If the wild trades keep happening in the NBA, could Giannis Antetokounmpo end up with the Cavaliers?

If the wild trades keep happening in the NBA, could Giannis Antetokounmpo end up with the Cavaliers?

We are going back to basketball for our basketball guys, but if you didn’t get enough baseball talk today, we got one more topic, and we have the Ultimate Guardians hosted by Adam the Bull and Zack Meisel every Monday morning, pretty much around 9 to 10 o’clock in the morning. You can go check them out and subscribe to our channel to get notified when they do go live. Mike, you ready for this? Let’s do it. We saw some crazy trades in the NBA yesterday. The Celtics unloaded Drew Holiday and Christas for Zingis to get under the 2nd April of luxury tax. We saw Jordan Pool head over to New Orleans. CJ McCollum went to Washington. We saw the Desmond Bain deal in the past and had asked me with all the movement, and we also saw there’s another trade that I’m forgetting. There’s been a bunch of NBA trades the last couple of days and had asked me with the Celtics moves yesterday, with the Magic move yesterday with the report that. Phoenix had called the Cavs for Kevin Durant and Darius Garland some sort of conversation in that realm. If you think the Cavs were done big game hunting, Jason, and I told them. OK, well, at least discuss it. Jason, do you think the Cavs are, are done or Dustin, do you think the Cavs are done big game hunting to start off here? Oh, I, I, I do, um, just because it would take them pretty much given up on Evan Mobley at this point in time, and they’re not going to do that, I don’t think, um, Mobley, I mean, I, I don’t love Mobley as much as most people do. I, I would rather have Giannis than. Uh, Evan Mobley, but it would take a lot to get him. And I just don’t think this, this organization is going to do that uh right now uh what do you think it would take to get Gannis by the way? Obviously it’s a package centered around Evan Mobley. We could from a financial standpoint it is so incredibly difficult because they can’t aggregate salaries to get to Giannis unless they got so much more money over Giannis’s contract then they ended up under the 2nd apron, which means you have to dump 2 or 3 guys to get under the 2nd apron before you could start that conversation. Then it would start with Mobley and his extension, which kicks in. Which I think is 43 million. Giannis is making 55-ish next year, so it be Mobley plus something to then get to Milwaukee. But then if you do that trade and you aggregate, then you’re hard capped at the second apron, which means you have to fill out the rest of your roster under the second apron, which means you would have. $12 million to sign 8 guys, which is barely enough to do 8 veteran minimum guys or however whatever that number is, so it’s incredibly difficult from a financial standpoint if Giannis were to say I want out, but I wanna stay in the east, could Cleveland be a possible destination? Could it happen? It could, but it’s like jumping through 15 bullet hoops at once. Yeah, I, I don’t, I don’t see it happen. First of all, I think you have to have a conversation with Giannis. Do you want to be here? If you don’t wanna, if you don’t wanna be here, then it’s really hard to make that trade, uh, so that’s number one. And then #2, what would you take? what would you give up? I give up close to anything to get them. He’s an MVP candidate as much as. I believe in Evan Mobley and believe that he is going, he can, he has the potential in the runway to turn into one of those guys. Gianni Giannis is already there and he’s still pretty close to the prime of his career and he’s under team control. I think he’s got 2 years left on his deal and then a player option. So and that sort of fits in that window that we keep talking about the Cavs have 2 years. They have 2 years before they sort of wind up in the same spot that you see Boston in right now. So if that means I’m in Mobley, then you know so be it but it’s not that simple as Mike alluded to it’s a lot more complicated than that and I can’t even sit here. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend to know the path that it would take to do it because it’s a lot of moving parts. I think that the Cavs are who they are. This is the team they’re more than likely going to bring back, uh, I think they are probably listening and should be listening on a lot of things, but ultimately it’s so hard to make big moves right now because of where they’ve positioned themselves that I just don’t think is it possible? Sure, is it realistic? — I don’t think
— so. To, to, to give you like the actual names in theory to make a deal like this work, so it’s all would be for G Yannis, right? You have to dump weight in the car to get him the second apron. Right, so that they’re gone. Then in theory, just to make the money work, I’m not saying that we’re just saying to get to that $50 million Garland. And then either Struce or Hunter or something like that. And it’s if you’re not including Mobley if you wanna switch Mobley for Garland, sure, but basically that money works and then you’d have a bunch of veteran minimums to fill up the rest of your roster. So at, at a minimum you’d be losing Akoro, Wade, Hunter, Garland for Giannis just to make the money work as a starter. So then you’re filling out the rest of your roster with minimum, guys. I mean, it could happen and for Giannis, like I, I think you break down all walls for Giannis, but it’s a lot easier said. — than it is to actually complete it
— really comes down to what Milwaukee wants and If I’m Milwaukee, I want Evan over anything else that the Cavs have. So making the money match actually I don’t think is that hard because I mean Dean Dean Wade is not as hard to dump as Okoro is. Dean’s only got 1 year left, 6.5 million. He’s a big who can shoot, who can rebound and defend. Like there’s a market for him if they need to move off that money they can. Uh And then I believe you can. Am I messing this up? You could just attach aorro and Mobley together. To make the money work on Giannis. Well, — because it would be right around 54 million
— but just dumping Dean doesn’t get you on the 2nd apron. So you’d have to dump Okoro into a separate because Okoro with Mobley gets you to Giannis, but I see what you’re saying. — But so this is sort of the machinations
— that we’re talking about that’s before you resign Jerome and Merrill. So all those guys are gone too, by the way they’re, — they’re out
— of the equation. Yeah, I mean, you see, basically you’re gonna have a team of Donovan Mitchell and Giannis — and then a bunch of slappies
— and in this instance, yeah — yeah
— yeah yeah yeah so it’s still Giannis like. You’re gonna give yourself a chance and you still have Donovan and Darius. Yeah, but all these teams this year were doing it with, with like 67, and, and that’s the one thing Sam Presty said after the championship. I saw is that he believes the future of the NBA is more in depth and that goes back to the conversation we’ve had multiple times where it was such a top heavy league and a star driven league. Is he right? Are they ahead of the curve on this, and it is more about depth. You can say it’s about depth, but when they get to the finals, were they playing 9 and 10 guys in game 7? No, 7 sprinkled in 8, but both rotations shortened up a little bit. Yeah, so you can say it’s about depth and it is about depth to get you there, but in the moment. You still want your best guys on the floor. It’s always gonna be about playing your best guys in championship rounds. If the Cavs are gonna still big game hunt. Whether it’s Giannis, You know, one name I would look at potentially is Jalen Brown. We talked about the Celtics dumping all the salary like are they done? The Celtics got under the 2nd apron, but they’re still a tax team. They want to completely reset their books. They have to get under the luxury tax line. There could be giant could with another 15 different financial hoops to jump through, uh, jump through. A Jalen Brown potential trade. Kobe Altman in the past has operated in the shadows on these kind of deals. It’s, it’s been for players that frankly we didn’t even know we’re on the market, and next thing you know they end up in Cleveland. So you know I mentioned Jalen Brown, I mentioned Giannis both highly unlikely, but it could be another star that no one’s even thought of yet that could be the real target if Kobe in the front office of big game hunting, but as Jason and I talked about on the Cav show this morning, if there’s a deal out there that Cleveland loves that they think makes their team better. 1st apron, 2nd April, 3rd, Aron, 4th, Aron, 5th, Aron, 6th Aron, be damned. They’ll find the way to make the move. But just because Boston was able to get on the 2nd apron yesterday doesn’t mean all the ramifications and the fear of the 2nd apron is, — but Boston
— got on the 2nd. I should have made this point this morning. Boston got on the 2nd apron by trading some key pieces. Well, that, that was my point that it’s two different situations. Boston’s end goal was not to get better. Boston’s end goal was to shed money. The Cavs’ end goal is to get better and win a championship. So looking at what Boston did and saying, oh, Boston did it. The Cavs can do it too. Well, the Cavs can get onto the 2nd apron easily, but it involves dumping Jared Allen and dumping off — 4 wins doesn’t actually
— make it better. Yeah, yeah, it’s the Celtics turned Porzingis into Nang. I love George. George, my guy. Like he’s going home to play in Boston. He’s thrilled about the move, of course, but he ain’t Christa’s Porzingis. Uh, we did a show a couple weeks ago, the Cavs show where we talked about the core of the next 5 years out, and I picked Atlanta, and now they went at a forzingas. I’m not saying that’s a move for 5 years from now. Who knows if he’ll even be upright in 5 years. He’s been hurt so much, but I really like what Atlanta is doing. They’re long, athletic. They get up and down the floor and now they had Porzingas to that like, yeah, he’s got a lot of long injury history, but if you get him out there for the right games, man. That is a great fit with Trae Young. Any other point guard, but Trae Young, I’d be all in on the Hawks. You can’t stand, I just don’t think he plays winning basketball in any form, fashion, shape. It just doesn’t. I’ll be, I’ll be sadly proven wrong, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be right on this one. I mean, it’s funny how how quickly things can flip because right now I think you can remove Boston. I think you remove Milwaukee from this. Who are the top teams in the East right now? Cleveland. Orlando Orlando, Atlanta, Indiana, you gotta put Indiana in there and the Knicks and Detroit and Detroit, Detroit. I mean, look how fast. That’s flipped from where it was a year ago and who knows? I mean 6 months from now we may have a completely different view on this. It would not surprise me. If Detroit made some sort of big move tonight. Where are they picking? Do you know? Don’t even know, don’t even, I don’t think they have, they don’t have a lottery pick. They’re somewhere in the. 18 to 22 range, but that’s a team that has cap space which is huge. You could take on some extra parts, future assets to deal any young pieces, maybe a Jaden Ivey who was hurt in the middle of last season, who was playing well, by the way, then got hurt. Uh, I thought they were gonna be on the Durant deal. Durant clearly didn’t want to go to Detroit. He wanted to go to Houston. That’s why he ended up in Houston, but they’re a team that I think has the assets to make a gigantic swing if they want to. And they’ve been so bad for so long. At some point you just gotta say screw it, let’s go. I could see Detroit being a team that makes some, uh, makes a big push for a name either tonight or sometime before the start of next season. A lot of movements coming this summer. We’ve already seen it. And there’s more moves to come. It’s going to be. It’s gonna be a move, a flurry of transactions I think in this NBA offseason as teams sort of adapt to this new world. — Do you think
— where you get a lot of draft night chaos. Well, I’d like that. I haven’t followed it closely enough to give you an educated answer on that, but it’s possible. I think there’s just because of the names that are out there and just because the way teams are maneuvering right now and uh some of the. What’s available out there? Yeah, I think it could be. Can I get two teams to watch tonight? You just did one. Well, 3 teams to watch. The Thunder have 15 guys on contract for next year. The whole teams under contract. You cannot have 16 contracts. So they got two ones. Yeah, they have 15 and 24. They’re gonna trade into like I would almost bet. Whatever the max amount you could let the Thunder end up in the lottery packaging 1524 and a future pick to get into the top 10. But who’s the team that wants out of the top 10 that wants to drop that low? That’s the thing. I can, I can name a couple. And then the Nets, who have 5 1st round picks. That’s nuts. — They have 5 picks tonight
— and they still have cap space. I, uh, yep, I remember now offhand how much after yesterday, uh, no, because they took Terrence back and he makes. What’s 47 divided by 3? 15.5, so they have $35 million in cash space, 37 million-ish in cash space so they could be and 5 1st round picks. They have 8, a couple in the teens and then 4 in the 3 in the 20s, so 18 and then 22, 26, and 27. They’re gonna try moving up pack whether it’s from 8 to 3 or 4 or from 17 plus 22 and 26 to 12 or 13. You can’t have 5 rookies on your team. No, — it’s not
— possible. Mike, you think the Thunder are gonna repeat next year? I think they should be absolutely considered the — favorites like heavy favorites or just the
— favorites, heavy favorites just considering the uncertainty in the east with two of their top guys out. I know the West is a gauntlet, but those guys are young. And I didn’t think they even played that well in the in the playoffs. They didn’t like they got outrebounded in 3 of the game 7. They were the 13th best 3 point shooting team in the playoffs. I thought their offense got stagnant at times. It was way too much IO for SGA and Jalen Williams. If some of those roll guys can take a next step offensively, if Chet Holmgren can become a little more because he, he wasn’t with him the whole year, Chet, right? He he only came back from injury, he was hurt. I think they have a chance to be really, really, really, really, really good. I would make them the inst, but I. If if I had to pick right now, I mean, first of all, let’s wait and see what these teams look like come October because I still think there’s more movement to go uh. The West is West is good. The West is really, really good. I think they would have a harder time getting out of the West than they would probably winning the whole thing again. So I don’t know that I would pick them. They would not be my pick to repeat just because I’m just going on history. It’s been what, — 7
— years they started or the, the fan due way too early championship odds next year came out. Dustin, they were plus 220, — which was the shortest odds for any team
— to repeat in the last decade, yeah, they should be. But you just never know with injuries, they do have the depth, you would think to a stand. Even if it’s a key guy it’s really hard. It’s really, really, really, really, really hard to the, uh, I mean, Halliburton’s gonna miss the entire year, yeah, yeah. So I mean that, that, that sort of changes some things for the Cavs, right? I mean if you’re, you’re not really worried about the Pacers without Halliburton, are you? I’m not taking the Pacers lightly ever again. If Rick Carlisle is the coach, you’re both right. You’re both right. They would be in my top half, but they’re not. You saw that team in the second half, yeah, the Cavs are the to me the Cavs are the favorite right now in the East, and it’s just so funny because we’ve talked about this before. I just feel like the public discourse around the Cavs is so awful compared to what the reality is. It was an awful end. It was a horrible end, but they’re they’re still a really good team, — and to me there’s still
— do you think that they lose that series to the Pacers, uh, if Garland doesn’t have the banged up toe? I, I think they, if they’re healthy, I think they win the series and I, I’m, I mean we’re probably in the minority on that, but I think if they’re healthy they win the series. Yeah, I think they go to the finals. I mean if they just get the ball across half court in game two, it’s a different series because. Now when you get blown out in game 4, you’re 2-2 coming home. You’re like, all right, cool, that’s fine. We, we got home court. But As it was because you lost game 2 and the way they lost game 2, you get blown out in 4 and now you’re down 3-1 coming home and it feels like it’s all over. So game 2, man, was crucial. It was the swing. — And you
— had a question? Yeah, I’m just curious of the top 10 picks do you actually think will trade out looking at these 10 teams? I feel like they all wanna be up there. Yeah, — I mean a lot of these guys can read
— them to you if you want. Yeah, so. Dallas isn’t trading out of one. They’re taking Cooper flag. San Antonio is gonna take Dylan Harper. Uh, 3 is the Sixers. I can see the Sixers trading out to 3. I absolutely can see them trading out. Now, I don’t think they traded back to 14, but possibly to 8 with Brooklyn. If they could get Cam Johnson 2 future firsts and 8 for 3. I think that’s a move that would work. 4 is the Hornets, correct? They’re probably not trading out. They just need talent. I could see Utah being aggressive at 5. I could see Utah being aggressive at 5 as well, going either way, either picking up more assets for the future, because the number one prospect in next year’s class is a kid named AJ Dianza who’s committed to BYU. He’s got a $7 million BYU NIL deal who’s from Utah. You know how hard it is to get. Players who want to come to Utah. Well, this kid was born in Utah. This kid is going to college in Utah. He could be the savior of Utah’s franchise in theory, so you want as much ammo as possible to try and get him. So that’s a team I could see. 6 is New Orleans, right? No, 6 is Washington. — They’re probably gonna take a
— player. They should trade out that if you’re looking like the Thunder, who’s the partner for them, I think it’s 6 or 7 Washington or New Orleans both are such a mess right now. They they could use the extra draft capital. I could, I could see either one of those teams being the — teams that would try and dip out
— and New Orleans, who just made the trade CJ McCollum for Jordan Poole, they took on a much money wise it was similar. But pool is 2 more years under contract compared to McCollum, so getting those future assets could be beneficial to their cap sheet down the road. Brooklyn’s gonna wanna move up, not down. Toronto’s at 9 if I remember correctly. They who knows what Toronto would wanna do and who’s at 10? Uh, Houston just traded it to Phoenix. I mean Phoenix may try and acquire even more assets considering where they’re at. So there, there are a couple options, but I would expect, like I said, the Nets are gonna potentially be active. I think the Sixers are the number one trade around candidate, and the Thunder, they, they can’t draft two first round picks, and by the way. Not only do they have two first round picks, they took top pitch last year with the 14th pick who, if he was healthy, would have been a top 5 pick, only fell to 14 because he was hurt and wasn’t gonna play all season. So they have a top 5 pick from last year who’s now gonna be healthy again next season. Well, I don’t know if they have minutes for him, like they’re loaded and.

As blockbuster trades continue to shake up the NBA, the idea of Giannis Antetokounmpo becoming available is no longer just fantasy—it’s a real possibility if the Milwaukee Bucks decide to retool or rebuild. With tensions reportedly growing in Milwaukee and front offices around the league closely monitoring Giannis’ long-term outlook, the Cleveland Cavaliers could be a sleeper team in the conversation. Cleveland has young assets, win-now talent, and future draft capital that could be attractive in the right scenario.

In this segment, we explore what a Giannis-to-Cleveland trade could look like—what the Cavaliers would have to give up, how he would fit next to Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley, and whether Cleveland’s front office has the appetite to pursue a generational player if the opportunity arises. It’s a long shot, but in today’s NBA, no star is truly untouchable. If the Bucks open the door, should the Cavs be ready to walk through it?

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