{"id":119952,"date":"2025-01-24T21:16:03","date_gmt":"2025-01-25T02:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=119952"},"modified":"2025-01-24T21:16:03","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T02:16:03","slug":"cavaliers-trade-rumors-luxury-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/24\/cavaliers-trade-rumors-luxury-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavaliers Trade Rumors Scarce Due to Luxury Tax Admission"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you had predicted that the Cleveland Cavaliers would be a top-two team in the NBA\u2014better than the\u00a0<\/span>Boston Celtics<\/span><\/a>\u2014and atop their conference, you would have been in small company. Nevertheless, as it stands today, the Cavaliers are in <\/span>full<\/span> control of the East and may very well be the best team in the league at the midway point of the season. With\u00a0<\/span>Donovan Mitchell<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Darius Garland<\/span><\/a>\u00a0compromising the league’s top backcourt and leading the way, is it enough for the Cavaliers to remain quiet at the trade deadline? Why are there little to no Cavaliers trade rumors?<\/span><\/p>\n

Cavaliers Trade Rumors Scarce Due to Luxury Tax Admission<\/h2>\n

Cleveland Cavaliers Prepared to Enter Luxury Tax Due to Season’s Success<\/h3>\n

The Cavs are in sole control of the East and look significantly better than their conference contemporaries, with\u00a0<\/span>Boston looking mighty shaky of late<\/span><\/a>. With the Cavaliers likely exceeding expectations in great bounds, they look poised for a deep playoff run. Remarkably,\u00a0<\/span>Cleveland is 13-2 against Western Conference opponents<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(one of which they would face in the NBA Finals). Not only that, but they’ve defeated a handful of solid West teams like the Thunder, Nuggets,\u00a0<\/span>Lakers<\/span><\/a>, Timberwolves, and Suns. Of course, as it looks right now, only the Nuggets and Thunder of that bunch give the appearance of could-be finals opponents. The Cavs are 3-1 against them, beating the Nuggets twice and splitting with the Thunder.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The point is that the Cavaliers look dominant no matter who they face. That could lead to the front office standing pat at the trade deadline, moving the organization in the direction of the luxury tax. As\u00a0<\/span>reported by Michael Soto of HoopsHype<\/span><\/a>, the Cavaliers are signaling they are content with this trajectory. If the Cavaliers pass the deadline without any trades, it would drive them further into the luxury tax. Presently, they are $1.9 million above the luxury tax line. To get under it, they would have to be active between now and February 6th, even if it’s minimal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cleveland’s Present Course Justifies Going Into Tax Luxury<\/h3>\n

Soto mentioned a salary dump as the likely method to get Cleveland under the luxury tax. It’s a move unlikely to have a significant impact that would spiral their season out of control. However, the Cavs’ present roster is solid, and their depth is as good as it gets across all 30 NBA teams. Seemingly, all their players offer a high level of production and contribution. In light of that, perhaps a small hole could<\/em> be left in the wake of a salary dump type move.<\/p>\n

Their solid roster from top to bottom is why they are where they are right now, though. Avoiding disruption of any kind may actually assist the Cavaliers; throw the luxury tax to the wind and deal with it later.<\/p>\n

On Course for the Finals?<\/h3>\n

While the Cavaliers are running away with their conference, one has to question their questionable recent playoff history in the same breath. This season’s team is virtually the same as last season’s, where they were knocked out in the second round. Kenny Atkinson clearly has had an impact on this campaign, and despite having the same roster, they look like an entirely different basketball squad. So, does that translate into a different playoff outcome? It could be a great regular season but the same old playoff results. Time will tell, of course. All of that being said, I wouldn’t put it past Cleveland to knock out Boston or other threats in the East; perhaps none of us should.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you had predicted that the Cleveland Cavaliers would be a top-two team in the NBA\u2014better than the\u00a0Boston Celtics\u2014and atop their conference, you would have been in small company. Nevertheless, as it stands today, the Cavaliers are in full control of the East and may very well be the best team in the league at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":119956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,4721],"tags":[1937,900],"class_list":["post-119952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-trade-rumors","tag-darius-garland","tag-donovan-mitchell"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119957,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119952\/revisions\/119957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}