Where do we even begin? The Cavs have been bad for a month, but everyone knows that. They have been throttled on defense, they have shot laugh-out-loud poorly, and they have been tearing themselves apart from within. They have been slow, old, and overmatched. They have been disjointed, disinterested, and dispiriting to fans. They have been aggravating, irritating, and underwhelming.

In a word, they have been bad.

But it's trade season, so rumors are swirling and egos are taking hits left and right. The jumping-off point, however, has to be at the top. So let's start at the top.

Dan Gilbert

Gilbert badly mishandled the David Griffin situation, which led to a mishandling of draft trades, which led to a mishandling of the Kyrie Irving trade, which is now manifesting as a bad mix of egos and lineups. Griffin, according to many sources, had trades on the table that would've brought either Paul George or Jimmy Butler to Cleveland, but Gilbert managed to part ways with him at the exact wrong time, negating those opportunities.

Koby Altman, to his credit, has done about as much as he could've done, but he shouldn't have been put into the situation he was thrown into. 

Tyronn Lue

I have been a vocal opponent of Ty Lue for quite some time, and - surprise! I still am. As the team plummets down the standings, it's hard to forget that David Blatt was fired from a 30-11 team because they weren't having fun. This team is the antithesis of fun. And they're 27-19.

Lue has been head-scratching on good days and rip-your-hair-out frustrating on bad days. The best example of this is that the Cavs are in the midst of one of the worst stretches of LeBron's career, so everyone is pushing for a trade. (Note: As of writing this, the George Hill trade has not happened, but all NBA sources seem to be saying it's 99% done.) Ty Lue, the head coach, isn't using this time to figure out if he's just playing the wrong guys. He admitted after the Spurs loss that he was going to alter his rotations/lineups, but how has it taken him this long? He had a squad that won 13 straight games with basically the same rotations. When other guys came back from injuries, they started losing. Ty Lue has had a dozen games with those return-from-injury guys and has not yet said: "Hey wait a minute, if I try running with that previous lineup again, will that work?"

So now the Cavs are going to overhaul their roster in the middle of the season without really considering whether or not they have the right guys here and are just using them incorrectly. It's a mess. LeBron may have thrown him under the bus a little by saying "I don't know what's goint to happen with our team" last week, when asked about Lue's status. It sure feels like he's lost (or is losing) the locker room, which is specifically what he was supposedly so good at in the beginning.

The Players

It starts with LeBron James, who has clearly not been giving much effort lately. His shooting has been off, but that happens. In fact, everyone's shot being off at the same time can truly just be a coincidence. However, this is not a coincidence. Nor is this below.

In fairness, it's not entirely LeBron's fault, but it speaks to how bad everyone has been. Crowder (who has been a disaster) bails on Gibson because he thinks Taj might set a screen and because no one is on Andrew Wiggins. Isaiah (who has been largely a disaster) does nothing as Gibson comes toward him and begins a cut to the rim. JR Smith (who has been a disaster) gives half a step toward Gibson, who is now 10 feet from the rim. As Gibson gets the ball, LeBron (who has been slightly less a disaster, but still not very good) gives half a step and no challenge whatsoever. LeBron had eyes on Gibson the entire time; he just didn't do anything. Someone else should've stopped him first, but James could clearly see that that wasn't happening.

The Trades

The worst part about the Cavs probably making a trade in the next 24 hours is that Channing Frye will almost certainly be involved. Channing Frye is a fan favorite for tons of reasons, not least of which is that Cavs fans feel like he's getting stiffed. If you haven't heard by now, the Cleveland Cavaliers are 15-1 when Channing Frye plays 11+ minutes in a game. Some of that is admittedly because he got minutes because they were winning, but some of it is because he fits what the Cavs have done well for the past 2+ years. Since December 14th, however, he has cleared 11 minutes once and has also received six DNPs.

The guy has done nothing but whatever the Cavs have asked of him for the past few years, and he has exceeded expectations. Now he's going to get dumped to a crappy team, bought out of his contract, and sign with a contender who might use him to bury the Cavs. It's going to sting. 

It sounds like Frye is going to Sacramento in the George Hill trade. If you haven't seen that yet (again, by the time this is published, the trade may be done), it would be George Hill to Cleveland - possibly along with Skal Labissiere - in exchange for Iman Shumpert, Channing Frye, and a combination of Derrick Rose or a 2nd round pick. 

So in short, Frye is all but gone at this point. It sucks. I wish him the best and cordially invite him over for ice cream before he gets sent away.

But since we're assuming a roster overhaul is happening, and there are a ton of trade targets and rumors, I'm going to list names and then give my favorite fake trade. Names being tossed around, not counting the George Hill trade: Kemba Walker, Derrick Favors, Rodney Hood, Aaron Gordon, DeAndre Jordan, Bazemore, Dedmon, Kawhi (lol), Julius Randle, and (by me) Matthew Dellavedova.

Among those, I have a favorite partially-realistic trade offer for Koby Altman, in case anyone has his phone number and would like to pass it along to me.

Cavs get: Kemba Walker, Julius Randle
Lakers get: Isaiah Thomas, Michael Carter Williams, a protected future pick from the Cavs
Hornets get: JR Smith, Josh Hart, the Brooklyn 1st rounder.

Why would each team do it?

Cleveland: 1) Getting out of JR Smith's looking-worse-every-day contract is a financial win. 2) Isaiah looks like a shell of his former self and even if he were 100%, he would get steamrolled in a playoff series because he can't defend anyone. 3) Kemba Walker is a solid spot-up shooter (38.5% on catch-and-shoot threes this year) who doesn't need the ball to succeed. He's an average defender - 44th percentile in the league, per Synergy - but at this point, that's a big improvement. 4) Julius Randle would be an interesting question mark for the Cavs. He's better than Tristan in every per-100 stat except turnovers, but he will be a restricted free agent next year, so this could be a tryout as a 3rd big for the Cavs behind Tristan and Love. 

Los Angeles: 1) Maintain complete cap flexibility as Thomas + MCW both expire at the end of the year. 2) Picking up draft picks is nice. 3) If Isaiah gets back to healthy, he becomes a crazy piece for them. They would have his Bird rights. They would be able to play him alongside Lonzo/whoever they have because no one else needs the ball as much as Thomas. If they go for Paul George, PG would be used to playing alongside someone ball-dominant. If they miss on PG, they still have an All-Star caliber player to build around. 4) And all they give up is a rookie and a guy who may walk in restricted free agency anyway.

Charlotte: This is the toughest sell of the bunch, but here we go: 1) They get a 2nd top-10 pick (they'll finish bottom 10 if they do this, as it would commit to tanking). 2) They could attempt a bigtime buyout of JR - it would cost a lot up-front, but it would free up desperately-needed cap space in the future (looking at you, Nic Batum). If not, they could see if he'd work - he's a Jordan brand guy after all - or they wait another year and flip him for another asset. 3) Josh Hart is a promising rookie who they'd have control of for three more years. 4) Seriously, they would end up with two top-10 picks. That would be huge.

The salaries for the trade match up. Charlotte would be a tough sell, so maybe the Cavs have to sweeten the pot and throw in Ante Zizic or swap JR for Tristan Thompson (which would help them figure out a way to get Dwight Howard out of there). It's still not likely, and I'm not sure it's truly possible, but the outcome could be as follows.

Cavs starters: George Hill, Kemba Walker, LeBron, Love, and Thompson. Go back to the old front-court pairing. Two smaller guards are iffy, but it spaces the floor and both are capable defenders - worlds better than JR and Isaiah.

Bench squad: Jae Crowder, Kyle Korver, Dwyane Wade, Jeff Green, and Julius Randle. There's still an energy-big off the bench, two (OK 1.5) shooters, and two slasher/scorers. 

Someone come explain why this won't happen. I've spent too much time on Hoopshype's salary page and the Trade Machine. My brain hurts.