The Cleveland Cavaliers decided to pack up their future to trade with the Utah Jazz for three-time All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell, a deal that was first broken by ESPN on Thursday.

It cost the Cavaliers Lauri Markkanen, Ochai Agbaji, Collin Sexton, three unprotected first-round picks (2025, 2027 and 2029) and two pick swaps (2026 and 2028) to land Mitchell. Sexton agreed to a four-year, $72 million sign-and-trade extension. One of the reasons the Cavaliers beat the New York Knicks, which had been negotiating with the Knicks over Mitchell for a long time, in the competition was that they were willing to give up more first-rounders.

According to ESPN, the Knicks were unwilling to send Quentin Grimes, who was drafted by the team as the 25th pick last year, to the Jazz and they proposed Immanuel Quickley as a replacement. The Jazz, then, asked for three unprotected first-rounders. The Knicks were willing to give two but wanted to set top-five protections for the third one.

The Cavaliers failed to reach a deal with the Jazz last Friday but talks resumed on Tuesday. It took Cavs' president of basketball operations Koby Altman and Jazz general manager Justin Zani 48 hours to get the deal done.

Though The Cavaliers won't be able to infuse quality new blood into their franchise via the NBA Draft for a long time in the future, they have assembled a very competitive squad as Mitchell joins Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen, both of whom were selected for the All-Star Game last season as well as All-Rookie First Team big man, Evan Mobley.

Allen suffered a fractured finger in early March and had to take a 26-game break. Before that, he averaged 16.1 points and 10.8 rebounds at 67.7-percent of field goal (FG) rate for the Cavaliers. He was one of the league's most efficient finishers under the rim, but Allen has underestimated isolation skills, especially in the low block.

In his third NBA season, Garland grew fast as a playmaker who could score 21.7 points, 8.6 assists and 2.6 triples at 38.3 percent of 3-point rate per game. He was able to shoulder a higher usage percentage after Ricky Rubio was ruled out for the season because of an ACL tear and turned them into bigger offensive contributions with better efficiency.

Mobley in his rookie season was given 33.8 minutes per game and he was able to drop 15 points, 8.6 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.7 blocks for the Cavaliers. He is not a stretch-four yet, nor has he shown many signs of  becoming a productive scorer, but Mobley's size, wingspan and mobility are built to become a defensive big man who can sweep the floor like Kevin Garnett.

With teammates like the above, Mitchell can and should focus on exploiting his explosive scoring ability, which the Cavaliers lacked the most last season. Allen needed to be fed instead of working off the dribble; Garland is yet able to switch between orchestrating and scoring freely; Mobley is not the material for the team's first offensive choice. Compared with them, Mitchell averaged 28.3 points in 39 playoff games, including having two 50+points games in 2020.

Of course, Mitchell arrived at the cost of Markkanen, whose departure will deprive the Cavaliers of their signature big squad for the last season. Moreover, both Garland and Mitchell are no higher than 1.85 meters tall. A back-court pair like this will be unavoidably vulnerable on the defensive end. The team will need to count on Mobley to grow faster on this front.

As for the Jazz, which have already sent their star duo of Rudy Gobert and Mitchell away, they have no reason to keep Mike Conley, Bojan Bogdanovic, Jordan Clarkson and other veterans. Danny Ainge, CEO of basketball operations of the team, can be trusted to earn more future assets by trading these players to the teams that need them. The Jazz already have 13 first-rounders until 2029.