would make sense. The Cavs, unfortunately, were not one of them.
Where does Lauri Markkanen fit on the Cleveland Cavaliers?
This move for Markkanen defines Cleveland as trying to skip a few steps in their rebuild. They’re trying to add a piece that could help them win now when they aren’t exactly ready to win now. Markkanen is a player that fits long-term next to Jarrett Allen but also not a player that you acquire when you just drafted Evan Mobley.
If Mobley is the generational talent that many believe he could be, and you just used a top 3 draft pick on him, I’m not sure I understand the acquisitions of a power forward. Especially when you add in the fact that you just paid Jarrett Allen $100 million.
It just doesn’t make sense to have $167 million over the next few years committed to Markkanen and Allen. It’s actually laugh-out-loud funny that the Cavs are now in this predicament. Mind you, this is also a team that has shown some hesitance in offering a contract extension to Collin Sexton. But Markkanen is worth $67 million?
Something is not adding up. Cleveland has had a good offseason and is off to a great start in their rebuild, but I, unfortunately, believe that acquiring Markkanen will end up hurting (or handcuffing) the team over the next couple of years.