Cavs: Grading the Lauri Markkanen deal from all angles

Cavs: Grading the Lauri Markkanen deal from all angles – Long-term roster fit

One of the primary reasons Cleveland chose to trade away Larry Nance Jr. and bring in Lauri Markkanen must have been their respective ages. Nance will turn 29 on New Years Day, while Markkanen won’t turn 25 until after the season.

The Finnish forward thus is a much better fit with the Cavs’ timeline. He is a year older than Jarrett Allen, about a year-and-a-half older than Collin Sexton, and so on down the line. The Cavaliers will have the opportunity to develop Markkanen while he is still in his upward developmental curve, helping him to improve as an overall player.

If he were another ground-bound big man such as Jarrett Allen, the decision to pay him significant money in a frontcourt with Evan Mobley and Allen would be ludicrous. Instead, his floor-spacing means he can play with either player and not kill the team’s offense, while their defensive prowess can cover for Markkanen’s weakness in that area.

The tricky part for the Cavs is that in paying Markkanen, they are probably locking themselves into this core. They won’t have cap space next season, and with Collin Sexton due for a new contract and Darius Garland eligible for an extension they don’t look to have any for the foreseeable future.

That might be just fine; who other than LeBron James is ever signing into the team’s cap space in free agency? They functionally used their future cap space on a young player they like in Markkanen. From that angle this makes a lot of sense.

The angle that doesn’t make sense is the positional allotment of salary. Next season, if and until the Cavs buy out Kevin Love, they are devoting a monumental 66 percent of the salary cap to big men. They have effectively used two first-round picks (including the No. 3 overall pick in this past July’s draft), a second rounder and a valued veteran on a great contract to build out a long-term big man rotation of Allen, Mobley and Markkanen.

Centers have the highest level of median play in the league, and there are even still options available on the open market that can be relied upon to play rotation minutes next season. The Cavs can’t take advantage of those savings because they are already locked into most of their minutes at the two positions. That’s without even considering Kevin Love, or last year’s surprise bench option Dean Wade.

The reality is that in the coming years, signing their young core to extensions will propel this team up to and potentially over the luxury tax line. It makes sense for contending teams to wade into the expensive bog; it’s nearly unthinkable for a core that hasn’t even made the playoffs yet. Even with Markkanen in tow, the Cavs are a long-shot to make the playoffs next year. How far into lucrative contracts for Allen and Markkanen and potentially Sexton will it take to even make the playoffs, let alone turn into a contender?

Markkanen fits on-the-court, and his age lines up more closely with the young core. That being said, the allocation of even more salary and assets into the collection of bigs this team is amassing is questionable at best, and potentially disastrous at worst.

Grade: C+