Cavaliers trade rumors: Three-team proposal overhauls bench

Would the Cavaliers make this three-team deal?

On the surface, this kind of deal makes a lot of sense. The Cavs have been riding with a paper-thin rotation this season, so adding usable players makes a lot of sense. They have lacked the lineup flexibility to go small around one of their bigs because of a lack of wings, so bringing on three certainly has some intrigue.

On the other hand, Bey is the only one of the three who can even remotely claim tobe a plus defender, and he’s certainly no Isaac Okoro. Robinson is a movement shooter by trade, but his shooting accuracy has declined precipitously each of the last three seasons since his breakout 2019-20. He is hitting just 33.1 percent this season from deep.

Caris LeVert may not be a great fit with this team’s other stars, but he is excellent redundancy for when one of Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell go down, and he can survive defensively enough to stay on the floor. Alec Burks is fairly duplicative with the other guards on the roster and wouldn’t have a clear role. Robinson might be dead money at this point.

Saddiq Bey is the tough decision here, as the young wing still has plenty of upside to become a great player. If all he is as a player is a 3-and-D wing that’s a great outcome for the Cavs, and he could certainly be more.

There is merit to this general concept, and the Cavs should use their open roster spot(s) as leverage to get the player they truly want. This deal might not work quite right, but there are certainly plenty more to dig into as we try to predict what the Cleveland front office will do.