LeBron, Indians, Noah Brown nominated for ESPYs
June 23, 2017My Favorite Team Doesn’t Have a GM: While We’re Waiting
June 26, 2017The Cleveland Cavaliers may not have a front office in place with the start of free agency just days away, but that hasn’t stopped them from attempting to better their roster. Recent reports from multiple outlets state that the Cavs are not only still in on potential deals involving Indiana’s Paul George, but could also add New York’s Carmelo Anthony and Miami’s Dwyane Wade in the event either player reaches a buyout.
The deal would involve Cavs’ power forward Kevin Love. According to Chris Haynes and Marc Stein of ESPN, the framework of the deal would also involve the Denver Nuggets, but it appears it’s also the Nuggets who have provided the biggest headwind in terms of what they would send the Pacers in the deal.
The Nuggets were recruited into the talks to furnish the Pacers with the combination of promising young players and draft picks that they are seeking before consenting to surrender George, whose agent, Aaron Mintz, informed Indiana management just over a week ago that George has no intention of staying with the club beyond the expiration of his current contract in June 2018.
The three teams could not agree to a final trade construction in time to complete a deal on draft night Thursday, but sources say the Cavaliers won’t abandon their trade pursuit of George, believing that acquiring the 27-year-old and George’s potentially winning a championship next season alongside LeBron James is the one scenario that could convince the two-way menace to abandon his well-chronicled desire to join the Los Angeles Lakers as soon as possible. …
Sources say the Nuggets, meanwhile, have made upgrading at power forward one of their offseason priorities, which is why they covet Love.
According to the report, the Nuggets are not keen on parting with any of their younger, more promising talents—Nikola Jokic and prized first-year guard Jamal Murray are “off-limits.”—but it would appear, under the current deal, that the Cavs would also net power forward Kenneth Faried to provide Cleveland with much-needed depth in the frontcourt.
But wait—there’s more.
As ESPN first reported Tuesday, Cleveland made a trade push to acquire Jimmy Butler from Chicago before the Bulls wound up sending Butler to Minnesota on draft night.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst subsequently said in an NBA on ESPN Radio interview Thursday night that both Anthony and the Bulls’ Dwyane Wade are candidates to sign with the Cavaliers in free agency this summer if they can secure buyouts from Chicago and New York, respectively.
Anthony has long been linked to Cleveland and the Knicks continue to find trading the veteran forward to be increasingly difficult due to a high salary and no-trade clause. Wade recently picked up his $24 million player option with the Bulls, but this was before the team traded All-NBA wing Jimmy Butler to Minnesota, signaling a trip to the NBA Lottery in 2018. Both player, of course, have strong ties to Cavs forward LeBron James and would be welcomed additions in the event a deal could be worked out. The team is not expected to re-sign guard Deron Williams which would provide at least one available roster spot.
Oh, and in the event you’re wondering what is going on with the vacant GM position, it appears you’re not alone. According to The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Cavs and would-be team president Chauncey Billups are at a bit of a standstill.
Sources: Talks between Cleveland and Chauncey Billups for President of Basketball Ops job still ongoing, no immediate resolution expected.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 25, 2017
According to Haynes who added additional commentary on SportsCenter, this deal would be the “worst case scenario” for the Los Angeles Lakers as George would be immersed in the Cavaliers’ winning environment as opposed to a rebuilding situation out west.
Stay tuned, folks. Things could get super interesting in the next few days.
17 Comments
Adding Carmelo and Dwyane Wade are more important than Paul George. Lebron wants to play with his friends. Bringing them to Cleveland gives him no reason to leave.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2285377.1436370791!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_750/wade9s-1-web.jpg
Aside from whether this would be a good thing – as opposed to a misbegotten hail mary a la Brooklyn Nets 2013 – what does it mean when Wade or Anthony “buy out”?
If it means that Anthony and Wade won’t receive their full contractual salaries from a combo of teams, I’m not buying this will happen. Carmelo (please no please no please no. Please. No.) doesn’t leave money on the table. And Wade is not relocating from his hometown to Cleveland at a discount to chase a ring. He has 3 already.
If we had a GM I would conclude that Love is gone, one way or another. Because it’s going to take a completely “all in” org to beat the Warriors and 3 plus weeks of this drumbeat will ruin that. But without a GM it’s easy to imagine that this is the owner playing GM, and he’ll leave someone else to pick up the pieces and take the blame later for chemistry issues. Continuity, a common vision and competent people working in synch count. This is starting to feel an awful lot like a post-Finals, desperate cluster.
Due to an epically fortuitous alignment of the salary and cap stars, Oakland is the benefactor of being able afford FOUR max-contract players.
Until their situation is reigned in by reality, nobody will be able to compete with them simply because it is financially impossible.
So, yes this is absolutely a post-finals desperate cluster. Unless Dan wants to spend a historically monumental amount of luxury tax the by far and away second best team in the NBA will tremain just that.
well, I don’t think Cavs with late-career/limited minutes Wade and a 30-something who’s been one of the league’s premier ball dominators can combine with LeBon and Ky to beat them. So I’m not down with this plan anyway.
But also, getting tired of the “GS is lucky” narrative. It was the Cavs who kept beating the odds to win the lottery. And to have LeBron born here. The Warriors drafted Curry and Klay when many others passed. They melded Iggy from effective starter to super-sub, something the Cavs have struggled to do since 2014. Both teams have had a ton of good fortune. The Warriors have done more with theirs.
Team banana boat!
Agreed – but the Cavs would only be adding them on minimum contracts after buyouts, for less than a full season. Would the CBA allow them to resign with Cleveland over the cap? I doubt it. But Lebron would get one playoff run with his two buddies. I just think they’d be gone after the season to sign lucrative deals. I’d love to be wrong though!
CAN I HAZ PG-13??
Think he would take a pay cut to keep them? Do those guys want to play with each other, win rings, or sign big contracts? You’d think Lebron’s dream scenario would be to build a dynasty with his basketball buddies in Northeast Ohio. The chances of him being able to reunite with them on a different team the next season is very unlikely. Although Lakers fans seem to think they can build a team of about 15 all-stars in 2018, so who knows.
Just one season of Lebron, Carmelo, Wade, and Kyrie would be fun. Gilbert needs to make a splash if he wants to win back Cleveland fans.
I worry about all these trade talks. I sure hope they aren’t just desperate to do something, because it’s entirely possible to change a bunch of stuff and have a worse team than the one that has been to the finals for three straight years. Paul George is a very good player, but is he that clearly better than Kevin Love? And what about the fact that his best position is the same as Lebron? Are they going to play LeBron at PF? If not, does a frontcourt of both Tristan Thompson and Kenneth Faried work? That’s an awful lot of guys 6-9 and under and still zero guys who provide rim protection. Does the bench get any better? Because guys coming on buyouts isn’t guaranteed.
In general, I think the basic result of a Love/George swap is that we sacrifice rebounding for better playmaking – especially when Lebron sits down, but I also think it’s a worse positional fit. I don’t know if it does enough to solve the underlying problem of bench scoring. I know it’s tough to find interest in contracts like Shumpert or Frye right now, but I can’t help but think that somebody out there will want an expiring contract at some point. If I were them I’d err on the side of patience.
“Paul George is a very good player, but is he that clearly better than Kevin Love?” That is the easiest of the good questions you raise. George is one of the league’s premier players, one who can win a game himself any given night, elite offensively and excellent defensively, the guy opposing teams focus their efforts on stopping. I like Love a lot, but he’s not that guy.
Maybe you’re right, but sometimes I feel like his defensive reputation exceeds his actual ability these days, and when Love wasn’t the 3rd option he certainly put up bigger numbers. It wasn’t so long ago people were talking about Love as a top 10-15 player. On the Cavs, he would be subject to the “Big 3 Effect.”
But I recognize that Love doesn’t create on his own for the most part, (unless you’re willing to try a downtempo inside-out game that initiates from the post) and PG’s ability to do that could possibly make the bench better when Lebron sits down. I assume that’s part of what the team is thinking, and that’s what I would hope for if such a trade happens.
LeBron’s salary doesn’t matter at all. he can get whatever he wants because Cavs can go over the cap to sign him. So taking a pay cut is not necessary.
LeBron being born here had as much to do with him leaving as him returning.
If he was born in, say, Nashville, maybe he looks at the “bright lights” of Cleveland as a destination rather than the same old place he’d been his entire life.
Nevertheless, I don’t like the “lucky” stuff either, as all teams knew the salary-cap situation for at least 3 years. Also, GS took a chance on extending an injured Curry and drafting Green when so many others passed; so they made their own luck, as far as I’m concerned.
All you had to do was watch the Pacers/Cavs series this year. PG made that team competitive. He can win a game on his own any night. It’s my personal opinion that he is a top-10 player in the league, and has the chance to be one of the mega-stars in the top-5 in a year or two. I think he is a true game-changer.
I’m not so sure there are still “positions,” like many of us knew them growing up. The game is more fluid now, with interchanging matchups. Long and fast is the fad.
“If he was born in, say, Nashville, maybe he looks at the “bright lights”
of Cleveland as a destination rather than the same old place he’d been
his entire life.” I’d need to see your face when you typed that to know how to react. Fuh’real: LeBron on a Mall C stage with “Not 1! Not 2! ..” After convincing Wade and Bosh to relocate their families under our bright lights.