What the Cavaliers did at the 2018 trade deadline qualifies as a revolutionary act. Contending teams—particularly those home to the best player in the league—do not turn over their rosters with just 29 games to play. They don't typically rework their entire rotation on the fly, nor trade away veterans for the sake of getting younger with the playoffs in sight. Cleveland did. With the free agency of LeBron James looming over the entire franchise, the Cavs chose activity over inertia.
To the extent that those deals helped at all, they served to reset Cleveland to a more neutral space.