One of the most surprising trades of the off-season involved Rudy Gobert, who has multiple DPOY’s under his resume, he was sent to Minnesota to pair up with all-star Karl Anthony Towns for a power-house big man duo down low.

This left everyone thinking, what was Utah going to do with the rest of the roster including Donovan Mitchell, you could obviously tell the team was going into a full-on rebuild. The question was where Utah would send Mitchell. The main team that was expected by the media to receive Mitchell was New York. This would have been possible if the Lakers and Jazz decided to do a 3-way trade involving PG Russell Westbrook, but unexpectedly Donovan Mitchell was sent to Cleveland for multiple first-round picks, shooting guard Collin sexton, and forward Lauri Markkenen. 

Cleveland is now left with one of the youngest cores in the NBA with their whole starting lineup having an average age of 23. People do have opposing thoughts on this trade, does it really make them contenders? The NBA is more talented than ever, meaning that any team really does have a chance at winning a title. Last year we expected many different teams to win the championship, but we’re given a totally different Finals matchup with the Warriors and the Celtics.

Moving back to the Cleveland Cavaliers, how do they compare to other teams? They have a great number of shooters and defensively they’re slightly above average having two interior defenders and one wing defender in their starting lineup, but when it comes to their guards this is where they struggle. Darius Garland and Mitchell aren’t great defenders and the only way both get steals are by staying in passing lanes, however, 1 on 1 defense is where they have difficulties.

Their bench has depth but only a few of them will be huge contributors unless some unexpected players step up. Other than that the majority of the Eastern Conference overpowers them, they’ll most likely be a 7th or 8th seed due to teams just being better.