>Cleveland just has so much money tied up right now between
>Mitchell, the Allen deal, and the Garland extension. (Not to
>mention the necessary Mobley extension coming next year.) So
>you have to feel good about these four players being The Guys
>that will win you a title. Because Love and Levert will be
>gone next year, and they'll almost certainly have to start
>filling gaps with MLE deals and vet minimum dudes once
>Mobley's extension comes into play.
>
>So they have, like, a 3-4 year window where they need to win a
>title. And with Garland and Mobley still so young, and with
>two bigs, two small guards, and no wings worth calling home
>about, I think there are some questions as to whether the
>window lines up with the opportunity. If that makes sense.
>They'll be really fucking good, wouldn't be surprised by ECF
>or what have you... you just have to believe they'll be better
>than Boston and Milwaukee in the next 3-4 years. And I'm not
>necessarily convinced!
>
>Utah, meanwhile, is proving that they have a fantastic coach,
>and they have *very* little money tied up long term (Lauri and
>Sexton are the only guys on the books after next year). They
>could absolutely make a big splash in the FA market to lure
>away a star or two and say "hey, look what we did when we had
>*nobody* of note on the roster." While I still suspect that
>there's a world in which *not* tanking this year will prove to
>be a big mistake... the complete salary freedom and the
>impression they're making on the league this year leads me to
>believe good things could be coming.
>
>Not to mention, Utah has Cleveland's draft picks until, like,
>2029. It just takes one bad year from Cleveland, one year of
>Evan Mobley injury, for Utah to potentially pick up a *major*
>asset as a result of this deal.
>
>I don't think Utah will sustain this level of winning this
>year-- imagine they'll be in play-in contention though, which
>is a *massive* win given the roster-- but there's a lot of
>long-term upside in what Utah's got going right now, whereas
>Cleveland is absolutely in Win Now mode. If Cleveland wins a
>title, then they did the right thing. If they don't... maybe
>it was still the right thing, but it'll come at a pretty
>substantial price.