Should the Cavaliers blow it up? Anything is on the table after embarrassing sweep to Knicks

Where do the Cleveland Cavaliers go from here?

It is a question that will keep Cavs executive Koby Altman awake at nights, if it hasn’t already, for some time. Dan Gilbert, the team’s owner, will be seeking the answer, if he hasn’t already, for some time. The players may be asking that question of themselves.

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And there may not be an answer that ends in a championship.

“I’m disappointed for the group,” Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson said after his team was swept in embarrassing fashion on its home floor in a 130-93 Game 4 loss. “From a coaching standpoint, normally you’d say, ‘Man, I wish roster-wise we had this,’ but I can’t say that. Ownership and front office gifted us with a wonderful roster, a talented roster, so I feel bad for the group, because you want to fulfill your expectations. So, that’s disappointing.”

The Cavs are stuck, you see. They have reached their ceiling, which, as it turns out, isn’t that much further than the limitation we figured them for — the second-round ceiling they met each of the previous two seasons. The same sub-title upper limit that James Harden has hit throughout his 17-year career. Great but not the greatest.

Yes, together Harden and the Cavaliers reached the conference finals, each for the first time since 2018, but no, they could not win a single game against the New York Knicks.

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Why anyone thought the marriage between Harden and the Cavs would end in anything but disappointment is beyond me. It cost them Darius Garland, an oft-injured 26-year-old two-time All-Star, but an age-26 two-time All-Star nonetheless. (Altman threw in a second-round pick, along with Garland, for Harden in February.)

Garland was to be part of the Cavaliers’ future if they were to have one. Now, theirs is as uncertain as any team’s in the league. Sure, they still have Evan Mobley, but he has a ceiling, too, and it won’t be, as we once thought, a Kevin Garnett-like future for him.

Mobley is no 1A. Nor is Donovan Mitchell. Or Harden. Certainly not Jarrett Allen. No compounding effect makes them greater than the sum of their parts. These Cavs…

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Author : Ben Rohrbach

Publish date : 2026-05-26 04:35:00

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