Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen's trade values have hit rock bottom as Cavs spiral

The Cleveland Cavaliers may need to blow up the core four.

After years of building around the guard duo of Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell, and the forward duo of Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, the experiment of creating a cast around those four All-Stars may come to a close.

The Cavaliers currently sit at an overall record of 15-12 on the season and have lost seven of their last 10 games. It's been a heap of struggles that have come from inconsistent shooting and a lack of effort on the defensive side of the ball. Injuries have also riddled the team this season.

On Thursday, Dec. 18, the Zach Lowe Show had a discussion about the current struggles for the Cavaliers in the 2025-26 NBA season, with a point of focus on what the organization has to do to get out of this situation.

However, Lowe said that it's going to be a tricky situation for the front office not only to make trades, but to get good value out of some of their so-called superstars.

"I'm at Def Con 1 with Cleveland," he said. "I don't know what they can even do because they have second apron issues. The guys that maybe could have moved the needle for them in a big trade are Garland and Allen.

"And both of those guys are at rock bottom trade value wise."

On his latest podcast, @ZachLowe_NBA increased his concern meter to DEFCON 1 on the Cavs and said Garland and Allen values are at “rock bottom”. pic.twitter.com/TqdPKUgYgW
— RealCavsFans.com (@realcavsfans) December 18, 2025

Lowe isn't wrong, not on any level.

"This looks pretty close to broken," he said. "...They're 15-13 and got ran off the floor in embarrassing fashion by the not very good Chicago Bulls. Transition defense, nonexistent. Bulls just fast breaking to basket after basket. Backdoor cuts all over the place."

This season, Garland's been incredibly banged up with a lingering toe injury, which has not only affected his agility and bounce but also his shooting. He's currently averaging 15.4 points, 3.1 rebounds and 6.4 assists on splits of 36.3% from the field and 29.5% from beyond the arc this year, only playing in 12 games. That's below half the games the team has played this season up until this point.

"Darius Garland, bad again," Lowe said. "He's shooting a career low rate of shots at the rim, shooting less than 50% at the rim... just looks like a broken player."

His consistency is not high enough to draw a lot of interest from teams in trade talks, especially due to his toe injury. If that were to have been healed at this point in time, maybe front offices would be willing to take a flyer on him.

Like Garland, Allen's also missed a few games this season due to injury.

However, his issues are rooted much deeper in inefficient shooting and rebounding. On the season, he's averaging just 14.0 points and 7.2 rebounds a night. He's also hitting shots at a clip of 57.5% from the field.

This season, he's only had four games where he's grabbed 10 rebounds or more and has hauled in six or fewer boards seven times.

It's obvious things need to change; the only question is, will it happen soon enough before the season gets thrown into the trash?

While trade talks continue to ramp up, the Cavaliers are currently aiming to respond and get a mark back in the win collumn on Friday, Dec. 19. They'll take on the Chicago Bulls from Rocket Arena with gametime set for 7:00 p.m. EST.