The Cavs are at the center of some interesting NBA trade ideas this year.
The Cavs roster in 2021-2022 may look vastly different than at any other point in the last four years. Trade talks involving Collin Sexton and Kevin Love are picking up steam, Jarrett Allen may or may not be offered a max contract by the Cavs, Matthew Dellevadova is a free agent, and the team has the number three overall pick in the upcoming 2021 NBA Draft.
Times, they are, a changing.
Who knows what the Cavaliers will look like in 2021 but the one thing we know for sure is that this is Koby Altman’s “make or break” year. He wouldn’t have spent the last three years quietly building a roster from the draft, and trading away any veteran he can for second-round picks, only to turn around and try to trade away players and picks for a star or two without a reason.
The reason is that Altman has got to put out a winning product for his fourth rebuild season or it’ll likely be his job.
Now, is he going about it the right way? Does he have his eyes on the right talent in order to get back to the playoffs? He better, because if he trades away all these picks and players and they still fail to make the playoffs, then there’s no coming back for Altman.
Not just in Cleveland, but he’ll likely never get another GM job again if he blows this. His legacy is on the line.
So what current roster rumors are being spoken about that you should know?
Collin Sexton thinks he’ll stay
Despite all the scuttlebutt over Collin Sexton getting traded, there’s a belief in his camp that he’s not going anywhere, actually. According to Chris Fedor, he’s still on the future’s invite list.
"Recent rumblings point to Sexton’s name being involved in trade discussions — even though sources close to Sexton have the impression that the polarizing 22-year-old shooting guard is part of the long-term plans."
Now, a player thinking they’ll stay isn’t the most revolutionary thing in the world. Especially not in the world of pro sports, where GMs lie all the time to the players they acquire and the media that covers them. Some GMs can’t be trusted while others don’t ever say anything at all. It’s impossible to know what is true and what isn’t true. Sports personalities, be it, players, coaches, or executives, lie all the time to prevent controversy from spreading.
It’s almost like they’d rather lie than be honest about what’s happening. Mind-boggling. So it would be understandable if Sexton believes he’s staying while he’s being shopped around. This is how pro sports work, for better or worse.
For Sexton, who knows why he thinks he’ll stay or why he’d even want to; considering everything that is going on. For fans that want him to stay, maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s the next coming of Steph Curry. A guy who needs a few years to fully develop. Maybe he’s not, and maybe he’s the next Lou Williams; a smaller guard who can score but not much else.
Who knows at this point.
Kevin Love getting less of a role in the offense/To be traded
The future of Kevin Love is getting murkier and murkier every week. On one hand, he wants to play in Portland and that seems to be his preferred landing destination, mainly due to Damian Lillard still being there. If the Blazers move Lillard, then would Love still want to go there? That seems unlikely, though his path there seems only to be via a buyout. Something that isn’t expected to happen namely because of the recent trade buzz.
The Trailblazers just don’t seem to have the best assets to get it done.
According to Sam Amico, The Blazers are rumored to be one of four teams interested in the 32-year-old, former All-Star, with chronic injuries. The other four teams are the Heat, Clippers, Pelicans, and 76ers.
Chris Fedor believes that Love’s workload will decrease in 2021-2022 regardless of what the team does around him.
"Is [Evan] Mobley an ideal fit for a team about to invest around $100 million in [Jarrett] Allen while already having roughly $41 committed to power forwards Larry Nance Jr. and Kevin Love? Of course not. But Love’s workload is expected to shrink this coming season and some in the organization wonder if Nance is more effective when his minute average hovers around 25. And it’s not like [Jalen] Suggs — the other potential option at No. 3 — wouldn’t create a bit of a logjam at the guard spot. Either choice would lead to [J.B.] Bickerstaff doing some rotational gymnastics."
Either way it goes, it seems like Love’s days with the Cavs are all but over. That could be a good or bad thing at this juncture but if any of these rumors tell us anything about the current going’s on with the Cavaliers, it’s that Love is no longer in future plans.
Only the future will be able to tell us if that’s a good idea or not.
The 76ers aren’t buying what the Cavs are selling
A new rumor from Terry Pluto seems to have the Cavs out of the Ben Simmons running, at least with the rumored package of Kevin Love and Collin Sexton. As with the Miami Heat rumors from last week, there are apparently trade ideas being pitched around that would see Love and Sexton moved together.
The Heat supposedly has an interest in both but nothing has come to fruition yet. For the 76ers, however, Pluto is saying they’re out. He’s not getting anything from the 76ers themselves, mind you, but from people who he believes know the situation. Here’s what Pluto wrote;
"Every NBA person I talked to said Sixers GM Daryl Morey wants someone such as Damion Lillard in a Simmons deal. The Love/Sexton/draft pick package would have little appeal to him."
Now, what does that even mean? The NBA people? Agents? GMs? The hot dog vendor at the FieldHouse? Who knows, it’s a pretty open-ended thing. Maybe Morey doesn’t want Sexton and Love, maybe he does. The problem with Sexton being in the trade seems to stem from the fact that Daryl Morey wants three-point shooters, which isn’t Sexton’s game.
It’s barely Love’s game anymore.