The Cleveland Cavaliers haven’t done much in 2025-26 to silence fans pushing for a breakup of Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland. Even with Garland rounding into form recently (now that he’s healthy), the Cavs are still painfully mediocre.
Trading Garland and/or Jarrett Allen should be a real consideration for Cleveland's front office if they are serious about retooling around Mitchell and Evan Mobley. By sending one or both of these valuable assets out, the Cavs could bring in a star wing and achieve much better roster balance.
In fact, a Garland-for-Michael Porter Jr. trade with the Brooklyn Nets happens to work financially.
Cavaliers must consider trading Darius Garland to the Nets for Michael Porter Jr.
An MPJ trade would polarize Cavs fans, due to both Porter’s injury history and Garland’s popularity in Cleveland. But even the most ardent Garland lovers wouldn’t be able to deny that the best version of Porter is a better fit alongside Mitchell.
Porter is a career 40.7 percent shooter from 3, which would do much to improve Cleveland’s 35.1 percent number this season. That is especially true if Porter continues his high-volume outside shooting that’s happening on the Nets this season.
The Cavs haven’t had a star wing scorer in the Mitchell era. Porter and his 26.1 points per game would inject Cleveland with offensive talent that doesn’t require taking the ball out of Mitchell’s hands to thrive.
Defensively, swapping out the undersized Garland for the 6-foot-10-inch Porter would make Cleveland better at contesting 3s on the perimeter, which is currently a massive problem. The Cavs have allowed the highest 3-point percentage in the NBA this season.
On the other side of the trade, the Nets are a good fit for Garland, seeing as they’ve been looking for a star-level guard since the Kyrie Irving-James Harden-Kevin Durant era. The Ringer’s Bill Simmons has been talking about Garland’s fit with the Nets for months for a reason.
Garland’s recent stretch of quality play should convince the Nets that he’s very much still an All-Star-type guard when healthy. He’d be locked in with Brooklyn for two more seasons beyond this one.
That would give the Nets a reliable point guard for a decent chunk of time as they develop all of their young talent. Furthermore, Garland’s playing style wouldn’t clash with rookie guard Egor Demin, whose size enables him to morph into a wing-type offensively whenever needed.
If the Nets decide to hold onto Porter, they'd better hope they can re-sign him after next season (when he’ll be an unrestricted free agent). But at that point, wouldn’t Porter be interested in joining a better team, especially if he has multiple suitors calling him after another productive season?
Brooklyn might not have a ton of leverage to retain Porter in the future. Getting All-Star value in return for him now might be the move.
If Cleveland and Brooklyn could agree on whatever draft capital must be added to a Porter-Garland trade to make everyone happy, this deal might be wise for all involved. From the Cavs' perspective, continuing to beat a dead horse with the core four no longer feels like the intelligent play. Bringing aboard Porter would be risky, so but so is rolling with the status quo and expecting positive change.