Cleveland Cavaliers: Best Move They Did And Didn’t Make

For every move a team makes, there are 10 moves they could have made. What was the best of the moves the defending champions made, and where should they have acted?

The NBA offseason kicks off every year around the first of July, and fans of every team fill their hearts and message boards with dreams of what player their team could sign. The possibilities of this superstar pairing with that superstar make every team a possible contender.

Offseasons never go the way teams expect, either. For every move a team makes, there are 10 that they didn’t make. The Golden State Warriors signed Kevin Durant, but they didn’t find a way to keep Festus Ezeli, or to accumulate enough depth to replace their bench. What’s done is never enough, and what lies undone is almost always more tantalizing.

Starting with the defending champions, and moving down the list of early title favorites to end up in Brooklyn, we will walk through each team to praise them for the best move they made this offseason — and call them out on the best move they didn’t make.

The Cleveland Cavaliers entered the offseason with no cap space and have made a correspondingly small number of moves. What stands out from their offseason so far?

Best Move Of The Offseason: Trading Matthew Dellavedova

After playing on his qualifying offer last season, Matthew Dellavedova became a restricted free agency this summer. Teams such as Milwaukee and Detroit were said to be seriously interested, and the rumors played true when the Australian point guard signed a four-year, $38 million offer sheet with the Bucks.

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Dellavedova would seem to be a perfect fit in Milwaukee, able to guard point guards but then play off the ball as a spot-up shooter as Giannis Antetokounmpo handles the ball, nearly identical to his role in Cleveland.

The Cavaliers made a decision that they would rather feature Iman Shumpert in a more primary role than match an offer sheet for Dellavedova that paid him over $9 million per year. Having made that decision, they proceeded to convince Milwaukee to acquire Delly in a sign-and-trade.

By trading a player making that level of money, the Cavaliers created a “trade exception,” a means by which a team over the cap can acquire players without matching equal salary. That trade exception was then large enough to take on the contract of Mike Dunleavy in a salary dump from the Chicago Bulls.

The net result was that Cleveland retained the use of their $9.6 million trade exception acquired when they traded Anderson Varajao to the Portland Trail Blazers in February. Since the Cavaliers are over the cap, their options to add players were heavily restricted. In keeping the trade exception.

Cleveland left open the door of making a deal that added to the champs’ war chest without sacrificing important assets to match salary.

Best Move They Didn’t Make: Trading Kevin Love

The minute the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA championship, Love’s name on his locker became lacquered with gold. The third star who sacrificed his numbers for the good of the team — that’s a player the defending champions keep around.

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But a week before he was chugging beers and hugging the Larry O’Brien trophy, Kevin Love was on the way out. Media outlets and Twitter chains across the world were already signing off on the many Kevin Love trades that would happen over the summer. The Cavaliers needed a different kind of player to get over the hump and defeat the Golden State Warriors.

The fact that the Cavaliers did beat the Warriors, and with Kevin Love, is new paint covering up a rickety house. All of the reasons why Love needed to be traded are just as true now as they were in June. He struggles to defend the pick and roll, he’s not a gifted passer, and on offense he needs the ball in his hands.

With LeBron James and Kyrie Irving on the roster, he’s not going to see the ball very often. His role on the Cavaliers is as a spot-up shooter around the perimeter, which negates his other strength of rebounding.

If the Cavaliers had lost the NBA Finals, Kevin Love’s value would have been low. Now it is much higher as he is ringed with the soft glow of winning a title. The Cavaliers should have pulled the trigger on a Kevin Love trade, bringing back Jimmy Butler or a package built around Jae Crowder. Instead they are sitting tight, content with a roster that just won the title.

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Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, the other teams didn’t sit tight. Boston added Al Horford, San Antonio added Pau Gasol and the Golden State Warriors added a player named Kevin Durant. Standing pat may have ensured that LeBron is bringing only one title back to the Land.