Should the Cleveland Cavaliers extend Caris LeVert?

The Cleveland Cavaliers didn’t end the year how they wanted. They didn’t expect to miss the playoffs. They didn’t expect an injury bug as devasting as the one this year.

Expectations are what drove this season. No one expected this team to have their first winning season without LeBron James since 1998. No one expected this team to peak as a 3rd seed 50 games into the season. No one expected Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen to be named All-Stars.

The future is bright in Cleveland with looming questions needing to be answered to solidify this team. Outside of the obvious Collin Sexton contract talks, the team has a question to answer surrounding Caris LeVert.

Acquired near the deadline, LeVert was looked at to be the ball-handler the Cavs desperately needed with Sexton and Ricky Rubio sidelined with injuries.

The LeVert experiment just wasn’t what the team was hoping for.

The Cavs tried everything to get LeVert comfortable. He came off the bench, he started, he initiated the offense, he played off-ball, and he played alongside some of the NBA’s best offensive orchestrators in Darius Garland and Rajon Rondo. Nothing seemed to help as he just never played like how he did with the Indiana Pacers.

It also didn’t help that he missed 9 consecutive games with a foot injury.

In 19 games with the Cavs, he averaged 13.6 points per game, his lowest since his second year in the league. Now, recently with the media, LeVert expressed his desire to remain in Cleveland and would sign an extension if things shake out, based on these comments, via Camryn Justice of WEWS.

The question is, should the Cavaliers offer him one?

There are a lot of questions that have to be answered around this topic. First, Collin Sexton is likely to be retained by the Cavs, slotting him back into that starting shooting guard spot, or at least could be, one would imagine. With that, does LeVert slot into the starting three spot, or do the Cavs go with the three-big lineup once more?

Say LeVert does start this season, a move like that moves Lauri Markkanen to the bench. Having both Markkanen and Love off the bench seems redundant, meaning a potential Kevin Love trade would make sense.

Also, what does this mean for Isaac Okoro? A top-five pick two years ago, his offensive game has been what’s holding him back. With a reduced role once again next year, how could we expect that area to take a massive leap?

There’s also the question of the 2022 NBA Draft where the Cavaliers are certain to take a wing, right? And what about free agency? The potential for a Rubio extension is there. Do they go after a wing there too?

All those questions make a LeVert extension sound less and less likely.

So what should the team do then?

A trade makes sense but the question becomes what is out there, and it doesn’t seem to be a whole lot. LeVert could be added along with another player/picks if the Cavs looked to make an aggressive move.

LeVert’s would-be expiring means a team could look to trade him to shed cap but can the Cavaliers afford to add more money to their books? A lot of questions to answer.

Final Verdict

With Garland’s (seemingly) and Sexton’s extension coming this offseason, the Cavs should just ride out this upcoming season with LeVert and see how things go. You can never have too many ball-handlers and the Cavaliers already retained their first-round pick for this offseason. If things go smoothly, extension talks could be revisited next offseason. If not, then you could look to move him at the deadline or just let him walk.

All in all, the mindset of the team should be to run it back and hope that an offseason with the team will be enough for LeVert to become comfortable and acclimated.