The frustration level for the Cleveland Cavaliers is not only bubbling in the locker room, but even more dangerously reaching the top of the organization.
Chris Fedor of cleveland.com says that team owner
Dan Gilbert is “very unhappy” about what is going on with the Cavs on the Wine and Gold podcast.
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There are many negatives right now with this group. The Cavs are 15-14 at the time of this writing, getting booed off their home court, and have made a habit of being down double-digits to any team they are playing. While the “core four” of Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen have played less than an hour of game time together so far, it does not excuse losses to some pretty poor teams.
Any Cavs fan who has been around for a little while knows that Gilbert is a wild card, but his dissatisfaction with the team is warranted. Cleveland not only has the highest payroll in the NBA, but they are the only team in the dreaded second apron (a very strict salary threshold that greatly limits roster moves) as well. Gilbert is paying a huge luxury tax bill based on the belief that the Cavs are a championship team. They haven’t looked anything close to that this season.
In fact, if the season ended right now, the Cavs would be playing the Atlanta Hawks in the Play-In Tournament —a team they have not beaten in two tries this season.
Now, this does not mean that everybody is getting traded and the team will be blown up. There is time to right the ship, though it is dwindling. But it’s difficult to construct a trade that completely saves them due to the second apron. They cannot aggregate salaries, use any trade exceptions, and cannot use their taxpayer midlevel exception. In essence, it will be very hard for the Cavs to up and trade their core pieces in a fit of rage. They will just have to endure the fit or rage.
But Gilbert has a history of inserting himself in discussions related to basketball operations, something that should be slightly worrying for not only Cavs fans, but the organization in general. The team is underperforming significantly and, given their losses to poor teams during this soft part of their schedule, things could very likely continue spiraling further. The cleanest solution is to figure it out within, dig deep, and pull themselves out.
Whether ownership gives them that time is an entirely different question.
