Should the Cavaliers blow it up? Anything is on the table after embarrassing sweep to Knicks

Where do the Cleveland Cavaliers go from here?

It’s a question that will keep Cavs executive Koby Altman up at night, if he hasn’t already, for some time. Dan Gilbert, the team’s owner, will be looking for the answer, if he hasn’t already, for some time. Players may be asking themselves this question.

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And there may not be an answer that ends in a championship.

“I’m disappointed for the group,” Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson said after his team was embarrassingly swept at home in a 130-93 Game 4 loss. “From a coaching standpoint, normally you’d say, ‘Man, I wish we had that roster-wise,’ but I can’t say that. The ownership and the front office gave us a wonderful roster, a talented roster, so I feel bad for the group, because you want to live up to your expectations. So, it’s disappointing.”

The Cavs are stuck, you see. They’ve reached their ceiling, which, as it turns out, isn’t much further than the limit we rated them for — the second-round ceiling they reached each of the previous two seasons. The same upper limit of subtitles that James Harden reached throughout his 17-year career. Great but not the best.

Yes, together Harden and the Cavaliers reached the Conference Finals, each for the first time since 2018, but no, they couldn’t win a single game against the New York Knicks.

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Why anyone thought the marriage between Harden and the Cavs would end in anything other than disappointment is beyond me. It cost them Darius Garland, an oft-injured, but nonetheless two-time 26-year-old All-Star. (Altman threw a second-round pick, along with Garland, for Harden in February.)

Garland had to be a part of the Cavaliers’ future if they had one. Today, their situation is as uncertain as that of any team in the league. Sure, they still have Evan Mobley, but he also has a ceiling, and it won’t be, as we once thought, a Kevin Garnett-like future for him.

Mobley is not 1A. Neither does Donovan Mitchell. Or harden. Certainly not Jarrett Allen. No cumulative effect makes them greater than the sum of their parts. These Cavs finished with Garland as a 64-win team and with Harden as a conference runner-up, but there’s no other reason to believe they can achieve anything greater as a unit.

Not after being passed by the Knicks. So what to do now? They can’t justify paying Mitchell, Harden, Mobley and Allen the $170 million it would cost to keep them together next season, not so an ill-equipped team can win it all.

Harden holds a $42.3 million option to play for the Cavaliers next season. He joined them looking for an extension, and on the one hand, they’d be crazy to give him one. On the other hand, can they really afford to have traded Garland for nothing?

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If Harden picks up his player option and tries to go back once again, what does that bode for the future of Mitchell, who still has one guaranteed year left on his contract? Same thing again? Can we envision a future in which he declines his $53.8 million option and enters unrestricted free agency in 2027? And if we could easily imagine that future, why wouldn’t the Cavs trade Mitchell now?

Everything is on the table for the Cavs this summer, including flipping Mobley for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Or add LeBron James to the existing core. Neither can result in a title, but either would certainly be fun, and that might be all Cleveland needs.

Seriously: Pair Mitchell with Antetokounmpo and see if they can take each other where they both want to go. Maybe Harden and James will come with us. Maybe it ends like Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, but at least they tried. At least the Cavs would have done something other than stare at that same ceiling.

That, of course, would require the Milwaukee Bucks to sign a Mobley-for-Giannis trade, which would require them to believe in Mobley as a central piece of the future. This may not be their best available option for Antetokounmpo.

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This may be the only option available to Cleveland, if the Bucks turn down a Mobley-centric offer. The Cavs could therefore, if Harden leaves, if Mitchell leaves, consider a future with Mobley as their central character. So why not get what they can for Harden, Mitchell and Allen now, and build around the only young All-Star Cleveland has left?

The problem is they’ve already traded away their other young All-Star. They are determined to win with this roster, which was a hell of a thing to put on Harden. But they did it and there is no going back. They might as well go all-in, offer Mobley for Antetokounmpo and do everything they can to sign LeBron for a veteran exception.

Because what other decision could take these Cavaliers from where they are now, winless in the conference finals, to where they want to be, not only beating a team like these Knicks to win the East, but being able to compete in the West?

Another question to keep Altman up at night.