A Jarrett Allen to the Portland Trailblazers trade was suggested and yikes

Get used to suggesting trades where the Cleveland Cavaliers trade Jarrett Allen.

The outside NBA world seems to think the Cleveland Cavaliers should trade Jarrett Allen. I disagree. The Cavs don’t need to move on from Allen for a variety of reasons, many of which I’ll cover in another post, but the biggest one involves talent. Allen has it, and anyone you get will only fill a hole by creating a new one.

If you trade Allen for a shooter, now you don’t have a starting center. So why would you do that? The Cavs already lack reliable depth at that part of the court, so why bother making it weaker just to slightly upgrade another spot?

Sure, if you’re getting back Jayson Tatum or Brandon Ingram, you consider the trade. But for a Reggie Bullock type? No. What may be worse is this suggestion from King James Gospel who threw out trading Allen for Jerami Grant.

A trade that on paper looks good, but would destroy the Cavaliers for years to come.

Trading Jarrett Allen away for Jerami Grant would be a bad idea for the Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cavs need some perimeter help. Someone who can score from inside and out, while not giving up much on defense. For some, that seems to suggest Grant. Now, if Grant came here on the mid-level exception, and the Cavs gave up nothing to get him, fantastic. He fits a need, we didn’t cause another hole to fill, solid upgrade.

But trading one of the four best players for Grant? A player whose skillset is the whole reason the Cavs can play the defense they play? That’s a bad idea.

The trade that the article suggests is Allen and Isaac Okoro for Grant, and then the Cavs could then offer their MLE to Brook Lopez. I’m all in favor of pushing some chips into the middle of the table, but I’m not for disrupting the core of the team unless you’re getting a genuine All-NBA caliber player.

Grant isn’t even an All-Star yet, and he’s about to be 30. He’s about to be 30, and since joining Detroit in 2020, he’s missed 30% of possible games played. It’s very likely that Grant plays just half a season at this point in his career. Sure, he can hit a three, but can he stay on the court to do so?

What makes this trade even worse is that Grant doesn’t have the skill set to play small forward in the NBA. He hasn’t since he was a rookie. He’s not Lauri Markkanen, he doesn’t have the ability to put the ball on the floor and drive like Markkanen did. Instead, Grant takes a lot of long twos for some reason, with nearly 20% of his shots coming between 10 and 21 feet of the center of the rim.

That’s a lot of pointless shots. Either step back another foot and shoot a three or get closer. And he should, because despite his stats saying he’s a good scorer, he’s less likely to score from that distance than from others. He’s not the fit fans want him to be. The Cavs need someone like Ray Allen or Kyle Korver, someone who lives at the three-point line. Not two steps in front of it.

Off the bench, Grant would work, but next to Mobley and whatever slow-footed center the Cavs can afford in free agency? He would be a terrible fit. Yes, he provides more offense but his arrival would just end up creating a bigger hole to fix on a J.B. Bickerstaff-led team. If this was a Mike D’Antoni-style team, sure, but it’s not.

Grant isn’t a terrible option but the Cavs are simply creating another massive hole, all to get a mediocre player who jumps from team to team to team for a reason. The Cavs can do better than this.