Cavs aren’t going to ‘speculate’ about a potential Giannis Antetokounmpo trade

Point-blank, Cleveland Cavaliers president of basketball operations Koby Altman was prompted to answer whether or not Evan Mobley will be on the roster before next season begins. He hesitated, taken aback by the question, then pressed by a reporter on the rumors surrounding the Cavs and Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo.

“I mean, he’s part of our future,” Altman said on Friday in his end-of-season press conference. “We’re not going to speculate on any players outside these walls. All I can tell you is, since Evan’s been here, we’ve had the third-best record in the league. Now, we don’t have a championship to show for that yet, right?

“Boston and Denver, the other two ahead of us, they have a championship to show for that. But all Evan has done is impacted winning. He’s been remarkable for us in terms of our ascent the last five years. He’s a huge part of what we do. He knows he needs to get better.”

Altman said the conversations with Mobley revolved around getting even stronger, but sustaining his body, as he played a ton of minutes in the playoffs for long stretches. He points out that, among the incredible 2021 rookie draft class that includes NBA MVP candidate Cade Cunningham, Scottie Barnes, and Franz Wagner, the seven-foot, 24-year-old is the first to reach the conference finals.

“We have to be proud of that,” Altman said. “We have to take pride in that. It’s easy to knock someone down. We’re in the weeds. We can point to this, we can point to that. He’s a franchise-caliber player, and we’re very fortunate to have him… You can argue he was consistently our best player throughout the playoffs. I know everyone wants this jump from him, and he does himself, but this playoffs, he was tremendous for us.

“And you think about Game 5 on the road in Detroit, [he] scores the last seven points to bring us to a tie ball game. There was a 3-ball at the top of the key that went in, that gave us all belief, ‘Okay, now we can do this.’ We didn’t see that from him two, three years ago, right? To be able to step up and knock down that 3 and then, oh, by the way, hit two key free throws to tie up that ball game on the road. These are all things that we’re going to grow from, that he’s going to grow from.”

Trying to become “the most complete player,” Mobley feels that sticking with it through the slow shooting start and multiple calf injuries exhibited his resilience. The follow-up to his All-NBA Second Team and Defensive Player of the Year season didn’t go perfectly as planned, but he found his stride to close the year.

There’s “a lot” Mobley still wants to improve on.

“Right now, it’s kind of narrowing down what my go to’s are,” Mobley said. “I think I can do a lot of things on the floor. I’m very versatile, I have a lot of skill set, but I think narrowing things down to knowing what I’m gonna get to 9 times out of 10, and then, after that, letting my skill set thrive.

“I think that’s a big step I want to do and change… Now, it’s to the summer and back to work and grinding to make another jump and be even better next year.”

Mobley is part of a “cheat code” both ends duo with Jarrett Allen that evolved, as Altman termed it. Cleveland’s president doesn’t downplay the idea of improving externally as well as in-house, though, as the franchise always has.

“It’s not a death nail because you’re in the second apron,” Altman said. “That being said, we have to be really strategic on what we do and how we add and how we can get better. But I’m pretty confident in our front office and our creativity. There’s absolute urgency. There always is. When you have Dan [Gilbert] as your owner and the Gilbert family that wants to bring another championship to Northeast Ohio, it’s great pressure to have. We’re all aligned. It’s not, ‘Hey, go save money or shave this or get out of [the second apron] — no, it’s like, how do we get better? That’s the question.

“If that’s the North Star, you’re not worried about the second apron. You’re not worried about the tax bill. It’s, how do you break through? And so, we’re in great shape because we’re aligned under that guise, and there’s no mandate to do this or do that. How do we get better? And getting better means making the Finals, and that’s a hard, hard thing to do. And so that’s incremental. That could be around the edges. That could be a big ticket move. We’re going to look at all of it and certainly be able to navigate around sort of the confines of the second apron if we have to.”

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