It’s slim pickings out there. The Cleveland Cavaliers need to capitalize on their second-round draft picks in the coming years, and college basketball is making that process substantially more difficult.
This year marks the beginning of the draft pick payment from the Donovan Mitchell deal. When the Cavaliers traded for the young All-Star shooting guard, they granted the Utah Jazz possession of five consecutive first-round draft picks. While they are unlikely to regret the decision, the piper will be paid beginning with this year’s draft.
Simultaneously, acquiring inexpensive young talent to the team through the draft has never been more crucial for Cleveland. They will almost probably exceed the second luxury tax bracket next season, banning them from signing any new player in free agency to a contract greater than the minimum. If they want to add talent, the best method is through the NBA Draft.
This year, they enter the draft with two second-round picks, Nos. 49 and 58. These are not premium picks, but there is a chance to grab a back-end rotation component. Quinten Post was picked 52nd last season and spent the playoffs as a rotation player for the Golden State Warriors.
The year before, All-Defense wing Toumani Camara was taken 32nd, while Jaylen Clark and Jalen Wilson were also selected in that bracket and are now NBA players. In 2022, Vince Williams Jr. placed 48th. There are jewels to be uncovered, and it is up to the Cleveland front office and scouting department to discover them. Their work, however, will be far more difficult.
College NIL made 2025 a shallow draft.
In previous years, the second round was dominated by productive college players eager to begin their NBA careers — and start the clock on earning wages to support their families and develop personal riches. If you had a good chance of being drafted, you went, unless it was evident that another year of college would improve your chances. Everything changed with the implementation of above-board NIL money for college athletes. The Top 20 players in the draft were heading to the NBA either way, but after that the decisions became more difficult — or perhaps more clear — for draft hopefuls. Does it make more sense to make less than a million dollars in the NBA, not have control over your landing position, and be stuck on the bench / in the G League, or to return to your preferred college to earn $3 or $4 million as the star of your team in front of crowded arenas?
That new reality became apparent this year, when a large number of athletes withdrew from the draft to return to college. Furthermore, rather than entering the NBA Draft as soon as possible, international players are increasingly choosing to come to the United States and play for a college team that pays them nothing.
Darrion Williams, who we discussed as a draft target for Cleveland, has returned to college. Duke’s Isaiah Evans returned to school. National champion big man Alex Condon has returned to Florida. High-octane guards who were anticipated to go early in the second round and push other quality players down the board, such as Labaron Philon, Tahaad Pettiford, and Boogie Fland,
They will all compete in the SEC rather than the NBA next season. This has resulted in a substantially smaller pool of draft prospects for teams drafting in the second round. The Cavaliers’ sole picks come in the second round, and their draft prospects are bleak. ESPN’s Jonathan Givony described the 2025 Draft as “one of the shallowest” in recent memory.
The Cavaliers will now try to search a barren field for hidden gems, since adding second-round draft prospects lowers the cost of a roster place next season. They most certainly want to choose two players and sign them to contracts; now, the players signing those deals will have a considerably lesser likelihood of To them. Changing laws make it increasingly difficult for the Cleveland Cavaliers to sustain the amazing team that they have assembled. The 2025 NBA Draft will be no different.
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