How many players would Cavs trade Evan Mobley for? Aging stars
The league contains a wide range of star players at every point of the aging curve. Evan Mobley and his peers are on the front end of their curve, with blinding amounts of potential that could take them all the way to the top. At the other end are players who once had realized that potential, but now are on the downward slope of their career.
Some players in that category are obviously not equal value for someone like Evan Mobley. Players like Kyle Lowry or Mike Conley are in a different phase of their career now. Yet this goes for stars in their late prime who are still playing at an All-NBA level right now.
The reason is the timeline. Teams with those players are trying to win a title right now before that window closes, before those players go from current stars to past-their-prime. Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green and Chris Paul fit this category, and to a lesser extent so do DeMar DeRozan, James Harden, Rudy Gobert and, yes, Kevin Durant and LeBron James.
Any of those players could help the Cavs win right now, and would boost them not only into the playoffs but, for some of them, beyond. But then the magic ends; the window slams shut, and the Cavs would need to begin another cycle of rebuilding. Mobley is just barely 21 years old, and if he does become a star-level player the Cavs can compete with him for years. If they were set up to win now they might consider such a deal, but as a young team just starting to build upwards they need to keep the timeline as long as possible.
Verdict: No