The Cleveland Cavaliers have been involved in trade rumors following their second-round exit in the NBA Playoffs.
Obviously, most of the focus has been on All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell. He has a player option for the 2025-26 season and will almost assuredly decline it to hit free agency next summer.
The prevailing thought had been that Mitchell wanted to play in a larger market like New York City. He has been linked to the Knicks on a near never-ending loop, too.
The likes of center Jarrett Allen and guard Darius Garland have come up in trade talks thus far this offseason, too.
We now have an update on the Cavaliers’ plans for the summer courtesy of Yahoo! Sports NBA insider Jake Fischer. He now concludes that Cleveland is not going to move any of its core four players, including Evan Mobley.
“Despite a wealth of interest in both Garland and Allen on the trade market, Cleveland is not expected to entertain trade offers for any member of its core four at this time, sources said, while a league-wide expectation only grows that Mitchell will sign a contract extension with the club that acquired him from Utah back in September 2022.”
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Cleveland’s first order of business is to find a head coach to replace the recently-fired J.B. Bickerstaff. Despite winning 48 games this past season, he was given his walking papers. Cleveland is in the process of interviewing candidates to replace him on the bench.
As for the Cavaliers’ roster, front office head Koby Altman just recently pushed back against the narrative that they’ll trade one of the core players mentioned above.
“I don’t see why we should,” Altman told reporters recently. “And the same thing goes [for the] fit of the Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen. There’s a depth of talent here that’s really, really good. And when you look at the landscape of the league and how long, like 82 games, we can’t discount [the impact of] injuries.”
Some believe that Garland would request a trade if Mitchell returned to the Cavaliers. That doesn’t seem to be in the cards.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned report indicated that Mitchell will likely sign a contract extension this summer. That’s a far cry from rumors earlier in the offseason linking the All-Star guard to a trade.