The Cavaliers have been impressive this season in their ability to seemingly continue digging deeper whenever they appear to hit a new low. Whether it’s off-court chatter or on-court struggles, there is a never-ending supply of drama coming out of Cleveland this season.
After a dismal January that saw All-Star Kevin Love suffer a broken hand, February got off to an equally bad start. With just over 24 hours until the trade deadline, the Cavs have yet to make a move and on Tuesday night they blew a 21-point lead to lose by 18 to the Magic, scoring nine points in the fourth quarter.
It was arguably the worst performance of the season for Cleveland, which is quite a feat considering some of the eggs they’ve laid to this point. After the game, Isaiah Thomas questioned the teams togetherness once again, saying they “go their separate ways” when facing any kind of adversity. Thomas himself continues to struggle in his first month back from his hip injury as do the rest of the Cavaliers.
While trade rumors will persist all the way up until the 3 p.m. ET deadline on Thursday, some in the Cavs locker room are resigned to the fact that there’s not a magical fix out there to be made and they’ll have to figure things out themselves. Dwyane Wade told reporters, via Chris Barnewall of CBS Sports, that the Cavs issues are all on the players, not the coaches, and there isn’t anyone coming to save them.
“Nobody’s coming to save us,” Wade said. “It’s not the coaches’ fault. It’s the players’. We gotta own it. All of us. When we get opportunities, we all gotta do our job. We recognize that.”
Wade is right. It’s almost impossible to fix the Cavaliers by way of the trade market thanks to their general lack of assets and bad contracts on the books. This is going to be the team they have, with the potential of a swap here or there, but it’s hard to see any way the Cavs land a major star that could really shake things up.
If that is indeed the case, this group is simply going to have to figure things out. LeBron and Wade have a track record of turning things on for the playoffs, but Wade is much older now and might not have much of an extra gear to hit and there isn’t anyone else on the roster you feel confident can push their game to another level along with LeBron.
Have you checked out the new DIME podcast?
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