The Cleveland Cavaliers' mid-season revamp continued with the one move that most saw coming.
Cleveland needed to make roster space for Nae'Qwan Tomlin, who had exceeded his usage on a two-way contract after the trade that brought Keon Ellis and Dennis Schroder to the Cavaliers.
Lonzo Ball was expected to be the replacement for Ty Jerome as the third guard, and with a questionable health record, keeping him on the floor was the concern.
Ball stayed relatively healthy but didn't play well, averaging less than five points per game in thirty-five games
Considering the roster spot and the attempt to continue to get out of the second apron of the salary cap, Ball and his ten-million-dollar cap number were the easiest place to cut.
But who would be willing to take Ball and for what?
The answer was the Utah Jazz, and nothing, as Cleveland literally traded two second-round picks with Ball for nothing but cap relief.
The two second-rounders leave Cleveland without those bargaining chips for years, as Cleveland doesn't have a second rounder until the 2030s, but it was needed to try to move off the apron and make space for a more productive player.
Utah is expected to waive Ball, with Charlotte and Washington expected to have interest in signing him.
Cleveland wanted to keep Tomlin, a young player who is exceeding expectations, and didn't have the time or cap room to nurture Ball and hope he showed improvement.
Not every trade works out, and Cleveland cut their losses before they became too large.
It's not often in sports that a trade gives one team something and the other team nothing.
Not a player, not cash, and not even future considerations.
Nothing.
That's what the Cleveland Cavaliers gave the Utah Jazz for center Damian Jones.
Nothing, only agreeing to pay Jones's 2.6 million dollar salary was the only return for the Jazz for the 6'11 backup center.
Jones won two NBA titles with Golden State in 2017 and 2018 after the Warriors drafted him at thirtieth overall in the 2016 draft from Vanderbilt.
The twenty-eight-year-old Jones has played for six NBA teams, including two different stints with the Lakers, and was acquired by Utah last February from the Lakers as part of a three-team deal.
Jones averaged 3.5 points and three rebounds between the two teams last season, playing almost sixteen minutes per game in Utah, and eight minutes per game as a Laker.
Jones shot sixty-five percent from the floor as he rarely shoots more than a few feet away from the basket or tries a shot other than slamming the ball through the hoop.
I wouldn't expect much from Jones other than maybe the last big man off the bench and I think this is a case of two teams that work on trades often helping each other out a bit.
The rumored suitors for Utah Jazz star guard Donovan Mitchell over the last few months were plentiful with the most prominent and likely contender in the New York Knicks supposedly close to a swap until earlier this week, the Knicks puzzled observers with a massive contract extension with R.J. Barrett that seemed to remove them from any hopes of obtaining Mitchell unless Utah had agreed to the extension before a potential trade.
Still, few saw Donovan Mitchell starting the season in October wearing a uniform other than the Utah Jazz or the New York Knicks but he will not be with either team as Koby Altman and the Cleveland Cavaliers swooped in to take advantage of the Knicks poker game with Utah to make the deal for themselves to land the three-time All-Star for their lineup.
The trade bolsters the Cavaliers a great deal and makes them contenders in the Eastern Conference as soon as next season.
Donovan Mitchell averaged just under twenty-six points per game last season in sixty-seven games and turns twenty-six next week along with being under his current contract for the next three years with a player option for a fourth campaign.
Mitchell shoots well (forty-five percent total, thirty-five from three-point range), can handle the ball and create his own shot, and isn't completely offensively devoted to himself as a good passer with over five assists per game last season.
Mitchell's best position is shooting guard and the hope is that Mitchell and Darius Garland can mesh together in the backcourt where Garland and the departed (in this trade) Collin Sexton never did.
Mitchell can play the point, so should a situation such as an injury to Garland occur, Mitchell is more than capable of running the team from the point.
The main deficiency in Mitchell's game is that he is well below average as a defender and while Darius Garland has made some defensive strides, Garland couldn't be considered a strong defender either.
Both Mitchell and Garland are only 6'1 and some of the issues with the backcourt of Garland and Sexton was playing two small guards together as a regular pair and size-wise, the Cavaliers didn't get bigger, so it's reasonable to wonder about the size issue and the defensive problems that are sure to come with a smaller backcourt.
Cleveland will hope that with solid defenders at forward in Evan Mobley and Isaac Okoro and a rim protector in Jarrett Allen that with work, tutoring, and trying to funnel opposing offenses towards their waiting their better and larger defenders that they can camouflage some of the defensive weaknesses.
If Garland and Mitchell can improve even a little bit defensively to even a little below average to average, Cleveland should be thrilled with that result.
The cost was high for a player of Mitchell's caliber and Cleveland was willing to pay the tab with a package of Lauri Markkanen, Collin Sexton (Sexton signed a contract with Cleveland so he could be included in the trade). recent first-round draft pick Ochai Agbaji, unprotected first-round selections in 2025,2027, and 2029 as well as giving the Jazz the option to flip first-rounders with Cleveland in 2026 and 2028.
It is difficult to look at such a package and not think that the cost was prohibitive but the cost of acquiring stars has become more expensive of late compared to the cost that Minnesota paid for Rudy Gobert (Also with Utah, Minnesota trading five players, four first-rounders and one option to swap first rounders for Gobert), Cleveland paid less for a better player.
I liked Lauri Markkanen and trading him away will move the team away from the "Big" lineup that helped the Cavaliers to their success that didn't go by the wayside until injuries at various times to Markkanen, Mobley, and Allen but Cleveland could be on the lookout for a similar player in the next season or and while Markkanen is a nice player, I think he could be replaced fairly easily especially when Cleveland gains cap space after next season when the contracts of Kevin Love and Caris LeVert could (should they decide to move on from both) open up almost forty-eight million dollars on the salary cap.
I was never as big of a fan of Collin Sexton as many Cavaliers fans have been and while I liked his scoring. Sexton was always a high-effort player, Sexton didn't appeal to me as a building block player and made me think of him as a player that would be a sixth or seventh man/instant offense performer on a good team or if you had to rely on him as one of your two top scorers that the odds were that your team wasn't a very good one.
Still, Sexton can score and there is always a spot in the league for a player that has a career scoring average of twenty points a game on the mark.
Ochai Agbaji was the Cavaliers first-round pick from Kansas, who Cleveland hoped could give them some help on the wing with some improved outside shooting but Koby Altman never seemed thrilled with owning a first-rounder after the Cavaliers late-season swoon (had Cleveland made the playoffs, the pick would have been shipped to Indiana as part of the Caris LeVert trade) and Agbaji doesn't appear to have the upside to be more than a situational player, so I don't think Altman was overly concerned about his inclusion in the trade.
I know that three first-rounders sound like a lot to throw in and it is but Cleveland hopes that obtaining Mitchell will make those selections late first-rounders and therefore worth less in moving them along.
My concern there is Cleveland trading so many down the road, especially the 2029 first-rounder which one has no idea what type of pick that could be as it will be used by Utah three years after Donovan Mitchell's current contract expires and he could very well be long gone from Cleveland by then.
I think this trade appears to be a good return for both sides and it is not often that I can say that.
Cleveland brought in a three-time All-Star at only twenty-six and did so without disrupting the three players (Garland, Mobley, and Allen) that are the core of their rebuilding process.
Utah receives two players that can be plugged into their starting lineup in Markkanen and Sexton to either use or showcase to continue to stockpile draft choices, adds essentially another number one in Ochai Agabji to develop, and all of that draft ammunition to either use themselves or move around to help them add other assets.
I do have a few questions mainly about the defensive problems that will have to be worked around with Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland playing on the floor at the same time and wondering about how long it will take for Mitchell and Garland to develop the always-talked-about chemistry.
Still, for the various faults that Koby Altman has shown in personnel, one has to give him credit for being willing to take the big swing in making trades and he's taken a big swing with this one.
The Cleveland Cavaliers received double-digit points from all five starters with a surprising leader as Lamar Stevens scored a career-high 23 points as Cleveland defeated the depleted Utah Jazz 111-91 in Salt Lake City.
Lauri Markkanen finished with twenty points with Darius Garland picking up his first career triple-double ( 11 points, 10 rebounds, and 15 assists) to help Stevens in the Cavalier victory.
Cleveland will visit San Antonio Friday night before finishing their six-game road trip Saturday night in Oklahoma City.
Swashbucklings
1) Before the game, the Cavaliers announced that general manager Koby Altman's contract had been extended through 2027 and added the title of director of basketball operations to his business card.
Altman had his share of struggles in his first few seasons as general manager but has done a very good job over the last year in his reshaping of the Cavaliers roster.
Some of that was fortunate breaks such as Detroit and Houston taking Cade Cunningham and Jalen Green (especially Houston!) over Evan Mobley but part of being a quality personnel evaluator is being lucky enough to have players available in the draft that shouldn't be and then being smart enough to take them when they fall and his trades over the past year to land Jarrett Allen, Ricky Rubio and a sign and trade for Lauri Markkanen have been positives.
Maybe you could argue that half a season of strong play isn't enough to extend Altman right now but Altman only has one year remaining on his contract and the Cleveland thinking is likely to take speculation off the table for the next year and a half to give the franchise some stability.
2) Lamar Stevens's twenty-three points led the team and Stevens scored the first thirteen points for Cleveland in the second half.
Stevens is a player that I've liked since Cleveland signed him last season, he'll be a role player at best over his career but role players that do one or two things well have no problems finding employment and can have long careers.
3) Utah was at a major disadvantage in this game as the Jazz were missing all three of their centers (including Rudy Gobert) due to Covid-protocol and dressed only eleven players.
Utah used 6'5 Royce O'Neale at center in desperation, hoping that O'Neale's quickness would help at least somewhat against the taller Cavalier big men and O'Neale did finish with nine rebounds to lead the Jazz in that department.
Cleveland's clear game plan was to bang the ball to their big men to use their height advantage and it worked as their three frontcourt starters finished with 49 points and 23 rebounds.
4) Utah finished the game with only ten players after starter Joe Ingles drew a technical foul in the first quarter after an elbow to the head of Jarrett Allen and a second in the second quarter for a referee beef.
Ingles had missed four games in Covid protocol and lasted thirteen minutes in his return.
5) Darius Garland's triple-double was the first of his career and the first for a Cavalier since Kyrie Irving's three stat stuffer back in 2014.
6) The Cavaliers slammed this one in the win column early in the third quarter with a chunk of the thirteen-point streak of Lamar Stevens part of a 21-0 run to leave the Jazz in the dust with Cleveland leading by 25!
7) Rajan Rondo missed the game with a tight hamstring and Denzel Valentine, who was the player that Cleveland traded to acquire Rondo, made his debut with the Jazz.
Valentine would score five points in seventeen minutes of playing time.
8) As for Rondo, he was listed as questionable entering the game and some of this could be maintenance for Rondo, who has seen a significant increase in his minutes since arriving in Cleveland and the signing of Brandon Goodwin to a two-way contract can occasionally allow Rondo to rest up.
The Cleveland Cavaliers tradedJordan Clarkson to the Utah Jazz for Dante Exum and two future second-round selections Monday night.
The 6'4 Clarkson is averaging 14.6 points off the bench for Cleveland in a sixth-man role and recently scored 33 points against Memphis on Friday night, so this could have been a sell-high situation on the 27-year-old former Missouri Tiger.
Clarkson will be a free agent at the end of the season, so Cleveland did well in getting something for him before an injury could have occurred that would have reduced his value.
Clarkson is shooting thirty-seven percent from the field and with Utah missing Mike Conley from their lineup due to hamstring issues, Clarkson should enter the lineup and receive starter-level minutes for the Jazz.
Cleveland's second-round picks obtained will be arriving from San Antonio (2022) and Golden State (2023) as the Cavaliers continue to add second-round draft picks, which rarely result in players but are often shuffled around in trades or used to take European players that will seldom play in the league but can still have value in having their rights moved around in trades.
The Cavaliers also traded four future second-rounders in the draft-day trade that allowed them to select Kevin Porter, so this allows them to recoup two of them immediately.
Dante Exum is an interesting player that was very highly thought of at one time but has seen his star dim.
Exum is averaging just two points a game in eleven games and at just 24 would appear to be a bust.
The Jazz selected Exum with the fifth overall pick in the 2014 draft and Exum has spent the last five years with Utah after being drafted from Australia.
Exum has suffered many injuries since turning pro, which includes a torn ACL that cost him the 2015-16 season and a shoulder injury along with a patella tendon injury that would limit Exum to only 56 games over the two seasons before this one.
Exum. the son of former North Carolina big man Cecil Exum was compared by some (Ok only Chad Ford) to Kobe Bryant entering the year he was drafted, has been anything but as his shooting has been far from special and his many injuries listed above.
One thing that Exum that could excel with is his defensive game as he has a long wingspan for his size and is dedicated at that end of the floor, so at worst he's going to help as a rotational defensive player.
Exum is under contract for the remainder of this season and for the 2020-21 campaign, so he will have time to prove himself with the Cavaliers.
On the whole, I'm kinda "meh" with this trade.
Dante Exum is a candidate for a fresh environment and he would not be the first player that picked up his game after being a disappointment in his first pro stop.
I understand the second-rounders as a need after trading the four in the Kevin Porter trade, but I'm never excited with round two picks moving around in trades.
It always feels like you are moving around junk bonds to me.
I'm not sure that Jordan Clarkson could have fetched more than this from another team, but it feels a bit light to me for now.
Back later with yesterday's fights from Yokohama, Japan.
The Cleveland Cavaliers began to sweep the veterans out the door with the first of what is expected to be many moves as the team attempts a rebuild as the Cavaliers traded veteran three-point specialist Kyle Korver to the Utah Jazz in return for forward Alec Burks and two future second-round draft picks.
The 37-year-old Korver had asked to be traded in the off-season, but the Cavaliers had demurred by stating that they expected to compete for the playoffs without LeBron James, which lasted all of a few games into a start of 4-15 upon the time of Korver's trading to Salt Lake.
Korver was averaging just under seven points for the Cavaliers but was hitting three-pointers at a forty-six percent clip, which is what makes a player like Korver always attractive as a role player for a contender and makes him marketable for a team in the bottom half of the standings.
Alec Burks averaged around eight points a game as a guard/occasional small forward for the Jazz, having spent his entire career with Utah after being drafted by them in the first round in 2011.
Burks has struggled to stay on the court for Utah over the past four seasons, playing more than half the games just one time over that term.
Burks will come motivated to Cleveland as his eleven million dollars per year contract expires at the end of the season, so Burks will be using the remainder of the year as an audition for the Cavaliers and the rest of the league for a new deal, although he's unlikely to receive anywhere near the contract that he currently owns.
Burks contract could make him attractive to a team in need of cap space in the off-season so Burks might want to rent in Cleveland for the next few months before the trade deadline in February.
Cleveland also received Utah's 2020 second rounder and Washington's 2021 second rounder.
More often than not, these are used to make other trades work or picking European players that rarely come to North America, but rights can be moved around to finish off trades.
Alec Burks will play a few months in Cleveland, maybe show he's healthy enough to make him attractive to a contender that values a second unit guard and an expiring contract and maybe those second rounders will help make a future trade complete, but selfishly, I was hoping for a little more for Korver.
Perhaps that was unrealistic on my part, hoping for a first rounder, even if near the end of the first from a championship contender.
Kyle Korver was a class act and kudos to the Cavaliers for sending him out to a contender (even if a mid-range one) and to a place Korver and family were familiar with (Korver played with the Jazz earlier in his career).
That's the type of move that spreads through the league and over the long haul can help the image of a team that has not always been known as player friendly.
This trade will be the first domino to fall in a long line of dominos between now and the next draft.
Let's hope Koby Altman does better in rebuilding than he did in retooling..
