CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Koby Altman, one of the most aggressive executives in the NBA, stood pat Thursday.
The league’s 3 p.m. eastern trade deadline passed without Altman and the Cavaliers making a move.
“I think for us, the bulk of the work was done in the offseason and we really wanted to address our shortcomings we felt from last year's playoffs,” Altman said. “And so free agency was a big point of focus for us to make some valuable additions, and then also internally we had some really good development this offseason and into the season as well.
“So while those aren't acquisitions at the deadline, there's certainly really important parts of our roster and we're really, really happy and pleased with how we've been playing. And sometimes, you know me, I'm very active and do a lot of volume, but sometimes you don't want to mess up a good thing, and so we're going to roll with what we have and we're excited about the group.”
Despite losing Darius Garland and Evan Mobley for nearly six weeks, the Cavs didn’t flinch and they are the hottest team in the NBA having won 15 of their last 16 to climb to the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.
Garland and Mobley returned to the floor ahead of schedule last week.
“If you want to call that our trade deadline acquisitions, [they] are pretty good,” Altman said. “There's going to be some time to reacclimate them once we get off the minute restrictions, and so already thinking about those challenges is a lot when you're adding that level of talent to a team that's been playing so well. So thinking about adding another addition to that, finding a successful path and minutes for an addition just didn't seem like the right thing to do at this point in time, especially with how we've been playing.”
