Mitchell trade took 18 months for the Cavaliers

Cleveland Cavaliers president Koby Altman was in fifth grade the last time the team won a playoff series without LeBron James on its roster. Altman will turn 40 on Sept. 16.

Cavs coach J.B. Bickerstaff had just completed his second season at Oregon State, the last time the team made the playoffs without No. 23. He turned 43 this year.

That helps explain why the Cavs aggressively pursued and executed a trade for guard Donovan Mitchell on Thursday, giving a half-decade of draft control to the Utah Jazz with three unprotected first-round picks and two draft picks to make it happen. Building a winner in Cleveland is difficult, and sometimes sticking to a long-shot process, even if it’s well-designed, doesn’t work.

What started as a deliberate rebuild in 2018 when James left for the Los Angeles Lakers (the team was 99 games under .500 for the first three seasons afterward) has been supercharged in a way that even Cleveland could not have foreseen.

How did the Cavaliers find themselves in position to pull off one of the blockbusters of the offseason? This rising Eastern Conference contender has been drafting and negotiating its way to this point for 18 months.