Cleveland Cavaliers: Constructing the dream offseason

The Cleveland Cavaliers add these players:

Even with all of the wheeling and dealing of the past few slides, the Cleveland Cavaliers are not going to clear up any cap space. Instead they will use their midlevel exception to make an upside play, and add a pure point guard on a two-way contract.

The Chicago Bulls appear to have soured on Lauri Markkanen, effectively replacing him with Nikola Vucevic and Patrick Williams, both acquired in the past calendar year to be starters at the 4 and 5. If they pull his qualifying offer and he becomes an unrestricted free agent, he could be an intriguing buy-low candidate for Cleveland.

Only 24 years old, Markkanen hit 40.2 percent of his 3-pointers last season. Placing him in a frontcourt rotation with Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen gives the Cavaliers another look, a stretch-big who can unlock lineup options. He’s worth a contract at the midlevel, something around $10 million per season for a few years.

At point guard the Cavaliers will use a two-way slot on a point guard who can set up teammates at a decently high level. They’ll sign David Duke, a Providence guard who goes undrafted here and starts his career with the Cavaliers.