The Cleveland Cavaliers are in pretty solid shape at this point, as they’re 31-21 on the campaign, and are sitting in fifth in the Eastern Conference. The Cavaliers are a club that’s followed up their resurgent past season fairly well, and while they still have to fine-tune some things, it’s reasonable to be optimistic about their outlook and they seem likely to make a playoff run.
The offseason trade acquisition of Donovan Mitchell has paid off, as he’s had a career season thus far, and was named as an All-Star starter for the first time in his career. The Cavs have one of the league’s most promising young cores with Mitchell at the forefront, and Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen forming the rest of that quartet.
That being said, it is apparent that the Cavaliers could use more scoring help on the wing, and realistically, a veteran presence that could mesh with Cleveland’s key offensive options. Whether that would relate to a starting or bench option, added offensive punch on the wing would be meaningful, particularly for a team that is still largely young.
Getting back Dean Wade is a plus for this Cleveland squad, and he, Lamar Stevens and Isaac Okoro are all impact defenders on the perimeter. But those guys have their flaws offensively, and Stevens and Okoro in that realm, especially, and on the flip side, Cedi Osman and Caris LeVert can be exposed defensively at times. This isn’t to suggest all those options aren’t capable contributors; it just isn’t surprising that the Cavs have been involved in rumors about possible deals for a wing.
The Cavaliers have been linked to a number of possible trade targets, such as the likes of Bojan Bogdanovic, Tim Hardaway Jr., Malik Beasley, and players such as Josh Richardson and Doug McDermott have been mentioned as theoretical targets as well it seems.
On the subject of the Detroit Pistons, though, Bogdanovic’s current squad, there are a couple of players that could be useful for the Cavaliers aside from him. And with the Pistons being one of the league’s bottom dwellers at still the beginning of a full-rebuild, they could seemingly be sellers; that might not mean huge sellers, but one should assume they won’t simply be idling at the deadline.
We’ll examine those two potential trade targets here for the Cavs to consider pursuing from the Pistons.
The first could bring some added offensive pop from a playmaking and on/off-ball scoring standpoint.