The good times in the post-LeBron James era for the Cavaliers are officially over

Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Mike Sykes

Happy Friday, folks! Welcome back to Layup Lines. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you’ve had a great week so far.

Remember when the Cleveland Cavaliers were the most feel-good story in the NBA a few years ago?

The vibes were on 100 back in 2021. Darius Garland had blossomed into an All-Star. Jarrett Allen was one of the best big men in the Eastern Conference. The team drafted Evan Mobley, too, and nearly made the playoffs.

For the first time in, well, almost forever without LeBron James, the Cavaliers were good and interesting! This was a team you could legitimately get behind. There was no pressure to win — only a clear desire to be good.

Today? All those vibes are gone.

The Donovan Mitchell trade changed everything for Cleveland. That move was supposed to make the Cavaliers into a contender. Now, for the second year in a row, Cleveland is out of the playoffs without sniffing the Eastern Conference Finals.

Not only that, but the team is breaking apart. Trade rumors are surfacing about Mitchell (that he’s currently denying). The rumor is that if Mitchell stays, Garland is leaving. Everyone reportedly has an issue with Jarrett Allen for not playing through a rib injury and we’re still waiting on Evan Mobley to make the leap we all anticipated offensively.

Meanwhile, as Cleveland has been treading water, other contenders in the East have moved upstream. New York is the conference’s No. 2 seed, the Pacers are on the rise, the Celtics have gotten even better and the Magic will be tough to beat moving forward.

This isn’t to say that this team will be bad or that the front office should blow things up, but it’s very clear that this current mixture of talent isn’t working the way they thought. Now, there’s pressure to figure things out. That is the burden of winning.

I doubt Cleveland makes any rash moves here. There are no moves the Cavs have to make here — the team’s core four players are all under contract for, at least, one more season.

Surely, they’d like to get Donovan Mitchell signed to an extension considering what Cleveland traded to get him. But if that means sacrificing Garland, that’s not an easy decision. It’s also hard to tell exactly what you’d be able to get in return for Garland in a trade. Would that actually help Cleveland get better? I’m not sure

None of these decisions are simple, but going from good to great never is. That’s where the Cavs are today. We’ll see if they figure things out.

Danny Ainge might be a troll

Everyone in the world knows LeBron James wants to play with Bronny. He’s only been talking about it for the last, what, three years? That’s truly how he wants to end his career.

If it’s up to longtime Lakers rival and LeBron James foil Danny Ainge, though, he might just have to do that in Utah. Or, you know, the Lakers will have to give up something to get him.

Utah is reportedly interested in bringing Bronny in for a workout, according to Yahoo! Sports Krysten Peek.

Our Bryan Kalbrosky thinks this could be a ploy from Ainge to extract something from the Lakers. Either way, it hurts LA.

“This is a savvy move by Danny Ainge, who is the CEO of Basketball Operations for the franchise. The Jazz are a potential competitor of the Lakers in the Western Conference and Ainge is a former executive of the Celtics, the most notable rival of Los Angeles.

Even if Utah doesn’t actually want to draft Bronny, this puts the Lakers in a bit of a predicament. They’re basically daring them: If you want to select the son of the NBA’s all-time scoring leader so he can play alongside his father in the NBA, perhaps you will need to trade with us (or ahead of us) to get the pick.”

Now, to be fair, this might not actually matter at all. Bronny says he just wants a shot at the NBA, whether it’s with his dad or not. If that shot comes in Utah, it doesn’t sound like he’ll mind it.

But this is a deliciously petty move from Danny Ainge. I have no choice but to respect it.

— Here’s Bryan again with a new consensus mock draft that shows lots of love to Donavan Clingan

— Stephen A. Smith thinks he can get a bucket on LeBron James. Seriously. He really thinks this.

— Charles Barkley is trying to use a reverse jinx to keep the NBA on TNT. Blake Schuster has more.

That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks so much for reading today. We appreciate you. We’ll chat again next week. Until then. Peace.

-Sykes ✌️