{"id":578818,"date":"2026-02-03T04:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/578818\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T04:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:38:18","slug":"nba-insider-is-not-as-convinced-cavs-core-four-will-be-together-after-trade-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/578818\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA insider is \u2018not as convinced\u2019 Cavs\u2019 core four will be together after trade deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> have the ability to make a bigger move now than they did at this time a week ago. Trading De\u2019Andre Hunter to the Sacramento Kings<\/a> opened up avenues for them to get under the second apron more easily, which makes substantial moves easier to get done<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cavs\u2019 president of basketball operations, Koby Altman, admitted that was part of the motivation for Saturday\u2019s trade. After the deal was finalized, Altman said that the move \u201cpositions us better to keep building a championship caliber team now and into the future<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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One of the things that the team seemingly hasn\u2019t been willing to do in the past is give up one of their core four players: Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen. That group \u2014 based on what was said publicly \u2014 was considered mostly untouchable. That might be changing.<\/p>\n

ESPN insider, Brian Windhorst<\/a>, said Monday during a radio hit for ESPN Cleveland that he\u2019s \u201cnot as convinced\u201d that keeping that group together is their focus.<\/p>\n

Windhorst stated<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a while now, it was very clear that they did not want to touch the core four. I think it\u2019s probable that the core four will still be on the team on Thursday afternoon, but I think the fact that I have heard some more willingness to expand beyond that indicates that the Cavs feel a level of pressure with this roster in this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to be careful how I word it, because I think what\u2019s most likely to happen is that the roster, the core, stays intact. But I\u2019m not as convinced that that is 100% their focus as it has been in the last year and a half or so.\u201d<\/p>\n

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While it\u2019s likely that the core will stay together, it\u2019s notable that there is noise around it breaking up, even if it\u2019s unlikely at this time. Presumably, any move that would shake up the core would have to put them in a better position to compete now, which is difficult to do given how little time is left in the season.<\/p>\n

At the same time, there is pressure within the organization to succeed at all levels. This is the most expensive team in the league, and they\u2019re expected to compete at a championship level. Despite their recent strong play, they frankly aren\u2019t near the same level as the other top contenders in the league, and they\u2019re running out of time to prove that they can get there.<\/p>\n

The Cavs\u2019 recent success is almost more damning than anything. For example, Allen has consistently played his best basketball in Cleveland when Mobley isn\u2019t available. That showed again on Sunday when he dropped 40 points<\/a> in a win over the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a>. You don\u2019t want to make too much from one game, but outside of stretches last regular season, their core group specifically has been less than the sum of their parts \u2014 especially in previous playoff runs.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the tacit admission that the team\u2019s two biggest trades in the last year were misses. The Cavs didn\u2019t win the initial Hunter trade with the Atlanta Hawks<\/a>, and were wrong to choose Lonzo Ball over either\/both Isaac Okoro and Ty Jerome \u2014 even though Jerome has only played two games this season. They already moved Hunter and are looking to move Ball as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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We\u2019ll see if the Cavs make any moves before Thursday\u2019s deadline. They likely won\u2019t make a trade just for the sake of doing so. That\u2019s not how this front office has operated. But it\u2019s worth noticing that they could be open to making a bigger move and finally have the ability to do so<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Altman has often talked about how his team has a long runway to compete. This season, they\u2019re starting to run out of that runway. The plane needs to start flying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers have the ability to make a bigger move now than they did at this time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[208,7,2949,306,305,193,3846,791,864,23173,576,568,3891,1178,11986,4442,6,16,471,477,1201],"class_list":["post-578818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-basketball","tag-brian-windhorst","tag-cavaliers","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-clevelandcavaliers","tag-darius-garland","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-espn-cleveland","tag-evan-mobley","tag-getty-images","tag-isaac-okoro","tag-jarrett-allen","tag-koby-altman","tag-lonzo-ball","tag-nba","tag-ohio","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-sacramento-kings","tag-ty-jerome"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116004855226462172","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}