How does the Desmond Bane trade affect the Cavs?

The first domino in what’s shaping up to be a busy summer in the NBA has fallen.

The Orlando Magic made the first big move of the offseason by sending out four first-round picks to acquire Desmond Bane from the Memphis Grizzlies. Even if you think this was an overpay, you can’t deny that the Magic will be a better team next season because of the move. They’re also better suited now to match up with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Let’s take a look at what this all means for the Cavaliers.

Darius Garland isn’t going to be traded to the Magic

This never seemed like a trade that would actually happen. Moving Garland for Jalen Suggs wasn’t going to make the Cavs a better team and would greatly help the Magic. Now, we know that sending Garland to the Magic would be functionally impossible.

The move puts the Magic in the second apron. That means they’re now unable to aggregate contracts in a trade. They also don’t have a player who makes as much money as Garland’s $39 million next season. So even if the Cavs and Magic wanted to make a deal, they couldn’t for Garland.

We don’t need to think about a Garland for Suggs swap for the foreseeable future. We’ll all be better off for that.

Orlando believes the East is wide open

The Magic needed another offensive weapon who could create for themselves off the dribble. That much was clear after their offense fell apart in the first round of their 2024 playoff loss to the Cavs. Everything that happened last season backed that up as well. However, if you wanted to go all in on this core, it would’ve made more sense from a salary perspective to do so last offseason before Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs’s extensions kicked in.

We don’t know whether the Magic tried to make a deal last year. Sometimes the right trade just doesn’t materialize. But the timing of this move makes you think that Magic believe they could compete for a title. They might not have thought that after the previous season.

It’s understandable why they would think that now. Going into last season, the Boston Celtics seemed like they were going to be a juggernaut for years to come. Now, they could be without Jayson Tatum all of next season, and it appears like they’re going to be moving key players to save money this summer. On top of that, the Indiana Pacers — a team that no one thought was a championship contender heading into the playoffs — being two wins away from a title gives everyone else hope that they could peak at the right time and do the same in the future.

We’ll see if any other Eastern Conference teams go all-in with a similar move this summer.

This is a seller’s market

The price of available players naturally goes up when more teams believe that they’re in the mix. Moving four first-round picks for Bane seems like an overpay. He’s a good player, but the Cavs only gave up three unprotected firsts for Donovan Mitchell, who was a far more established star and was younger than Bane at the time of the trade.

This environment could help or hurt the Cavs. Maybe teams in desperate need of a center would overpay for Jarrett Allen if they think he’s the missing piece for their championship team.

At the same time, the Cavaliers aren’t sellers. Any move that they make needs to somehow make them a better team in the short term or at least provide ways for them to improve. Getting multiple first-round picks for someone like Allen would be great, but it’d only be helpful if you’d be able to convert those picks into a useful player who could help now.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that just because a team gave up that much for Bane doesn’t mean that a different team would offer that much for a comparable player at a different position. Each player’s market is simply what the highest bidder is willing to part with to get that player. There might’ve been far more interest in a wing like Bane than there could be for someone like Allen or Garland.

Orlando is closer to Cleveland’s level now

It’s difficult to predict the landscape of next season’s Eastern Conference. There are too many unknowns at this point in the summer. However, we do know that Orlando is better now than they were last week.

Bane may not be able to solve all of the Magic’s offensive issues. He’s a skilled scorer, but they still need a better ball handler and distributor to get the most out of Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. They will be asking a lot out of Suggs from a playmaking perspective to keep this offense flowing. That alone could cap how far this group can go in the playoffs.

That said, Bane does fit in nicely with their defensive identity. He’s an above-average point of attack defender, which should give them a more imposing backcourt than they had with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope starting.

This isn’t encouraging for the Cavs. They struggled in 2024 with Orlando’s defense and showed against the Pacers that their backcourt could be disrupted by an active opponent. This could be an issue for the Cavaliers if they were to meet the Magic in the playoffs again next season.

Orlando is now a playoff threat to the Cavs in a way they weren’t before this deal.

Title windows are shorter than ever

A few years ago, it seemed like the Grizzlies were set up to be championship contenders for at least the next half-decade with a nucleus of Ja Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Bane. Now, they’re moving off one of their core pieces, and it appears that they’re willing to punt on competing for a championship next season after spending most of this past regular season as the second seed in the Western Conference.

Injuries and suspensions for Morant kept this core from taking off like they should’ve. You can’t predict things like that happening. But this does underscore just how fragile these opportunities to compete can be.

If you have a chance at a title, you need to take it because it could be gone well before you thought it would be.

This is shaping up to be a busy summer

The second apron puts restrictions on what the Cavaliers can do to improve their roster. Trades are essentially the only way they can reconfigure their team this offseason, and any deal they make needs to fall into specific parameters that comply with the second apron. However, the more moves that are made, the easier it would be for the Cavs to grab a better-fitting rotation player as the third or fourth team in a deal.

This trade didn’t offer that. For now, it seems like Memphis is happy to keep Caldwell-Pope and Cole Anthony. The same might not be true for teams that may want to fully rebuild after trading away a star player.

A more active trade market should open up additional avenues for the Cavs to make deals. We’ll see if Koby Altman and the rest of the front office can take advantage of that this summer.