The Cleveland Cavaliers should not make a blockbuster trade at the NBA trade deadline.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have the most expensive roster in the NBA, but they are only 21-17.
The Wine and Gold are the only team above the second apron, but if the regular season ended today, Cleveland would be in the NBA play-in tournament as the seventh seed.
It's been an underwhelming start to the season for the Cavaliers, but NBA analyst Grant Hughes of Bleacher Report believes Cleveland should "resist the urge to panic" with the trade deadline coming up.
"This isn't a suggestion the Cleveland Cavaliers should step back in the sense of scaling down their competitive intentions," Hughes wrote. "As the only team currently above the second apron, the Cavs are more pot-committed to chasing a championship this year than almost anyone else.
"The step back they need to take is all about keeping perspective. Yes, the Cavs are among the league's biggest disappointments. They won 64 games a year ago and featured an offense that set the world on fire. Now, they're on pace for about 20 fewer victories and rarely score at even top-10 rates. While it might be tempting to declare the magic is gone and major trades are in order, the wiser course is to acknowledge bad injury luck up and down the roster.
"Max Strus hasn't played all year, Darius Garland missed the start of the season and has rarely looked like himself, Jarrett Allen was out for almost three weeks, and the team's core four players—Garland, Allen, Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley—have seen fewer than 200 possessions together. This is not a time for drastic action. Cleveland needs to trust in the roster it built and resist the urge to panic."
The Cavaliers are not interested in trading Mitchell, Mobley, Allen or Garland, even though the four All-Stars haven't guided the franchise past the second round of the playoffs. Cleveland's brass wants to see this team healthy before making any rash decisions.
There's still plenty of time left in the regular season for the Cavaliers to turn things around. By all accounts, Koby Altman is not expected to make a big trade at the trade deadline, which is next month.
It will be interesting to see what the Cavaliers' record is at the end of the regular season.