Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily, presented by Amazon Prime for February 17th, 2026. I'm Dave DeFore here with S. Baraheni and Justin Rowan. Coming up, big Cavs talk today. We're going to sit down with Justin Rowan and look ahead to the future of the Cavs, what they might do in the playoffs, and whether LeBron James is coming this summer. Good morning, everybody. What's up, ass?
What's up, Justin Rowan? Welcome to the show. Justin Rowan, one of the hosts of the Chasedown podcast. He covers the Cleveland Cavaliers. Hope you guys had a good all-star weekend. I did. By the way, Justin, you're wearing a Jasper Canada shirt.
I'm wearing a Jasper shirt. Like, this is basically, you know, the podcaster's uniform.
Are you bribing me here with just a bunch of Canadian stuff on it?
And we got seabears.
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Chapter 2: How has James Harden impacted the Cavs' offense?
We got seabears underneath, man. So I'm doubling down. I'm pandering to you. I'm trying to make sure that this is a friendly reception here and also to make sure that Dave feels threatened. That's a really important part of this equation.
yes i'm very threatened by canadians you know it's that maple leaf on your backpack to hide the fact that you know or to cover for the fact that that's not american right that really scares me yeah okay are the calves scary to you now i think to some extent yes
So my biggest concern with the shakeups they did at the trade deadline is anytime you see a seismic shakeup like this, how often do those teams make the finals? Forget go out and win the NBA finals. So to to some extent, I'm concerned about that. Right. Like, I think. This is going to be a team that's very, very good down the stretch.
They have an incredibly easy schedule after the All-Star break. There's a couple weeks here where they're playing some other contenders in the Eastern Conference. They play OKC, but we'll see who's available for that. But after that, it's a very, very light schedule. So this is a soft landing for them.
But when they get tested in the playoffs and you don't have kind of that chemistry and continuity like you had in the past, I'm curious about how that's going to shake out. But I do think the one aspect that is encouraging for me is I don't feel like Like it's a major shakeup from a style of play standpoint, right?
Like they're bringing in another brilliant pick and roll guard that's going to run a lot of the same kind of stuff that Darius would have ran. Keon Ellis basically replaces what they had last year in Isaac Okoro. And Dennis Schroeder, a very, very, very discount version of Ty Jerome.
But outside of a facility like, yeah, he can make he can make that. Yeah.
Yeah, it's like stylistically, I just don't think it's a dramatic shakeup. Like if they brought in DeMontis Sabonis and now we're running a lot of offense through the, you know, him as a post creator. I think that might be a little more difficult. But, you know, the East is pretty wide open and this is a system that's pretty similar to what they've been running.
So from that standpoint, I do think that there is a chance that it works out here.
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Chapter 3: What are the Cavs' playoff expectations after the trade deadline?
So does Jared Allen remain productive if he's being consistently fed? Does Evan Mobley remain productive if he's being fed? Plus, you have the added wrinkle of now being able to run some mid-post stuff for James Harden and other sets that you just couldn't run with the 6-1 Darius Garland.
Yeah.
Yeah, I will say I think Jared Allen has a track record of success and is a pick-and-roll big, good short-roll passer. The problem that they're going to have, the hang-up that they're going to have when their five-man lineup is out there is Evan Mobley, the shooter.
30 from three is not going to get it done he's a low volume shooter right he needs to actually take shots that's going to be what creates all this space for for allen and then you've got the big to big passing that i do think is something they can use so maybe it's a little bit of mobley diving from the corner and you know catch getting the pass from allen as the defense rotates there are ways to work around it and kenny atkinson's a good coach
I'm not worried about the structure. It's more of the performance, like you said. Harden is going to be available. He is going to play. We've already seen, though, in the fourth quarters, he is making Donovan Mitchell's life easier, right? In the games, I mean, he's hit big threes at the end of a couple of games now for Cleveland. You know, he's only been there, what, three games?
And down the stretch, fourth quarters, it's a little bit of my turn, your turn. And I say that as a compliment because Donovan Mitchell never had this –
this season, this consistent partner like this, and the fact that it looks different than what Donovan does, gets everyone in a pick and roll, gets the defense rotating, and then Donovan Mitchell, when he gets to come behind Harden after the screen and role play, The floor is wide open and defense has already scrambled.
And it does seem like he's had a couple of easier big fourth quarters than he's had. You know, it often feels like Sisyphus with Donovan Mitchell. It really does. And he's pushing that rock up the hill in the fourth quarter.
Especially to start this season, man, it was incredible.
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Chapter 4: How does the addition of Harden change player dynamics?
You can maybe play him at the small forward and move him around. But that means, you know, you're probably moving hard and not onto OG or something like that. You're trying to hide Donovan on McHale bridges. I just have questions about that. You know, that's probably one of my biggest concerns beyond what's their third big situation. Because right now it's Dean Westbrook.
and when Dean Wade is healthy and confident, he's very, very helpful and he can fill that role. Plan B is Naquan Tomlin, who I love. Naquan is one of my favorite stories of this season. He brings so much energy, but in a playoff situation... how, how our defense is going to respect that three point shot. Is it going to kind of gum up the spacing? Like those are kind of my, my concerns.
When you have options, you can go to, you can go to Larry Nance jr. As well as a more experienced option, but he's kind of, you know, he has not had an impact on the season to this point. So I have a little bit of a concern about what that third big is going to look like.
Well, what about Jalen Tyson playing up some and being like a small four and then you can get Merrill out there. Like you could have, you could have a decent amount of shooting with Jared Allen as your center.
Tyson played quite a bit of power forward as a rookie. So I do think that that's something you can do. So maybe that's an option, right? Maybe you are going small with Keanu at small forward or Sam, as you said, or Max Drew, say if he's back and healthy and then you go with Tyson, Max Drew's actually played a ton of power forward for Miami when they went to the finals.
I think that was something that people kind of overlook because he's only six, five. So it's true. It's close by the way. There's nothing on it. Like there was the reporting was kind of in his ramp up. They had to slow him down because he was doing too much. But then there hasn't really been anything.
So my assumption is they are confident that he's going to play by the playoffs because if they were concerned about that, I think they would have moved off him at the deadline to get under the second apron. Like I think.
Right.
you know, to quote Brian Windhorst, actions over words, right? And sticking with him at least gives me some confidence there. So I do think you can go to some of those small ball kind of configurations. My one concern is Tyson's better on the offensive glass than he is on the defensive glass. And we have seen the Cavs give up too many second chance opportunities at times.
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