The CAVS could keep the CORE FOUR TOGETHER!? | Locked On Cavs Podcast

The CAVS could keep the CORE FOUR TOGETHER!? | Locked On Cavs Podcast

on today’s show there have been a lot of reports that the Cavs could keep the core for together I’ll tell you why that could be a good idea you are locked on Cavs your daily Cleveland Cavaliers podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day thanks for making lockdown Cavs your first listen every day you can find the show wherever you get your podcast Apple Spotify anywhere else and you can watch this show for free on YouTube be sure to subscribe to whatever podcast platform you prefer give this show a thumbs up on YouTube subscribe on YouTube as well that’s the best way you can help to grow the show part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day Today’s Show is brought to you by prize picks download the app today and use code locked on NBA that’s l o c k e d o n NBA for a first deposit match of up to $100 prize picks pick more pick less it’s that easy I’m Danny Cunningham you might know me from covering the Cavs at places such as Cleveland magazine 923 the fan or once upon the time at ESPN Cleveland great show lined up for today there’s been a lot of reporting out there that the Cavs might want to hang on to all four members of the core for so we’re talking Donovan Mitchell who the team wants to hang on to wants to have signed a contract extension this summer they feel very confident about that there’s been a ton of reporting surrounding that and we’ll dive into that a little bit more as well Darius Garland his Allstar mate in the back court Jarett Allen at Center and Evan Mobley alongside him in the front court so there’s been a lot of reporting that the Cavs are not necessarily as open for business as I think a lot of people myself included have expected them to be as this off season is right on the horizon as we are getting much closer to free agency and while I don’t necessarily agree with this line of thinking as you guys are getting to know me and getting to hear some of my takes I think that’s been rather clear that I think the best path forward for the Cavs is to do some reshuffling of talent right that’s the best way that I think they can reach their ceiling or adjust what their ceiling could be even that said I do believe that there are reasons why the Cavaliers should think about hanging on to all four members of the core 4 that I just mentioned I think one of those reasons is just having a little bit of patience where we’ve seen a lot of teams that have had patience where it’s paid off I’ll dive into some examples of those on today’s show um the contract value or just the value of the individual players as assets I think is something that is worth bringing up we will get into that coming up in today’s show but first I I think and I’m guilty of this too the NBA has become something that the transaction is something that is it gets every everyone excited right because that’s what we spend so much time talking about and it’s fun to think and to have hope it’s fun to think about the future and have hope that whatever team you root for in this case the Cleveland Cavaliers it’s fun to have hope that there are Avenues to improve and it’s fun to have hope that the process can be sped up a little bit right where you know we take a look back at the Cavs did try and speed up their process when they traded for Donovan Mitchell they jumped a step or two in their rebuild because of that trade but what happens when we think about those things as often as we think about those things what happens is we forget these guys are good basketball players at times we at times because we think about these basketball players as what their contracts are who they could be traded for that becomes such a big part of the conversation that we can lose sight of oh these guys are actually pretty good and they have been pretty good together so far now maybe they haven’t gone as far in the playoffs as people would have hoped um like I certainly thought expectations this year for the Cavs should have been to reach the Eastern Conference Finals they didn’t do that they felt fell short of my preseason expectations but that doesn’t mean that this group of basketball players isn’t good that doesn’t mean that you have to break them up for sure when you go down this list of basketball players in the core four Donovan Mitchell I I think his resume speaks for itself he’s the guy you have to bring up first he’s the guy that the Cavs most want to hang on to he is the guy that at this point is the centerpiece of the franchise the Cavs want to sign him to ax contract extension I think that is something that will happen this summer I think a lot of people around the NBA are of the belief that will happen this summer if you if you notice you’re starting to see fewer and fewer fake trades out there and you know we did a couple of fake trade episodes last week with Greg Schwarz a bleacher report but you’re starting to see fewer and fewer fake trades across the MBA um from insiders if you will that involve Donovan Mitchell because I think the likelihood of him leaving Cleveland is not nearly as high as what people had expected it to be but you talk about him as part of this just being a good basketball player yes he’s only made one all NBA team um I believe if he were healthy all year long he would have been an all-nba player again this year he was certainly trending in that direction but since he’s been in Cleveland he’s been in my opinion and I think in the opinion of a lot of people a top 10 player in basketball last year he finished sixth in MVP voting this year he was on his way to being named an all-nba player again so he’s a really good basketball player and what you don’t want to do is trade Away really good basketball players and of course trading Donovan Mitchell has never been something the Cavs want to or should want to do that is something I’ve been firmly against I think everyone that is a Cavs fan for the most part is pretty firmly against so let’s go down the list because we already know what Donovan is I don’t need to explain his resume any further for you yeah Darius Garland Had a Bad season this year he did it was I’ve characterized it as a nightmare of a season nothing went his way I thought he started to find a rhythm and then boom fractured his jaw in December he comes back he just he’s never right he was never able to really find his rhythm he struggled to put the weight back on that he lost when he couldn’t eat solid food for roughly four weeks that’s a really tough season but I’m not of the belief that just because Darius Garland had a rough season that he’s no longer a really good basketball player that I don’t think this season is who Darius Garland is as an NBA player and it’s not to say that I think his ceiling is still as high as maybe I once upon a time did like I thought and I I came on this podcast as a guest before and I talked about how I thought there were all NBA teams in Darius Garland’s future I believe that that was prior to the Donovan Mitchell trade I’m not so sure that I still believe that to be the case but I do believe that there are still all-star teams in Darius Garland’s future like I still think he’s that caliber of player but as he comes off of what was unquestionably a rough season for him is now really the best time to move on from him I don’t necessarily think that it is and I also do believe that we have seen certain things that lead us to believe Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland in the back court together while it hasn’t been perfect it can work and it has produced some pretty good results like Donovan has played the best basketball of his career alongside Darius Darius last year I thought was really really good and then I’m willing to because of what he has shown over the last three or four years throw this season out the window I don’t think it matters for the long-term future of him I think you can forget about this season with him he’s still a really good basketball player and what did I say about Donovan Mitchell I can say it about Darius Garland you don’t always just want to trade away good basketball players and then you move on to the front Court where Jared Allen I thought even though he was an Allstar in the 2021 202 season I thought this year was the best year of his career I thought Jared Allen this past season for the Cav played the best basketball that he has ever played do you want to move on from that type of player just because I can see why it might make sense to not do that I can totally see why that might be the best idea to say hey yeah the fit might not be perfect and it’s not perfect between him and Evan Mobley I think anyone that watches basketball can see that fit is not perfect but Jared Allen is a really good basketball player he’s a really really good basketball player player and it doesn’t always make sense to trade really good basketball players just to trade really good basketball players and then lastly with Evan moble you’re talking about a guy there who you know he is somebody that in year two was a defensive player of the year finalist as a second-year player that is incredibly difficult to to do incredibly difficult yes offensively he has not come along the way that we all thought he would come along he’s not be from a guy that can go out there on a nightly basis and get you 25 points in the way that myself and I think a lot of people expected him to be able to do maybe that still in his is in his future but I think that moving on from someone like him would be a sort of a careless decision in roster building because just because this past season was riddled with injuries for him I don’t think it’s changed his ceiling and I do think think that because the playoff success hasn’t been what it what everyone wanted it to be in Cleveland that there are times we forget just how good these basketball players are and yeah the fit’s not perfect but if you’re making a trade here you can’t guarantee you’re going to get you might be able to get a better fit back but you can’t guarantee you’re going to get the same level of talent back so that’s reason number one as to why I think that well overall I’m probably in the bucket of wanting to rearrange the talent but that’s reason number one why hey maybe maybe it could make sense to keep all four of these guys together reason number two sometimes you just got to be patient I’ll tell you about that next right here on lock on Cavs but Today’s Show is brought to you by Linked In LinkedIn jobs is the place to be um they know what it’s like like when you’re hiring for a small business and you want to find quality professionals because they know what it’s like they’ve helped you be in the place that you need to be you’ve got to check out LinkedIn jobs they’ve got the tools to help you find the right Professionals for your team faster we all like speed we all like efficiency right and for free I have been someone in my past not right now not looking for jobs right now 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candidate within 24 hours post your job for free today at linkedin.com slocked on NBA that’s linkedin.com locked on NBA Lok n NBA and you can post your job for free terms and conditions do apply so the second reason that I do think it would be smart for the Cavs to keep the core four intact is that the process can be rushed at times in the NBA where we live in a world I just talked about how we’ve become so transactionally based when it comes to the NBA but the other thing that I think happens and the Cavs were a little guilty of this when they traded for Donovan Mitchell but teams will try and Skip steps they will try and Vault themselves from maybe not necessarily a lottery team but they’ll try and go from a first round out team to a champion like that and that’s not something that happens very often it doesn’t you have to in the NBA more often than not and I really think that in this situation the only exception to this rule over the last couple of decades has been LeBron James like that has been the exception and even LeBron when he has joined a new team hasn’t won championships in the first year but he’s been sort of that exception there right but look at right now so game five of the finals tonight between the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks well the Boston Celtics have been in the Conference Finals a bunch of years consecutively they went to the finals in 2022 and they have not yet won a title maybe they do tonight they have an opportunity tonight to win a title but they’ve made a bunch of playoff runs that they’ve come up short and while they’ve made moves on the margins some pretty good moves especially recently this past off season what they didn’t do was separate their core now their core wasn’t as big as the Cavs is but they didn’t separate Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown and really I know Al Horford was away for a little bit but they brought him back and he’s part of that core they upgraded at role players and they’ve got I think the best role players in basketball and guys like Drew holiday and Derrick White and Chris ABS porzingis but they didn’t separate their core and then you go to Dallas where Dallas has had this sort of slow buildup to the first few years not I know not Luca’s first year in the NBA but after that they lost early in the playoffs a couple times and then they go on a run to the Western Conference Finals a couple years ago and then last year they missed the playoffs entirely and now they find themselves in the NBA Finals they’ve done some rearranging certainly I know that trade for Kyrie Irving was a big one but you have to be patient here look at the Denver Nuggets the team that won the title just a year ago they were a team that they had come up short several years in a row in the bubble they lost in the Conference Finals the year before that or two years before that they lost a game 82 to the Minnesota Timberwolves that would have gotten them in the playoffs instead they’re in the lottery it took them some time to build up and it took them some opportunities to get playoff experience together as a group before they were able to get to that next level if you even want to go as far back as you know the second LeBron era here we all think of Golden State as this dynastic team and they were certainly but before that they had playoff failures too in fact they were in a pretty similar situation to what the Cavs are in right now where in consecutive years and their order was reversed to the Cavs but they lost in the first and second round of the playoffs fired their coach but they kept their core together and then they went out and they won the finals and then the year after that they won 73 games and blew a 3-1 lead in the finals which everyone obviously very much REM super vividly and I have to say right now all the flashbacks that are popping up um as I record this on Sunday it’s the anniversary of game six of that series so like when I open Instagram or Twitter or YouTube or whatever I just see highlights from the specific games and get to Rel those moments and it’s awesome but that Golden State team wasn’t one that was just instantly good it took time to grow and then when Kevin Durant arrived you know in the summer of 2016 that changed things but that team had already won a title together really the only exceptions to this have been the teams that LeBron has gone to to where when he left the Cavs in this summer of 2010 for Miami that Heat team went to the finals the first year they didn’t win it but they went to the finals the first year when LeBron left Miami to come back to Cleveland Cavs didn’t win the finals that first year I think they would have if not for some super untimely injuries to uh Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving but they won the finals the second year it it still took time not as much time because LeBron is sort of a microwave of success but then when he went to the Lakers you know that first year they missed the playoffs second year they won the title but that first year they missed the playoffs these things take time and sometimes patience is required and the Cavs not moving on from any members of their core 4 would be showing some patience in some sense to where they might believe that The Best Is Yet To Come not just individually for all four of these players which at least for three of the four I do believe the best is yet to come and we’ll talk about that fourth coming up in just a minute but they can realistically look themselves in the mirror and say the best for this group is yet to come to where sure the Boston Celtics right now are a power in the Eastern Conference but after that they might not feel as if there’s a team that has Head and Shoulders above them that is a lock to be the number two seed next season they might feel that way and if they do can’t necessarily for sure tell them that they’re wrong while I think a lot of people might not believe that you can’t tell them that they’re wrong before you see it play out so that’s reason number two as to why you know it might make sense to keep the core forward together the third reason I’ve talked about transactions when transactions are made in the NBA a lot of it’s about value and we have to talk about the contract value or the value of the individual assets for the core 4 next right here on lockdown Cavs Today’s Show is also presented to you by prize picks with prize picks you can turn $10 into $1,000 in a single game watching your favorite sports this summer what what else would you want to do what a what better way is there to spend the summer I can’t think of one you can make a prize pick lineup in as little as 60 seconds it’s not a lot of time that’s about the time that it’s going to take me to get through this read you can make a lineup and turn $10 like I said into $1,000 like that’s so you’re going to want to listen to this if you’re looking for promotions too prize picks has you covered every week the lower select players stat projections 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on NBA for a first deposit match up to $100 that’s code locked on NBA l o c k e d o n NBA prize picks pick more pick n less it’s that easy so the other thing that we do have to touch on when we talk about keeping the core four intact keeping them together is when you come off of a Bad season the way that someone like Darius Garland did even though I don’t believe that sud Darius Garland is I know a lot of people don’t believe that sud Darius Garland is it was just a Bad season with a brighter future ahead that means his value on the trade market isn’t what it maybe was 12 months ago and this is sort of like a stock market situation where you always want to buy low and sell high right so for me I don’t think trading Donovan Mitchell’s a conversation I don’t think trading Evan moob is a conversation so that leads you with two of the four members that you can talk about one of which is Darius Garland and I don’t think his value right now on the trade market is what it should be I I think right now it’s probably in the valley if you want to you know Peaks and Valley type terms it’s probably pretty low if you give him another year in Cleveland maybe it works out maybe you want him on the Cavs for the rest of his career I’m not saying that’s going to be the case I don’t know but just he could and I think it’s pretty likely have a much better season in 2024 2025 than he did in 2023 2024 I would bet on Darius Garland bouncing back and having a terrific season this year whether he’s in a Cavs uniform or a Brooklyn Nets uniform or a Minnesota Timberwolves uniform or you name the uniform I would bet Darius Garland is a better basketball player this upcoming season than he was this past season so when that’s the case case you don’t often want to be the team that trades away that guy you don’t because you are not getting back what that player is actually worth and I don’t know that if the Cavs traded Darius Garland July 1st that they would receive back proper value for him I can’t say that they would for sure I can’t maybe they would maybe they wouldn’t but I also think teams might be a little hesitant to to to pay up what Darius Garland worth on the trade market to where if you are a rival team negotiating with Cav’s president of basketball operations Kobe Alman about a Darius Garland trade your rebuttal to whatever the first offer is is going to be well how do we know Darius Garland is going to be the guy that was an all star and not the guy that was on the court last season how do we know that that’s going to be a rebuttal on the flip side though I think that’s when you talk about someone like Jared Allen who I think is coming off of the best season of his career and I’m not sure how much better Jared Allen is going to get or how much more worth he’s going to have on the trademarket considering he’s got a very team-friendly contract for his level of skill for his play on the court he is absolutely a bargain of a contract and I think that is something that when you’re negotiating with rival teams that that is a feather in the cap of the Cavs to where if they are going to have to move a move off of Jared Allen this off season it it’s going to have to come at a very Hefty price which means other teams might not want to pay what the Cavs would need to get back from Jared Allen and all of those things are reasons as to why keeping the core four intact could make sense because Jarett Allen’s a really good basketball player Darius Garland I still believe is a really good basketball player you’re not giving these guys away for nothing you’re not trading them just to trade them and if the right deal isn’t out there then yeah I think to some extent keeping this core 4 intact makes some sense and I understand why the Cavaliers might want to go into this offseason with that being their line of thinking I totally get it thank you for making lock on Cavs your first listen every day again I’m Danny Cunningham you can find me on Twitter at realy Cunningham also at Cleveland magazine 923 the fan um very much appreciate you guys it’s been a great so far two weeks doing lock on Cavs and and you guys have been awesome I do want to do another mailbag coming up at the end of this week so if you’ve got questions for the mailbag drop them on YouTube in the comments section below um just tag for mailbag at the start of your comment or you can tweet at me at RealD Cunningham or at locked on Cavs on Twitter if you want to get questions in but I will be doing a mailbag episode coming up a little bit later on this week going to have some draft talk uh hopefully Wednesday and Thursday we’ll be doing draft um as well as you know we have to keep you guys updated on the comings and goings of the coaching search that is still ongoing as I record this on Sunday nights um but on tomorrow’s show unless there is some big coaching news tomorrow’s show I’m going to basically talk about why the core 4 should be split up you know I talked all show today about why it should be kept intact I’m going to bring up I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate on tomorrow’s show so stay tuned for that keep it right here lock on Cavs again I’m Danny Cunningham I appreciate you making lockdown Cavs your first listen every day have a great week lined up for you have a great Monday everybody [Music]

The Cleveland Cavaliers could keep the “Core Four” intact. Here’s why that makes sense.

On Monday’s Locked On Cavs, Danny Cunningham (@RealDCunningham) of Cleveland Magazine and 92.3 The Fan discusses why the Cleveland Cavaliers shouldn’t break up the “Core Four” prior to the 2024-25 NBA season.

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