3 biggest failed NBA offseason stars experiments in Cavaliers history

This 2024 Cleveland Cavaliers offseason has been a noisy one, not necessarily for making a bunch of free agency or trade moves. Unfortunately, many Cavs fans are seemingly never happy with what they have and that's causing much of the noise. The team did fire their coach J.B. Bickerstaff and hired Kenny Atkinson, which is drawing many headlines.

Cleveland's best player and biggest star Donovan Mitchell agreed to a a three-year extension worth $150 million which has drawn a lot of attention, as well. While that move is being celebrated by many fans of the Wine and Gold, they still have been annoyed that the team and president Koby Altman haven't signed any free agents or made a trade this offseason.

Even though the team has improved much over the past two seasons and has an excellent roster of talent many fans still seem upset, Cleveland's quiet offseason may be annoying but prudent to stick with what's been working and steadily improving.

Despite arguments that the roster cannot work together, the biggest move the Cavaliers needed this summer has been made - finding a new head coach. More moves may be on the way, but Cleveland cannot recklessly search for a star player for the sake of making headlines.

In the meantime, let's go back in time a bit, and look at three experiments by the team where they brought in some big-name NBA players and things ended up backfiring on the Cavs and making things worse. Still today, many may ask Cleveland to go out and spend more money to bring in a high-profile NBA star, but that's not always the best idea.

No. 1 Cavs offseason move that didn't work: Dwyane Wade

It was late September in 2017, when Dwyane Wade decided to reunite with his former Miami Heat teammate Lebron James in Cleveland. The 35-year-old old Wade had been playing with the Chicago Bulls the previous season when that team decided to do a full rebuild in 2017. Wade was able to settle with the Bulls on a buyout and joined the Cavs to play for on a one-year, $2 million contract.

At the time, the Cavaliers were in the midst of challenging for the NBA title pretty much every season (four years in a row against the Golden State Warriors from 2014-2018) because they had James on the team. Wade was looking for one more shot at winning another ring. He and James won a couple of titles in Miami with the Heat, so the move seemed like a perfect win-win for Wade and the Cavaliers in the moment.

However, it didn't pan out as the Cavaliers hoped, eventually trading him to his original team the Miami Heat in February of 2018. It was a shocking move at the time. Despite Wade primarily playing off the bench that season, it was an unexpected decision by the team. The Cavs decided to do a huge overall and collected back three players in return including Jordan Clarkson, George Hill and Rodney Hood. It got the team to another Finals, but again the squad failed to beat the Warriors.

That following offseason, James jumped ship again, heading this time for Hollywood while Wade stayed in Miami one more season and retired from the NBA the following offseason. It would have been cool to see James and Wade win one in Cleveland, but it wasn't what everyone had imagined it would be.