Reinforcements Arrive, or, How Koby Altman Worked the James Harden Trade Sweepstakes

While superstar James Harden was manuvering the sheer physical bulk of his emotions out the door in his final loss as a Houston Rocket vs. a joyful LeBron James, a number of NBA general managers were clearly very busy — including Koby Altman.

The Cavs have thus emerged tonight as one of the potential winners in a four-team megatrade. At the end of the day the Harden trade brings one very high-quality player to the Cavs — Jarrett Allen, a highly desirable 22-year old center — along with a solid frontcourt piece, namely Taurean Prince, Brooklyn’s second-unit small forward who is billed as a “3-and-D” player.

In return, the Cavs have sent springy but recently-injured backup guard Dante Exum to Houston, and relinquished two future draft picks (a 2022 unprotected first-rounder, more about which later) and a second-round pick downstream.

Nets are acquiring a 2024 second-round pick in the deal from the Cavaliers, sources tell ESPN. For Cavaliers, Jarrett Allen solidifies their future at the center spot. Remember, he's only 22 years old.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 13, 2021

#Cavs will also be sending a second-round pick somewhere in this wild deal, a source tells @clevelanddotcom. It's the worst second-rounder they had in their pile.

— Chris Fedor (@ChrisFedor) January 13, 2021

To make space both in the frontcourt and on the roster, Cleveland has released the lanky center Thon Maker and, after a two-game stint, backup guard Yogi Ferrell.

Dante Exum spent about thirteen months with the Cavs, having been swapped for the glorious chucker Jordon Clarkson in December 2019. His final game on the Cavs bench, fittingly perhaps, came against his former squad this week. According to Cavs team doctors, Exum is currently nursing a calf strain and thus is unlikely to appear with his new team (the Rockets) for a minimum of a month.

While he was on the team for a good stretch of time, in fact he ended up playing only 30 regular-season games with the Cavs. Unlike Clarkson, he was a decent distributor, averaging a couple of assists in about 18 minutes per game, but most of all he made his mark on the defensive end. A highlight of this crowdless season thus far was seeing Exum leap balletically around screens to chase and genuinely contain Trae Young in a fantastic win against the rising Atlanta Hawks.

Exum was not shooting it well thus far in his six games this season, with his 3-point percentage cratering to less than one make for every five attempts, but that wasn’t really his role on the team. With Delly out, Exum was there to stabilize and organize the second unit and provide some defensive length and speed on the perimeter.

In terms of chemistry, the trade leaves the Cavs without two of their three players with Australian ties. (Exum is a citizen and Thon Maker moved there as a five-year old refugee from South Sudan, and all three men have ties to the Australian national team.) So Matthew Dellavadova is again the sole Aussie on the squad and there should be more minutes for him when he returns.

Probably the biggest storyline to emerge for the Cavs out of the trade, apart from the basic ambition and Koby Altman’s remarkable hustle, is what Jarrett Allen’s acquisition means for the present and the future of the frontcourt. The Cavs are already stacked with centers, with Andre Drummond starting and snaffling up rebounds galore, and JaVale McGee doing a hell of a job both backing him up and sharing floor time. Drummond seemed to take the trade in stride, but maybe making upwards of $25 million a year allows one to have a certain flexible and generous outlook on life — not that James Harden is feeling that way at the moment.

Lmaoooooo I’m weak 😂😂 https://t.co/ka6HHe6Ttv

— Andre Drummond (@AndreDrummond) January 13, 2021

Drummond is contracted with the Cavs for the rest of the year, then a free agent next year. There will probably be ample trade scuttlebutt around both him and Jarrett Allen for a while, but more immediately Coach Bickerstaff will have to distribute minutes and find some new lineups in an already fluid year. Drummond is averaging 31 minutes a game and an obscene 15.1 rebounds per game (the latter stat has him leading the league; his nearest competition Rudy Gobert is back at 13.4 per game), whereas Jarrett Allen tends to play about 26 minutes a night with Brooklyn and garner 10.4 rebounds. With Larry Nance Jr. and Kevin Love on the squad it is hard to see how teams will match the Cavs propensity to rebound the ball.

Unlike JaVale McGee (and to a lesser extent the now-former Cavs Thon Maker and Tristan Thompson), Allen doesn’t launch 3s even ironically, with no attempts this year. He is clearly going to help the Cavs further anchor and deepen their defensive identity — which is quite impressive given that they are currently one of the top teams in the Association on defense.

On the salary and contract side, Allen gives the Cavs more stability than Drummond, with his contract taking him through 2021-22 at a salary of just under $4 million this year and $7.7 million next year. His next contract is hardly likely to be such a bargain for the organization — as Cavs the Blog writer Elijah Kim noted in an internal e-mail, “Whatever cap space the Cavs were going to have, kiss it all goodbye soon: the Sexton and Allen extensions will be close to $45-50M per year together.”

Taurean Prince is somewhat more enigmatic — he is not having a great year shooting the ball, but seemed to come out of a slump against Atlanta, the team that drafted him originally. Some of the more detailed defensive and 3-point analytics from last year are available here, but he’s back to shooting a respectable if not ideal .350 from three this year, with a .366 career average.

Prince is also relatively durable and versatile, which the Cavs really need at the moment. This isn’t an old vet who is clearly in decline (think DeMare Carroll, to summon another Atlanta-Nets alumni) just thrown into the trade; Koby Altman has managed to net a proven rotation player with some future and upside. To write an overly-familiar sentence, Dylan Windler’s absence does mean that there are minutes to be had in the second unit on the perimeter. There is also his interaction with Cedi Osman to consider — Cedi is launching three more shots per game than he did last year, and shooting a lower percentage, although it is hard to say that he has been anything other than a yeoman for the Cavs this year. (In spite of having fallen flat in his debut as a starter at Madison Square Garden.) He and Prince have some overlapping skill sets, and plays the same nominal position as Isaac Okoro, so again the standard caveats about the coach having to get in the lab with lineups and combinations apply.

Prince also brings another “Bull” to the Cavs — his name, Taurean, is a reference to the symbol of Taurus, which is the bull. Speaking of Colin Sexton, here’s one estimate of the current depth chart, noting that a backup point guard is still needed.

Garland / ? / Dellavedova
Sexton / Dotson / Porter Jr
Okoro / Osman / Prince / Windler
Love / Nance / Wade
Drummond / Allen / McGee

Le roster des Cavs est donc complet mais il serait très surprenant de voir Drummond ou McGee rester toute la saison.

Un backup PG est recherché.

— Cavs France (@CavsFRA) January 13, 2021

Finally, on the first-round pick relinquished in this trade by the Cavs — it is not the Cavs’ own 2022 first rounder, which they have retained, it’s the Bucks 2022 first round pick. This was acquired in December 2018 in the post-LeBron teardown/asset accumulation phase when George Hill was traded from the Cavs to the Bucks for John Henson and Delly. (Trigger warning — the linked story contains the words “the Cavs at some point will look to trade J.R. Smith, whose contract has value to an opposing team looking to clear cap space.”)

There is clearly more to shake out via this trade, not least the next chapter in the Brooklyn soap opera and how this might alter yet again the East vs. West balance of power between the almighty NBA conferences. But it is an evening where it is, yet again, good to be keeping an eye on the Cleveland Cavaliers and their transformation toward contention. Koby Altman is probably either smoking a celebratory cigar somewhere, or on the phone wheeling and dealing yet further, or perhaps both.