The Cleveland Cavaliers’ championship window is still open.
Unfortunately, this season may have been the perfect time to go all the way.
The Cavs had the second-best record in the NBA and looked poised to make a deep postseason run.
Then, they couldn’t get past the second round of the playoffs.
Now, the Cavs will face some serious financial limitations, raising doubts about their ability to compete at the highest level for years to come.
With that in mind, Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report had one word to describe their current situation.
“Expensive,” Pincus wrote. “The Cavaliers went all-in this past season, giving Evan Mobley a maximum extension that got even costlier when he won Defensive Player of the Year, and trading for De’Andre Hunter. However, their tremendous regular-season run ended in a disappointing finish with a second-round loss to the Indiana Pacers. Cleveland is unlikely to stay at this high of a payroll for too long, as the league’s new rules increasingly punish the freewheeling spenders.”
Mobley took a big step forward this season and looked like the kind of two-way superstar they hoped he’d become.
He’s just getting started, and he’s going to be their most important asset for the foreseeable future.
But the Cavs might find it tough to surround him with other stars.
They are giving a lot of money to him, Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen, and they absorbed Hunter’s contract as well.
That will hamper their ability to add more firepower with outside free agents, and they might struggle to re-sign some of their own.
This championship window likely will stay open for a little longer, but if the Cavs decide to run it back, they won’t have much time to prove they can get the job done before the organization will seriously consider making some big moves.
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