Cavaliers Thread: We Somehow Both Don't and Do Suck

[buno67]

The one trade I really want to see happen is the Cavs to go after Kemba or CJ From the Blazer.

[H2ThaIzzo]

Lue has been hot/cold since he was hired. Something I've always kept in the back of my mind was before he replaced Blatt, he was essentially the teams defensive coordinator. That's what Ty was known for as a player, being a hard working defensive player, and what ultimately got him the job. I would like to see more passion out of him. I think we saw some game 1 of the finals when he stood up for his team when we got absolutely jobbed, but we need that Ty Lue all the time. 

Personnel Ty Lue can't control. One thing that really sticks out to me about how the Golden State Warriors were built is their perimeter shooters aren't their role players, they are their premier, star players. We didn't lose to the Warriors because of Steph's 9 3's game, or Durant's 43 point game, or Steph's game 4. We lost because Javale McGee, AI, Jordan Bell, Kevon Looney and Shaun Livingston were phenomenal in their roles. Combined, these guys made 51/68 shots (75%) for 114 points in the 4 games. 28.5 ppg average by their teams 5-9 players. Part of that happened because of defensive breakdown, we would go to play the screen and switch, and get lazy so they had some open makes. Another part though is these guys aren't shooters. They were contributing in the paint, inside the arc, around the basket, etc. 

Of course, we don't have a 1-4 player group that matches up with Golden State, but look at our role players. Hill, Smith, Korver, Hood, etc. Perimeter shooters, jump shot players. None of these guys score the way that Golden State's 5-9 guys scored. That's something we have to improve with next years team, we need guys, or a guy, who can get easy points inside, and make them pay for trying to double team or getting lazy on plays. I fully expect Larry Nance to continue to develop and become a more prominent offensive player next year. I love his effort and energy, and his defensive ability is there, he just lacked experience so at times he took risks that cost us. 

[OhioG]

I dont want Love on this team. At all. He is a defensive liability and we cant do the pick and role defense like they did with Bosh in Miami.

I like Hood. He is a RFA and hopefully no one offers him a huge deal. 

If LeBron stays I can see the Raptors or Hornets potentially blowing it up. Maybe we can trade for their Gs with a combination of the 8 and expiring contracts.

Kemba Walker for 8, JR & Korver (both only have total of 5-7 mil combined in 2020)

Love + Hood for CJ McCollum

Bring back Green

PG: Kemba, Clarkson
SG: CJ McCollum, Hill
SF: LeBron, Cedi 
PF: Green
C: TT, Nance Jr, Zizic

Also I have no idea how the NBA works as far as contracts, trades and what not so potentially none of this makes sense

[H2ThaIzzo]

1 hour ago, ohiogenius said:

I dont want Love on this team. At all. He is a defensive liability and we cant do the pick and role defense like they did with Bosh in Miami.

I like Hood. He is a RFA and hopefully no one offers him a huge deal. 

If LeBron stays I can see the Raptors or Hornets potentially blowing it up. Maybe we can trade for their Gs with a combination of the 8 and expiring contracts.

Kemba Walker for 8, JR & Korver (both only have total of 5-7 mil combined in 2020)

Love + Hood for CJ McCollum

Bring back Green

PG: Kemba, Clarkson
SG: CJ McCollum, Hill
SF: LeBron, Cedi 
PF: Green
C: TT, Nance Jr, Zizic

Also I have no idea how the NBA works as far as contracts, trades and what not so potentially none of this makes sense

For Portland to trade CJ, they would have to be able to rid themselves of at least one of their contracts. I think Love would be a solid fit in their scheme, but I know they would want more than that for him. Love, Hill's essentially expiring contract for CJ, Harkless and Myers Leonard or something. 

[DawgX]

So, what odds do you guys give of LeBron returning? In the basketball forum, most are acting like it's a foregone conclusion that he leaves. I think there's a strong possibility that he leaves, but I don't think it's a sure thing.

If he does, we'll need to just blow everything up. Wonder what we could get for Love?

[OhioG]

7 minutes ago, DawgX said:

So, what odds do you guys give of LeBron returning? In the basketball forum, most are acting like it's a foregone conclusion that he leaves. I think there's a strong possibility that he leaves, but I don't think it's a sure thing.

If he does, we'll need to just blow everything up. Wonder what we could get for Love?

I think given then expiring contracts (Hill, JR, Korver) we have and the 2 assets (Love and 8) it all comes down to if ownership can make a good pitch about being able to acquire talent. 

It is really hard because we wont know for sure if teams are ready to blow it up and trade away their back court. 

[H2ThaIzzo]

1 hour ago, DawgX said:

So, what odds do you guys give of LeBron returning? In the basketball forum, most are acting like it's a foregone conclusion that he leaves. I think there's a strong possibility that he leaves, but I don't think it's a sure thing.

If he does, we'll need to just blow everything up. Wonder what we could get for Love?

it's honestly hard for me to look at us making the finals, competing in 3 out of 4 games, with us realistically winning game 1 if not for terrible officiating in the final minute, and we should have won game 3, to think he leaves. I understand that other teams in the league it may be an easier battle for him, but I don't know if thats ultimately what he wants. We have a high draft pick. We have Love who can return us a pick and maybe some athleticism that we need to match up better with the Warriors. We also have a few contracts with little guaranteed money after this coming year that could be used to help bring back picks and unwanted contracts from teams. 

I think Bron, Nance, Osman, possibly Hood and Thompson remain. Thompson because his contract makes him virtually untradeable, and I honestly don't mind having him here. He's limited in the game but he brings an attitude we need, and is versatile defensively, he just needs some help. 

[OhioG]

57 minutes ago, H2ThaIzzo said:

For Portland to trade CJ, they would have to be able to rid themselves of at least one of their contracts. I think Love would be a solid fit in their scheme, but I know they would want more than that for him. Love, Hill's essentially expiring contract for CJ, Harkless and Myers Leonard or something. 

If you dont mind me asking, could you explain why they would have to rid at least one contract? 

[H2ThaIzzo]

1 hour ago, ohiogenius said:

If you dont mind me asking, could you explain why they would have to rid at least one contract? 

CJ is a much more valuable asset/piece than Love. For one, it's a guard driven league now. Outside of a handful of premiere forwards, the luster of the guard position is at an almost peak level. For two, Love is gonna be 30 years old, and has had injury concerns over the last few years. CJ is a few years younger and pretty healthy. I don't think they trade CJ unless they are able to get a player who can contribute similar offensive scoring potential, which Love can provide, and allows them to shed some of their not so terrific contracts. I'm a Harkless fan. He plays hard defensively, and was just unhappy that he didn't get more looks offensively. Playing with LeBron, he will get to take more field goal attempts. Myers Leonard is a throw in contract to make the Blazers pull the trigger, but he is a pretty athletic PF/C who maybe can develop a little bit playing the pick & roll with LeBron. 

[OhioG]

11 minutes ago, H2ThaIzzo said:

CJ is a much more valuable asset/piece than Love. For one, it's a guard driven league now. Outside of a handful of premiere forwards, the luster of the guard position is at an almost peak level. For two, Love is gonna be 30 years old, and has had injury concerns over the last few years. CJ is a few years younger and pretty healthy. I don't think they trade CJ unless they are able to get a player who can contribute similar offensive scoring potential, which Love can provide, and allows them to shed some of their not so terrific contracts. I'm a Harkless fan. He plays hard defensively, and was just unhappy that he didn't get more looks offensively. Playing with LeBron, he will get to take more field goal attempts. Myers Leonard is a throw in contract to make the Blazers pull the trigger, but he is a pretty athletic PF/C who maybe can develop a little bit playing the pick & roll with LeBron. 

Ohh okay, sorry I was thinking it was some rule that they needed to include another contract. But yeah that makes sense.

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

7 hours ago, DawgX said:

So, what odds do you guys give of LeBron returning? In the basketball forum, most are acting like it's a foregone conclusion that he leaves. I think there's a strong possibility that he leaves, but I don't think it's a sure thing.

If he does, we'll need to just blow everything up. Wonder what we could get for Love?

Not good. Not unless Koby works some miracles imo.

Love for a 2 way player, 8 for a legit starter, etc.

I don’t see it.

[H2ThaIzzo]

1 hour ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

Not good. Not unless Koby works some miracles imo.

Love for a 2 way player, 8 for a legit starter, etc.

I don’t see it.

I don't think miracles need to happen. We have assets. Most sports "fans" don't see it, because they simply see JR Smith owed 13.8 mil, or George Hill owed 20 mil and assume they aren't able to be traded. Then when you look deeper, you find out that Hill only has 1 mil guaranteed after next year. Smith only has about 3 mil of his last year guaranteed, so those guys are essentially in the last year of their deals. Korver only has 3 mil guaranteed after next year. So just in those 3 guys you have 42 million in "salaries" for 2019-2020 but only about 7.5 million guaranteed. 

I love Korver, but I think the last two finals have proven that if we are planning on facing the Warriors, or the Rockets for that matter, he isn't going to be an asset we can use. They are far too good at closing out on his shot, and he either can't get one off, or rushes it before getting set. 

Kevin Love I kind of feel the same about. I don't care what anyone says about him, the dude gets beat up but plays tough. However against the Warriors, we need athleticism on both ends of the floor. He has that old school game, but his percentages dropped so much against the Warriors. I'd definitely move him. 

 

So we have pick #8, About 41 million in trade assets and Kevin Love that we can move. 

I'd trade Love to Portland for Mo Harkless, Al-Farouq Aminu, a filler small salary player to make numbers align, and this year's first, plus at least one more future first. Portland would have a pretty nice balanced squad with Lillard, McCollum, Turner, Love and Nurkic. Aminu and Harkless are two guys who both are above average defenders who can defend multiple positions and superiorly more athletic than the players we currently have not named James or Nance or Thompson. Harkless is also an efficient offensive player who arguably has been ignored offensively because he was either on an Orlando Magic team with a terrible PG or the Blazers who had CJ and Lillard who both shoot a ton of shots per game. Coming here, he would have LeBron James (we hope) who always looks to find the open guy no matter who they are. 

Next, I'd trade Korver to a team who is competing for the playoffs but needs a perimeter shooter. San Antonio, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Minnesota and Toronto are all teams that made the playoffs but were in the bottom half of the league in 3pt%. Milwaukee is a team who was hot with trade rumors at the deadline, and with Jabari Parker being a free agent, they could use some cap room down the road. I'd trade Korver and Hill for rim protector John Henson, Tony Snell and Matthee Dellavedova plus a future pick. Milwaukee would get a shooter in Korver that they could use on the floor with Giannis, Parker, Maker and Bledsoe. Hill would contribute until after the season when he can be cut for only $1 million. Another intriguing thought was Milwaukee was wanting to get into the Deandre Jordan sweepstakes last season. Could they send Hill's contract, their pick, and something else to make a deal happen?            Out of this deal we would get another highly athletic defensive player in Henson, who is known as a rim protector, Tony Snell who just got signed to his contract, but underperformed. He is a great outside shooter, shooting over 40% from 3 the last two years, and Delly, who we know brings energy and effort to a team, and is a hound defensively. 

 

Now, we have added SF Harkless, PF Aminu, PG Delly, C Henson and SG/SF Snell, plus we have #8 and #24 this year. So what do we do?

We have JR Smith's low guaranteed contract we can move. we have the two picks. Zizic may have some intrigue though I don't expect him to net much. Nance as well, but I want to keep him on this team. We could use upgrades both at PG and at SG going into the draft/season. So what do we do?

1.) I'd call Memphis about doing a sign & trade for Tyreke Evans. Evans has been a balanced scorer/passer/rebounder, and the last two years he has vastly improved his shooting. He can defend, and he is athletic. What I'd offer is JR Smith's essentially expiring contract and #24 that we got from Portland for Tyreke Evans. There aren't many teams with cap space to sign Evans to anything more than the MLE, and his injury history is going to be concerning to some teams. 

So we addressed the upgrade at SG with Evans. Evans, Bron, Snell, Harkless and Cedi can all play the 2/3 positions, so we have a ton of versatility going into the season there, BUT, what about point guard? Well, we could either take Young or Sexton in the draft if we stay at #8. Would Charlotte accept #8, Clarkson, Zizic and a future #1 pick for Kemba Walker? Would we throw Cedi into the deal to sweeten it up some? 

PG Walker (28) 22.1 PPG/3.1 RPG/5.6 APG.             Delly (27) 4.3 PPG/1.7 RPG/3.8 APG

SG Evans (28) 19.4 PPG/5.2 RPG/5.2 APG.                Snell (26) 6.9 PPG/1.9 RPG/1.3 APG

SF LeBron(33) 27.5 PPG/8.6 RPG/9.1 APG.                Harkless(25) 6.5 PPG/2.7 RPG/0.9 APG

PF Aminu(27) 9.3PPG/7.6 RPG/1.2 APG/1.1 SPG.    Thompson (27) 5.8 PPG/6.6 RPG

C Henson (27) 8.8 PPG/6.8 RPG/1.1 APG/1.5 BPG.    Nance(25) 8.9 PPG/7.0RPG/1.0 APG/1.2 SPG

 

With the roster above, our average age would be 27.3 years. We would be super athletic at positions 2-5, and we would have a backup PG that defends well, he proved that in the finals in back to back years, and a starting PG who would demand effort from other star guards defending him. All of the players playing positions 1-3 are exceptional shooters. Including Aminu, who has shot well from outside the last two years, Our perimeter shooters in the roster above would be shooting 38.23% from 3 and making nearly 11 3pt shots per game if they maintained their numbers from this season. This team would have three legit scorers in the starting lineup, a team full of athletic, defensive minded players who can either shoot from the perimeter or score inside efficiently, and we would have a few guys who can defend the paint. We'd also have the MLE to pay out to a veteran free agent, and you know there are some hungry veterans who would love to team up with LeBron and take down the Warriors. 

 

We could re-sign Hood, or S&T him elsewhere if there was a team interested in him but without cap space to sign him if he commanded more than the MLE. We could look to re-sign Jeff Green for another year, as he gives us some versatility, although he didn't do well in the Finals. 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

@H2ThaIzzo great post, but even with those moves I don’t see that team having a shot against the Warriors tbh.  

It’s an improvement though.

[MWil23]

I'm interested to see what GS does with their roster/payroll. Klay is a free agent after the 2018-2019 season (same with Durant, but they're working out a deal). Dray will be an FA after the 2019-2020 season, along with role players like Iggy and Livingston.

I don't see how they keep Durant, Klay, and Dray all intact on that roster, let alone with quality bench/role players.

 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

15 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

I'm interested to see what GS does with their roster/payroll. Klay is a free agent after the 2018-2019 season (same with Durant, but they're working out a deal). Dray will be an FA after the 2019-2020 season, along with role players like Iggy and Livingston.

I don't see how they keep Durant, Klay, and Dray all intact on that roster, let alone with quality bench/role players.

 

Then it will be Boston and Philly who will be coming into their own.

GS could win titles for the foreseeable future and go down as the greatest team in the modern era if egos can be kept in check and guys are willing to settle for less.