Hope you all had a happy Father's Day, Cavalier fans. With the NBA finals in full swing, last week, Nate, Eli, and Chris Francis constructed an impromptu podcast booth in an abandoned culvert underneath I-80, and exorcised the demons of the Cavs' 2025 playoff exit. Full warning, this one might have the worst audio engineering in the history of CtB, and it's almost a week old now. I've been burning it at both ends at work and this was the soonest I could post. So it's Amateur Hour from us as we flexed our dormant podcast muscles.

To kick it off we got into why the Cavs lost highlighted by some major criticisms for Kenny Atkinson, the Cavs' perpetually injury mismanagement, the Cavs' lack of punch, and the NBA officials. Up next we got into slop season with no one off the table in our discussion of how to reconstruct this Cavs roster. The conversation revolved around a few key points key points: the Cavs have one last shot to make a major move before the end of June, before they're locked in salary cap purgatory, above the dreaded luxury tax apron; there are no perfect deals out there, and there aren't any clear paths for improving the roster; the Cavs might be stuck with what they have; Cleveland desperately needs some longer wings, better secondary ball-handling, and a guard set that complements both each other and Cleveland's bigs; and finally, the luxury tax apron is going to act as a hard cap and make it very hard for teams over it to operate.

After that we got into the finals, celebrated a big birthday, and looked forward to the summer. It was an entertaining podcast, even if it was a little rough around the edges.

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