It’s been a frustrating off-season for the Cleveland Cavaliers — or perhaps it was. They lost starting small forward Dean Wade in free agency to the Philadelphia 76ers, and then waited nearly a month for LeBron James to follow him there.
While the rest of the Eastern Conference was improving, the Cavs were mostly sitting idle. That changed this past week as Cleveland sent Dennis Schroder to the Charlotte Hornets to free up cap space, and then traded Max Strus, an unprotected 2031 first-round pick, and a second-rounder for Peyton Watson and Cam Whitmore.
After a month and a half of waiting, the Cavs have finally made their big move — one that could vault them back into the title conversation.
First, we’ll start with what the Cavs gave up.
The 2031 first-rounder is valuable both as a trade chip and as a useable asset.
The lottery reform starting next season doesn’t reward tanking as it has for the past several decades. Instead, simply missing the playoffs — as long as you weren’t a play-in team — gives you a better chance of landing the first overall pick than having the worst record in the league. Additionally, all lottery picks will be drawn instead of just the top four. We don’t know where the Cavs will be in 2031, but there’s a chance that could be a valuable top-five pick even if they don’t bottom out.
More than that, there’s an opportunity cost with this move. The 2031 pick was the first one they could trade away, considering the 2027 and 2029 picks are still owed to the Utah Jazz from the Donovan Mitchell trade. Now, the only first the Cavs can move for the next two seasons is their 2033 selection. And considering how far into the future that is, and how their team is aging, it’d be unwise to do so. That 2031 first was essentially the last first-rounder Cleveland could trade away to help boost this core.
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There’s an on-court cost to this as well.
Losing Strus will hurt. His shooting and ability to play with and without the ball opened up the offense.
There’s more to spacing than just raw shooting ability. Strus knows when to cut, when to come off screens, and when to act as a decoy. That intuition — even more than the shot — is what made him so valuable to Cleveland’s offense alongside his ability to run second-side actions as a ball handler. Those are things the Cavs will desperately miss.
That said, Strus wasn’t necessarily an ideal fit for this team due to his size and contract.
At 6’5″, he didn’t have the necessary height and strength to cover larger opposing wings. That wouldn’t necessarily be an issue on most teams, but it was in Cleveland.
The Cavs have long had too many shooting guards and not enough small forwards or point guards. Strus is squarely a shooting guard. His expiring $16.6 million deal is $7.5 million more than Sam Merrill’s, who largely fills the same role on offense. For those reasons, moving Strus makes sense. Whether Watson was the player to trade him for remains to be seen.
Both iterations of Cleveland’s core four have desperately needed a wing to connect the dynamic backcourt and two-center frontcourt. De’Andre Hunter was thought to be the answer in 2025, but came up short, resulting in him being dealt before the last trade deadline. Watson fits that same archetype, but there’s reasons to be hopeful that he’ll succeed where Hunter didn’t.
Watson has shown to be an incredibly efficient outside shooter. He connected on 41% of his three-point looks last season, putting him in the 84th percentile for wings. This included knocking down 52% of his outside looks from the corner (97th percentile).
That skill set should be useful on a Cavaliers team that we assume will rely heavily on high pick-and-rolls. Having someone who is that efficient from the corner should keep opposing defenses honest, opening up room to attack the basket.
Despite the impressive shooting efficiency, Watson isn’t the high-volume three-point shooter someone like Strus is. Watson took just 3.6 outside shots per game last season, landing him in the 9th percentile for three-point volume from a wing. For context, that was less than half a shot more than Evan Mobley attempted last season (3.2), which isn’t ideal.
There are legitimate questions about what kind of offensive player Watson is outside of his three-point shot.
Watson mostly relied on his teammates — mainly Nikola Jokic — to create clean looks for him as a scorer. Nearly three-fourths of his field-goal makes were assisted. That suggests that he is comfortable fitting into an offense, but also isn’t a shot creator.
Creating for others isn’t exactly his specialty either. Watson was in the 11th percentile in assist-to-usage rate (0.48), 35th percentile in assist percentage (9.4%), and in the 30th percentile for turnover rate (13.1%) last season. While there are signs that point to Watson growing into a more well-rounded scorer — mainly his impressive free-throw rate — there isn’t much to suggest that he has untapped potential here.
Not being a proven offensive initiator is a concern. Shooting and playmaking are shortcomings for any lineup that includes two traditional centers. Watson fills one of those holes, but the playmaking responsibility will still be primarily on the guards. The ideal starting small forward for this group would be one that could provide a bit of both.
Defensively is where Watson fits best. He offers the size, strength, and athleticism that should pair well with Jarrett Allen and Mobley.
Watson is 6’8″ and plays defense like he is. He’s a good rebounder for his position, can comfortably switch one through four, and has been in the 98th to 100th percentile for block percentage throughout his career.
Those defensive skills allowed him to split his time between the three and four last year. This makes him the ideal Wade replacement as he’s perfectly suited to slot into the starting lineup at small forward, and shift up to power forward when either Allen or Mobley are out of the game. This is what differentiates him most from Hunter, who struggled defensively and wasn’t an ideal option at power forward.
The Cavs were never going to find the perfect starting three for this group without ginoving up a member of the core four. As such, any move that they made would need to be a gamble of some kind.
You can quibble about Watson’s fit with this group. There’s certainly reasons to be skeptical, and he most certainly isn’t an A+ match. But considering the cap space and draft capital the Cavs had available, you’d be hard-pressed to do better.
Watson is the perfect type of player to roll the dice on. He has the size, athleticism, and shooting that this group desperately needs. And he also has upside to grow into a more complete offensive player. Whether or not he does will determine if Watson is a long-term solution at small forward.
Koby Altman came into this summer with his hands tied behind his back considering the cap situation. Not only has he gotten the Cavs under the first apron, but he’s also addressed one of the team’s biggest weaknesses. We’ll see if it’s enough to make the Cavs true title contenders. At the very least, they’re in a far better position now than they were at the start of the offseason.
Grade: A-
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