Cavs: Grading the Lauri Markkanen deal from all angles

Cavs: Grading the Lauri Markkanen deal from all angles – Final Grade

Lauri Markkanen is a young player with a lot of talent and one of the most important skills in the league as a strength. He is also a defensive question mark whose growth as a player stagnated the past two seasons, and he plays the same position as this team’s presumed star-of-the-future Evan Mobley.

There is no question that Larry Nance Jr. is a better player right now. He is a great defender, an underrated passer and a strong screen setter. That’s in addition to his leadership voice and community impact in Cleveland. It’s painful to see him leave.

The Cavs are making the bet that Markkanen will continue to improve into a better player than Nance, and do so on a timetable that better fits their young core. Cleveland is building for three years from now, and by that time Nance might be on the downward slope of his career. The hope is that Markkanen is still going up.

With Markkanen the only impactful free agent still on the board, making a move now to lock him up for four years came with urgency; so did the clock ticking on flipping Nance for value while he is on such a great contract. That was likely false urgency, but the Cavs felt it nonetheless.

In the end, Markkanen should be a good on-court fit with either Mobley or Jarrett Allen, and his shooting will help the young guards develop. He also locks the Cavs into an uncomfortable amount of money devoted to their bigs, and could limit the team’s flexibility to improve or even re-sign their current young core.

This shouldn’t be a disaster, but there are serious questions for how the Cavs are building out this roster and their ability to advantageously negotiate in trades. That makes this a middling overall evaluation, with the obvious “wait-and-see” caveat that comes with every in-the-moment grade.

Grade: C+