The Cleveland Cavaliers are a young team, with their four core players still only 25 years old and younger and under contract for at least the next two seasons. They don’t have to make any sweeping changes this offseason after losing in ignominious fashion in the playoffs. They could stay the court, tinker at the edges and run it back.
Many of the trade ideas tossed out have focused on the Cavaliers turning Jarrett Allen into older, win-now players, be that a different look at center or turning Allen into two different rotation players. They could even try to flip Allen for an older established star to add to the frontcourt.
Could the Cavaliers trade Jarrett Allen and not get older?
What if there was another path forward? Longtime NBA media personality Bill Simmons recently tossed out a potential trade involving Allen that would allow the Cavs to stay young, to keep their core under contract, and potentially be enough of an upgrade to help Cleveland take the next step.
The trade would be with the Phoenix Suns, who have certainly been at the center of the NBA world after trading for Bradley Beal just months after adding Kevin Durant. Could they make another big trade? It’s certainly on the table for this team with its aggressive new owner in Matt Ishbia.
There is a history of trades between these two franchises, going all the way back to when Cleveland sent Kevin Johnson to the Suns in exchange for Larry Nance Sr. Could the two teams unite once again to work out a deal? Let’s take a closer look and evaluate the trade from both sides.
Laying out a trade between the Cavaliers and Suns
On his podcast “The Bill Simmons Podcast” (not sure where he came up with the name) Simmons pitched a deal based primarily around the idea that the Cavaliers want to get more offensive punch from the center position, and the Suns need as much defensive impact as they can get around their three offensive stars.
This is the basic structure of what he proposed:
The theory for Phoenix is twofold. First, the Suns need all of the rim protection that they can get. Deandre Ayton is a good paint protector, but few centers combine shot-blocking with movement in space defensively as Jarrett Allen does. He would be an upgrade defensively for all but a half-dozen teams in the league if they traded for him at center.
This deal also splits Ayton into two players, with Cedi Osman a fringe rotation player in Cleveland and a player the Suns would absolutely rely on next season to fill up minutes on the wing. The Suns don’t need Ayton’s offensive shot creation with the rest of the creators on the team, so this better fit might make it worth it for Phoenix.
Would the Cavs say yes to this trade?
Trading two players at the same position is theoretically the easiest kind of trade to evaluate, comparing like-for-like, but it somehow rarely happens. This type of “challenge trade” essentially is a bet that two players will both be more impactful on different teams; each team has to expect to “win” or at the least not lose the deal.
Do the Cavaliers win this trade? It’s hard to say. Jarrett Allen had the better overall season last year, and was the more dominant defensive force. At the same time, Ayton was clearly being marginalized by head coach Monty Williams, and the friction between the two has been reported throughout. His previous two seasons were much more impressive.
Defensively, Allen certainly has Ayton’s number, but it swings back the other way on offense. Ayton has a deep bag of tricks around the rim, with a soft touch, a deadeye floater and a short jumper that Allen certainly doesn’t. You would like him to play with more force at the rim as a finisher, but at the same time, he plays with more force as a rebounder than Allen.
This truly is something of a “challenge” trade, as both players are similar enough that any comparison is trying to navigate their nuanced differences to come to a conclusion. Ayton is less than a year younger than Allen and is also under contract for three more seasons. Both are generally healthy.
Was Ayton’s friction with Monty Williams the reason he had a poor year, or was it a lack of motor once he got paid? Was Allen’s abysmal showing in the playoffs against the New York Knicks an aberration he can learn from, or a sign of a fatal flaw?
In the end, the Cavaliers should probably stick with the center they know. Ayton doesn’t space the court out to 3-point range, and the questions about his motor are concerning enough that the Cavs shouldn’t mess with their all-in chemistry. Still, these are the right kinds of questions for a team to be asking as it looks to improve.