Patience is not fun, at all. We demand harvest from our efforts, immediate earnings for our time well spent. If we don’t secure a bag this time around, then at least give us a pattern. Something to tell us the next time will be different.
Cleveland and all if its Cavaliers must wait another 13 months for something Cleveland remembers intimately: NBA Finals games in Ohio. The wait was easier with big LeBron James swangin’ around, 6’9 and bulletproof. Sustaining patience is a bit more tenuous with Donovan Mitchell at lead, all 6’3-maybe, throwing his life and little hips out of place with every Eurostep he drags through the trees.
They’re all trees to him, but that’s who Cleveland chose: Donovan Mitchell for three first-rounders and a pair of swaps and two pretty good players. The Cavaliers bought into a superstar’s prime, a real Miami Heat-move, and the expectation to advance toward excellence is critical. Now the Cavs must make changes, not because of 2024-25’s outcome but because finances dictate a shift. The Cavs are due to play kabillions in luxury tax next season and beyond, thus the insistence on making 2024-25 a trip toward June.
Non-Cavalier LeBron James was mentioned only a few words into this column because that’s what two people did to me Wednesday morning, the guy at the baseball card store and the, uh, other guy at the baseball card store. Each brought up James as a savior, but only after firing Jarrett Allen, Darius Garland and Isaac Okoro out of town. Wasn’t it only months ago we were all at Brian Windhorst Bobblehead Day, celebrating the signing of a bouncy defensive swingman for only $11 million per?
Cavs fans watched Donovan Mitchell bounce himself around for three full seasons, 24 playoff games, Cleveland notices when someone needs help, or isn’t long for this sort of action. Covering eyes as Bernie Kosar unsuccessfully lunges to avoid on-rushers. Crossing fingers while Mark Price threatens each of his knee ligaments with every pick-and-roll split.
Pairing Mitchell next to Darius Garland is as unfair to Mitchell as it is to Garland, who was last seen twirling counterclockwise circles, like a boat with weeds in the trolling motor. Pairing Mitchell with two centers who barely hit threes is no fair to either center, nor Mitchell’s nose for the rim. The Cavaliers were the best offensive team in the regular season for all of the regular season but these things are never any guarantee in the playoffs, not against the strong arm of Ben Sheppard.
(Ben was in that baseball card store earlier in the week. Sheppard gave the store owner an autograph and I don’t know what Ben Sheppard’s autograph looks like so I believed the story because who makes up a meeting with Ben Sheppard at a baseball card store? Plus, the store owner called Ben “this guy” while shoving the signature at my nose.)
Mitchell attempted to disarm the media after Game 5’s loss, anticipating critics would “write us the [bleep] off,” but Donovan knows the media won’t, Cleveland is too good. Mitchell’s comments are only vapor, anyway, no person should be asked to comment about their favorite team directly after a crushing basketball defeat.
What is clear is Cleveland’s required changes, financial or motivational. The Cavaliers performed in Game 5 under the full realization that Jayson Tatum was out of the 2025 and possibly 2026 playoff bracket and still couldn’t emerge with the exacting touch needed to deny the Pacers, who developed strong looks in Game 5 long before the road team’s attempts began falling.
Indiana is tough, they sleep with chickens and somehow retain the legs for accurate 25-foot bombs after chasing opponents around on defense. The Pacers beat Cleveland in the regular season and match up well with Cleveland’s potent, if momentarily unorthodox, roster. A team built to beat Boston needn’t be similarly suited for Indiana, the Cavalier front office did the best it could with the market Cavs general manager Koby Altman took part in.
It is difficult for Cavalier fans to stomach further talk of injury, but, that’s also kind of what happened.
Mitchell and Garland were severely hamstrung, Evan Mobley not his typical self despite the Cavalier coaching staff making a monster out of Mobley in Game 3. Kenny Atkinson’s crew saved a season last Friday, kept a cool clubhouse. Atkinson has to and will grow, too, but we can’t blame his attempts at prevision: Atkinson watched Rick Carlisle play 10 players in Game 5’s first quarter and, understandably, expected the same from his reserve charges.
It didn’t work out, everyone in the baseball card shop wants to get rid of Isaac Okoro, but Kenny dared dream throughout Game 5. Atkinson ran through the moment with decimated players, every Cavalier taken down to a B-average due to injury, struck in ways Indiana could not compare with. Passes didn’t meet the lane but the point guards were pained, bum toes and ankles find it easier taking rolling runners off the wrong foot than gathering all four quadrants to bully a perfect pass into an awaiting pivotman. Even if that pivotman is Jarrett “If It’s Goin’ Up, It’s Goin’ In” Allen.
That’s all basketball, though, and not the point. Money matters most here. Cleveland is a second apron club and can’t afford to keep the players (Dean Wade, DeAndre Hunter, Allen, Okoro) who played poorly in Cleveland’s three home playoff losses to the lower-seeded Pacers. The Cavs also can’t afford to extend the players (Ty Jerome, Sam Merrill) who played poorly as Cleveland lost all three games in Ohio.
We discuss the things which hurt because the rest of this will be fun. Typically NBA teams are fixed with boring basketball solutions, but not these Cavaliers.
Altman has a chance to replace the minimum salaried youngsters he found with vets who want to be in Cleveland. In a league forever seeking centers, point guards, and two-way swingman with size, Koby Altman’s stall is teeming, he has greatness to swap. The Cavalier summer is hot with sweeping reform, talk radio intrigue, trade machine screenshots and social media shoot-posting. All of which is probably more entertaining to most than watching the Cavs really move the ball well during a wintry win in Charlotte.
In this, fans will not require patience. Rather, they’ll embrace the warmth of trade expectation, followed by the immediate gratification that comes from spotting the finished trade on the ticker and visualizing that new Cavalier lineup. Every other NBA team has to watch their cap-addled club sit out the summer, slowly stacking hopes upon internal, dull as Diet Rite, development. Not Cavs fans. They’ve seen what Minnesota was able to return for Karl-Anthony Towns, and wouldn’t mind a little burly depth for themselves.
Altman has the chance to attempt what old general manager Wayne Embry tried with his Brad Daugherty/Price-led Cavaliers, trading and drafting and turning over the fringes of his team. It didn’t work, the Cavs lost to Michael Jordan’s Bulls in 1988 and again in 1989 and one more time in 1992 and also in 1993 but then Jordan retired, and the Cavs lost in the playoffs to the Bulls in 1994.
LeBron’s Cavaliers held the entire East at similar arm’s length a decade ago, fought for championship relevance a decade before that. In each instance the Cavalier front office crunched the numbers and could barely compete, dealing one well-paid and somewhat stiffened player for another, Larry Hughes-to-Ben Wallace-to-Shaquille O’Neal. “Shaq,” from TV, hoping he’d have something elite to offer.
None could, James fell short initially in his first turn in Cleveland. The 2016 Cavs, triple-maxed, full of superstars and expired veterans, only barely pulled off a title.
Despite his club’s cap apron considerations, Altman’s pathway isn’t nearly as checked. The Cavaliers tried organic team construction, two small guys and two bigs and a Max Strus. Now Koby can identify exactly what ails Mitchell and Mobley and how to protect it through June, with at least Boston and Milwaukee out of next season’s way. Cobble the right connection, procure the correct depth around Mitchell, and the potential is larger than LeBron’s was a decade ago.
The immediate payoff is another mid-playoff loss, admittedly no fun, but the Cavaliers and their backers earned nearly as entertaining an NBA end result: Cleveland and its fans get to trade everyone they don’t like, which is a lot of fun.
Kelly Dwyer writes about the NBA at KDonhoops.com.
