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January 5, 2015Cavs vs 76ers Behind the Box Score: Disaster
January 5, 2015UPDATE: The Cavaliers will receive a heavily protected first-round pick from Oklahoma City and send their 2019 second round pick to the Knicks as part of the deal. The Knicks will also waive Samuel Dalembert rather than trading him to save $2 million.
Protection on OKC first rounder to Cavs: top 18 protected this year, top 15 protected in '16 and '17 then becomes 2 second round picks.
— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) January 6, 2015
Dion Waiters was supposed to fill-in for the injured Kyrie Irving in the starting lineup tonight in an effort to beat the lowly Philadelphia 76ers. Just before tipoff, at the last minute, he was pulled from the starting lineup in favor of Joe Harris. Then, three Cavaliers (Waiters, Alex Kirk, and Lou Amundson) were not seen on the bench at the tip of the game. The Twitter machine lit up with speculation, and soon enough we received confirmation that Dion Waiters is on his way out of Cleveland from the television broadcast to further cement it.
The scoop belongs to former Orange teammate and cousin to Waiters, Scoop Jardine.
From Waiters' cousin RT @scoopjardine Dion got traded
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) January 6, 2015
Cleveland pulled Dion Waiters out of the game tonight and have a deal to trade him, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 6, 2015
Then, further conflicting details started to emerge…
Trade involving Dion Waiters part of deal that will also involve Knicks center Sameul Dalembert, source says. Thunder also involved.
— Sam Amico (@AmicoHoops) January 6, 2015
Framework of trade being discussed is Dion Waiters to OKC, JR Smith to Cleveland and Reggie Jackson to Knicks, sources told ESPN
— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) January 6, 2015
Knicks in salary-dump mode. Told they'll get 3 players to waive. My guess is Cavs' Amundson and Kirk are two. Smith/Shumpert/Dalembert out.
— Sam Amico (@AmicoHoops) January 6, 2015
Reggie Jackson not going to Knicks, multiple sources now say. Isn't reporting in real time a blast…
— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) January 6, 2015
This much is known. The Cavs, Knicks, and Thunder are working on a trade and Amundson, Kirk, and Waiters are headed out the door on a roster that has 12 healthy bodies as of right now. The Cavaliers will be getting multiple rotation players and some offensive and defensive assistance for parting with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft.
Waiters has averaged 10.5 points on 40.4% shooting in 23.8 minutes per night this season with his continued heavy usage (24.1%). He has looked impressive at times this season and completely disinterested for other long stretches. It’s safe to say that Waiters is one of the most polarizing figures on #CavsTwitter and among the fanbase. This trade will undoubtedly split the fan base unless it’s an open and shut winner for General Manager David Griffin. The Cavaliers’ last big trade bullet to utilize this season was Waiters as Brendan Haywood’s contract becomes more intriguing this summer and the draft pick bounty is fairly exhausted with the exception of the heavily-protected Memphis draft pick.
If Waiters ends up in OKC, it would give him an opportunity to boost OKC’s bench scoring and fill the spot vacated by Jackson (if he is heading elsewhere). It would also seem that if the Cavs are taking on J.R. Smith to fill the sharpshooter role that perhaps Ray Allen hasn’t given the Cavaliers any indication of his plans and they’re unable to wait on him any longer.
Smith has a high usage (23.9%) as well over his career, and he will command a large volume of shots (11.3 FGA, 5.1 3PT career). Smith has 51 career playoff games under his belt with Denver and New York, and he played a large role in the Denver team that advanced to the Western Conference Finals in 2009 (14.9 ppg, 38/106 from three point range in 16 games). Whereas the Cavaliers have had some trouble consistently spacing the floor and finding someone to take and knock down mid-range and long-range tries, Smith takes over 70% of his shot from 16 feet and beyond with his average shot measuring 17 feet in distance.
It also would appear he’s thought about spending some time as a Cavalier before… Smith has a player option of $6.4 million for next season.
Yea been thinking bout it RT @DomHren30: @TheRealJRSmith Ever consider coming to Cleveland and taking over
— JR Smith (@TheRealJRSmith) December 15, 2011
Shumpert makes his living at the other end of the floor. The 6’5″ 24-year-old shooting guard out of Georgia Tech is a career sub-40% shooter, but he is known for his athleticism and defensive prowess. With the Knicks style of small ball, Shump is often required to guard small forwards and give up several inches in defensive matchups. He is currently recovering from a shoulder injury and has an ACL injury from the 2012 postseason in his background as well. He would become a restricted free agent next summer provided the Cavs extend a $3.9 million qualifying offer.
The 5-31 Knicks have completely mailed it in and rank 28th of 30 NBA teams in defensive rating (111.5), but their rim protector could be tasked with improving the Cavaliers on that side of the ball (107.8, 22nd in DRTG) and help start to turn the 19-15 record around coupled with getting healthier at the top.
29 Comments
I am not necessarily the biggest Dion Waiters fan, but acquiring JR Smith is downright idiotic if true. He’s a black hole and an on-court cancer. His off court antics aren’t necessarily that big of a deal, but they’re not ideal either. Boo.
read an update that we get a protected OKC pick, but unless we get another asset this looks like a mistake.
so we basically traded a dion waiters for another dion waiters?
Wow. The Cavs are in panic mode. On paper, this trade looks awful. Perhaps I’m missing something.
Smith might be part of a secondary trade we don’t know but I was never a fan of Waiters so for me you just swapped head cases. I do like the addition of Shumpert however if healthy.
Correct a protected first round pick from OKC. Griffin has shown in the past one deal often leads to another this trade didn’t address the front court so I’m going to presume there might be another deal brewing.
i disagree. Smith, when motivated (and he was often motivated before this season), can be a deadly scorer. Better than Waiters will ever be. He is a former 6th-man of the year. It’s easier to ignore Carmelo, who is a selfish player who hasn’t won a thing, than it will be to ignore LeBron. Plus, Smith was sulking here in NYC after the Knicks cut his brother in preseason. It was a big deal to JR and he made it known that he wasn’t going to work hard. Childish and immature but very talented as a scorer, and underrated as a defender.
Shumpert can be an all-NBA defender if he wants. He’s that athletic. I have coveted him for the Cavs for some time. If the Cavs are allowed to snag Dalembert (not sure what kind of rules/cap situation there is) this is a very nice move.
by the way – how in the world do the Cavs NOT get a foul call at any point down the stretch in Philly? Delly was mugged on that last attempt. Even Philly announcers (very homerish) agreed.
Tough crowd here. Got a defensive big guard to take some of the wing duties off of Lebron’s shoulders and got some 2nd unit scoring, with an addt’l first from OKC to boot. This is best for Cavs and Waiters. Good trade on paper imo. A starting unit that has Lebron, Kyrie, Love, needs less scoring and more wing defense. Enter Shumpert and presumably a deal for a big is in the works now too.
and also a defensive wing (shumpert)
Actually really like this. Swap Dion out and replace him w/a defensive minded starting 2 guard. Good move. Plus replace Dion off the bench with a former 6th man of the year, who still has drive and talent and could be very motivated on this team. Plus your gaining an asset to get a big man.
It’s an even swap of your first guy off the bench -‘the 2nd unit scorer, plus you add a new starting 2, and you open up the possibility of adding a big without trading other real pieces off the roster. What’s not to like?
And a 1st round pick that could be used to add a big.
For those of you that watch basketball much (I do) take a look at some of the other teams and how they have fared since their “headcases”/”headeaches” have been shipped out of town. This isn’t baseball or even football it’s so much more heavily driven by team chemistry optimizing individual performances.
Let’s look at 2 examples of this:
Charlotte Hornets: 6-19 without Lance Stephenson, 6-5 since he’s been injured
Detroit Pistons: 5-23 without Josh Smith, 5-0 without him
I know this is a small sample size but its clearly significant.
This can be viewed as addition by subtraction guys… Waiters was clearly a locker room problem.. Even if JR Smith doesn’t turn into anything spectacular for the cavs he won’t be worse than Waiters his TS% is higher than Waiters and Waiters is actually a below average offensive player in win shares (he has cost the team 2.1 points/100 possessions).
I’d also guess that the Cavs aren’t done dealing as Brook Lopez looked really good tonight and is rumored to be on the block… We also picked up an additional first rounder for the pick which im assuming is going to be flipped for an additional asset. This trade is pretty clearly a win for me.
i’ve always liked Dion and wanted him to do well. but he just never fit with Kyrie.
i actually liked him more than Kyrie at the end of last year when Kyrie was hurt and Dion was leading this team to more wins that Kyrie.
When the new regime came in- especially in the pre-season and in the first several games – the Blatt offense based on passing – never seemed to fit Dion. looked like while most guys were buying in and making the extra pass, Dion wasnt. When Dion got the ball he’d spot up for a 15-footer rather than looking to make a pass.
i dont mind the trade, i’ve always been a JR Smith fan. yes i know he’s a headcase, and he’s older than Dion. but at least he knows the 6th man role. Dion has always wanted to start. Dion has been buying in lately, even playing great defense on Wade in the Christmas game.
In OKC, Dion could play the Harden role. probably not as well, and should be interesting with Jackson there right now.
My pipe dream is to get Hibbert.
you’ve also picked 2 terrible teams whose fortunes were bound to change regardless of what they did with those players.
Detroit has also played a depleted Cavs, the Knicks and Philly (the 2 worst teams in the league) and Indiana and Sacramento, 2 poor teams who are well under .500.
Charlotte has beaten Boston and Orlando, 2 teams with worse records than they have. They’ve also beaten 3 other sub-.500 teams in that “6-5 Streak,” one of which is the Jazz, the second-worst team in the league.
It’s a small sample size but the competition stunk.
a 2 for 1 trade is never a mistake. This is a win.
Here’s the difference…. Swish and Bron are buds.
JR will take his cues from LeBron whereas reports were still that Dion hadn’t bought into his role and thought he was better than Kyrie.
So essentially you get the same PPG from JR with a better overall attitude because he knows his role and wants to play with Bron Bron.
Oh…. and it’s still a 2 for 1 trade with the addition of Shumpert who puts up almost the same PPG as Dion, plays defense and doesn’t need the ball in his hand to create.
“In OKC, Dion could play the Harden role.”
…..Funny, for the last three years Cavs were thinking the exact same thing for him here.
With the stuff that’s coming out now about Dion, I’m warming up to the trade. I still think Cavs fans are getting too excited over what is not going to be a very big upgrade. J.R. Smith may have won a 6th-Man award, but look at his stats from the second half of that season… he basically just got super hot for half a year. He’s still a player who will shoot you into games and shoot you right out of other games. And he’s still incredibly immature for someone who turns 30 this year… that won’t change whether he’s with his boy LeBron or not. The last time he posted an above-average true shooting percentage for his position was 4 years ago when he was still in Denver. Fortunately, just about anything is an upgrade over Dion with the way he has played this season, and that includes Smith.
I also think people are getting too excited about Shumpert. There’s a reason that he couldn’t get regular starting minutes in New York and why Tim Hardaway Jr was gobbling up his minutes. He’s not an all-world defender like people think. He’s a solid defender who is REALLY bad at shooting the basketball (career true shooting percentage of 48.9%).
This trade is a win because all the Cavs gave up was Dion Waiters and a bad 2nd round pick to get a slightly better and happier version of Dion Waiters along with a spot-duty defender and a late-first-round draft pick. It’s clearly a good trade. It’s not going to move the needle much.
Totally agree. Anyone who says this is a bad trade is not looking at all the pieces intelligently. It was inevitable that Dion was going to get traded this year. He couldn’t co-exist with Lebron, Kyrie and Love together. Even on the 2nd unit. I love Dion’s game, but this wasn’t the right environment for him. He should do well with the Thunder.
Let’s look at this trade piece by piece:
J.R. Smith – An older better version of Dion Waiters to a degree. He’s going to come off the bench as a scorer and be that catch and shoot player Dion could never learn how to be. Side note, LeBron and him are boys. They came up together at the same time (one year apart) and used to train together in Akron early on in their careers. Also, in 2008 there were rumors about the Cavs getting Smith because of the respect LeBron had for his game on the 2008 USA Select team. That obviously never panned out, but if anyone can lead J.R. Smith and get him focused it’s probably LeBron.
Iman Shumpert – The much needed defensive shutdown player we needed. The key to the trade. Also a reasonable contract and restricted free agent that we could extend next year depending on this half season (and playoff run) audition.
Thunder 1st Round Pick – This is, like all the reports say, a trade chip for a big man. Also, this is not “heavily protected” at all. The Thunder have to finish as a top 12 team in the league this year. Right now with injuries they would have the 13th pick in the draft. So, they have to move up 6 spots for this pick to take with a healthy Durant, Westbrook (AND DION) the rest of the way. If you think that the Thunder will make the playoffs or even be the 8th seed it’s conceivable they have a better record than seeds 5-8 in the East. This would put them right at that 19 spot. So basically the Thunder would need to either be the 6th,7th or 8th seed in the West by the end of the season. Highly probable. This may be the pick that gets Mozgov from Denver in short time.
Grade on Trade: A+
Maybe this will help (note: haven’t seen Shump or JR this season, but watched them quite a bit last year):
Per 36min
Shump 35%-3pt, 4.5assist, 4.7rb, 1.7stl
JR 36%-3pt, 4.7assist, 3.4rb, 1.0stl
Dion 26%-3pt, 3.4assist, 2.6rb, 2.0stl
JR isn’t the black hole that he used to be and since he’s buddies with LeBron, he is more likely to abide by what is needed and more engaged with a championship team. I’d worry about him a little too, but if Shump comes back healthy, then we have our Sefolosha (huge win there). I know you love Delly, well Shump is the wing version.
okay, this is a much more reasoned response I would expect from you. I agree with what you said. An upgrade, but not going to change the team very much.
still need to find some frontcourt help. we’ll see what happens there.
“not going to be a very big upgrade.”
Well said and I agree. It’s not a big upgrade, but to gain 3 assets for 1 can not be viewed as a loss or a wash.
Somewhere Grant is fuming and smiling and fuming.
Yeah I think I was mixing my anger for losing to the abominable 76ers with the trade that happened at the same time. I think your analysis is good.
I’ll say this about Delly… I still like him, but he needs to shoot the ball better and I need David Blatt to stop acting like he’s a point guard. Delly’s always been better off the ball because he doesn’t have to shoot while he’s on the move and he gives you ball movement by swinging it quickly to the open man. He’s also better at guarding players who are bigger (and as slow) as him… stop trying to have him guard PGs. I couldn’t believe Blatt was putting the ball in his hands to make plays at the end of the 76ers game… sweet Lord that is not his game. Get the ball into Kevin Love in the post and spread your shooters out.
initial shock has worn off, trade makes sense now.
That’s a valid point but note that Detroit had lost to the lakers, celtics and philly a few weeks before releasing josh smith.
Charlotte had lost to the knicks, pacers, orlando, and the lakers prior to Lance Stephenson’s injury.
Point being they were losing to those teams before. Detroit and Charlotte have generally looked better since getting rid of those guys. I’m not saying this is gonna be the case in this instance but its also pretty clear that the cavs weren’t getting many offers for waiters and the front office/team wanted him out of there.
I haven’t been watching the Cavs much this year, so I cannot speak to Delly this season, but I agree historically he’s better at the bigger players. It’ll be somewhat humorous if Shump returns to what he used to be (was excellent at guarding PGs once upon a time) and we see Delly on the wing and Shump on the PG. Of course, that means on offense we’d have 2 guys that Blatt needs to tell to go to the corner-3 spot and bench them if they move from it.
amen refs swallowed their whistles heck Love was fouled when he dunked to put the Cavs up before Delly blew two free throws to seal the game.
Well looks like this one was called exactly right, good work. Mozgov is as advertised. Go Cavs.