CLEVELAND — For seven minutes and four seconds of game action Monday night, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ trade for De’Andre Hunter was shaping up to be the greatest of all time.
Shutouts in NBA games dare one to dream — and that’s exactly what the Cavs had going in Hunter’s first game (and start) for Cleveland with 4:56 left in the first quarter against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
“I like him,” Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson quipped afterward. “He helped us get off to that 16-0 start.”
Yes, it was 16-0, in favor of the Cavs, with Hunter on the court before the Timberwolves made a free throw. The Wolves would finish the first quarter with just two baskets and 12 points en route to a 128-107 blowout loss at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.
For a bit of context, Hunter is a 6-foot-8, 225-pound, physical wing who can score and defend. He is significantly lighter, in body weight and in career points scored in the NBA, than the last 6-8 wing the Cavs employed on a really good team, but that’s the point. Hunter should not, and will not be here, compared to LeBron James, other than to say since Cleveland got good again — starting in, let’s say, 2022 — the Cavs haven’t really had a big, versatile player at the small forward position, at least not with any real consistency.
This season, the Cavs are better than good. They are, to date, the best in the Eastern Conference at 43-10. And yet last Thursday, they dealt Caris LeVert and Georges Niang, two rotation players, as well as a bunch of second-round picks and pick swaps, to the Atlanta Hawks for Hunter, going all in by adding a rugged wing who could shoot next to three current All-Stars and another who was an All-Star just a few seasons ago. This was, by far, the biggest trade made by any legitimate contending team before the trade deadline. If you think the Los Angeles Lakers’ acquiring Luka Dončić, or the Golden State Warriors getting Jimmy Butler, makes either more viable, fine. But the Cavs had the top record in the league before this deal was made and may be even better now.
“I didn’t think it was going to happen, honestly,” Hunter said after his Cleveland debut. “I didn’t think they needed any help.”
The shutout of the Timberwolves didn’t last, and Anthony Edwards — whom Hunter guarded to open the game — wound up with 44 points. But Cleveland won easily in an affair so lopsided that it allowed Atkinson to experiment with coverages on Edwards that didn’t work, and in the meantime, Hunter drew rave reviews from his first outing wearing a Cleveland uniform.
Hunter finished with 12 points and three 3s, one rebound and one steal in 23 minutes. He shot 3s from the corner, he guarded Edwards but also crossmatched against bigger players and guards. He dove on the floor near midcourt for the steal he recorded. It wasn’t like a huge highlight reel kind of night, in part because the game was never close. And also because, if this works properly, Hunter won’t be making headlines most of the time.
De’Andre Hunter’s first points as a Cav!
Buries the triple to get on the board with his new squad 👏 pic.twitter.com/xwjqKTmboW
— NBA (@NBA) February 11, 2025
In a late January game as a member of the Hawks against the same Timberwolves, Hunter scored 35 points in a loss. He entered play Monday with more 20-point games off the bench this season (18) than anyone else in the league. But Cleveland didn’t bring Hunter to town to score, really, or, probably, to come off the bench (he started Monday in part because of Max Strus’ injured ankle; had Strus been healthy, who knows who among them would’ve started at small forward?).
Hunter is a Cav because the team thinks he is the missing piece against the Boston Celtics, or Oklahoma City Thunder, or any other big, physical team they might face in a conference finals or beyond. He is there to take pressure off All-Star guards Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland or to beef up a front line that already has two standouts in All-Star Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen.
And in the first test of that hypothesis, everybody passed. Mobley led all Cavs with 28 points and added 10 rebounds; Mitchell scored 23 with eight assists; Allen contributed 14 points and 13 rebounds; and Garland scored 17 points.
“Kind of what we envisioned,” Atkinson said. “A physicality, his activity, size. I just felt it. I don’t know if you guys (reporters) felt it out there. I sure did. He’s a big reason we got out to that fast start.”
Atkinson said his mind began to wander during the game about the lineup possibilities. Five-man groups that were not possible Monday because Dean Wade and Isaac Okoro, two other bigger wings who can defend, are out with injuries. Neither of them is the 19-point scorer, the 40 percent 3-point shooter Hunter is, but Atkinson said he envisioned playing all three of them with Mitchell and Mobley. That’s four elite defenders (everyone but Mitchell), with two knockdown shooters (Mitchell and Hunter, but Mobley also shoots 40 percent from 3) and a rim protector and roller (Mobley) for a stretch of minutes in a playoff game when both teams have gone to their benches.
“He’s low-usage, too,” Atkinson said. “He keeps it simple, makes the right play — a really good debut for him.”
Since the trade, much has been made of Hunter’s close relationship with one of Cleveland’s top reserves, Ty Jerome, who was Hunter’s teammate at Virginia when the school won a national championship in 2019. Hunter worked out last summer in Los Angeles with Mobley. There were human feelings on the flip side of the trade, however; Niang and LeVert were both popular among their Cleveland teammates.
The Cavs are proud of the chemistry they’ve built. They didn’t fracture it by trading for Hunter, but they chipped away at the corners to take a shot at winning the franchise’s second championship. It would be a step too far to call the deal a risk, but the Cavs who were on the team before the deal had to cope with losing two friends as teammates, and Hunter, while thrilled to be traded for by the top team in the NBA, has a new locker room, coach, and system to get used to.
“I’m not coming here … trying to change anything,” Hunter said. “I’m just trying to add my skill set to what they already have.
“They had a need they felt needed to be addressed. I feel like, as someone who prides himself on defense and kind of going out there and (trying) to be a two-way player as best I can. So I think that could really help this team, especially at the small forward. But like I said, they were doing good without me.”
There are 29 games left for Cleveland to truly get Hunter acclimated, and the All-Star break is this weekend. Atkinson has to learn which of his players are best suited for playing alongside Hunter when the game stretches on and coaches go to their benches.
The Cavs are already the NBA’s top offensive team. They’re currently eighth in defense.
“We’re good, we’re not great,” Atkinson said about the Cavs’ defense. “De’Andre was a part of that thought process. Can he help us (with his) size, physicality, positional size, switchable — all the little cliches that are true. Can he push us to the next level?”
For one game in the middle of February, against an opponent that had one prolific scorer in Edwards but a bunch of key players out with injuries, Hunter fit seamlessly with the Cavs.
The reason Cleveland made the trade is what could be dreamed about during the game, with Hunter out there making corner 3s and defending as designed.
“What’s possible is a championship,” Mobley said. “I feel like we have that caliber of team and we’re on that track right now. That’s the whole goal, and adding a player like that just boosts it even more.”
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(Photo: David Richard / Imagn Images)
