TripleThreat wrote:WaltLongmire wrote:Have not seen enough of Wiggins this year, but an interesting theory. Love did help to spread things out a bit, and Irving would have taken a lot of offensive pressure off James.Always a tradeoff with players- not always easy to get a player who is great on both ends.
Let's try this, for example.
Remove the Cavs bizarre trades for Luol Deng and Spencer Hawes, which cost them three valuable draft picks in an ill fated attempt to make the playoffs the year before LBJ came back.
IF LBJ had simply committed to Cleveland early in free agency and was willing to leave money on the table ( Sadly, seeing some of the press at the time, he equated the amount of money he makes to how much respect he gets ) , then the Cavs could have kept another draft asset and kept Sergey Karasev and Tyler Zeller, two former first rounders, young guys with upside and nice pedigree, they might not be stars, but they might have been far more useful than old roster churn like James Jones and Shawn Marion.
Trading Wiggins ending up being a triple hit. First, Wiggins, plus Bennett, were young rookies on COST CONTROLLED CONTRACTS. They would have gotten elite play out of Wiggins, plus his prime, plus him outperforming his contract over and over exponentially for years. Instead, they traded him for the lesser defender but, in theory, the better scorer, who would need a massive contract extension to justify the move. It was adding a poor fit, far less defense and avoided the issue that LBJ needed help on the defensive perimeter ( hence the Shumpert trade) That's the three hits, they lose the value of Wiggins and a superior fit, they add a poor fit and a massive amount of cap flexibility and they had to spend more valuable assets to replace Wiggins with a lesser situation ( Shumpert) to make up for the defensive issues.
LBJ, as de facto GM of the Cavs, could have still made a deal for Mozgov, never spent money on Varejao ( that's like burning money) and feeding his old buddy Mike Miller ( totally shot at this point) and never had to spend what will be soon a massive extension for Love ( or risk him leaving)
The Cavs could have then traded Irving ( simply cannot have another ball dominant player fit with LBJ) and maybe Waiters for other assets.
The Cavs could have been LBJ, Wiggins, all those draft picks back, and massive cap space plus Mozgov, Zeller and Karasev and what is now Delladova and whatever return they could have gotten on trading Irving, Waiters and maybe Thompson.
The Cavs could have picked up a Jimmy Butler or a DeMarre Carroll in free agency plus all the assets they didn't burn, maybe they grab a nice young rookie in this draft too.
Instead, now he's on a team that's stuck. They gave up a lot for Mozgov and Love, so they have to extend them. Varejao and Miller are dead weight. And over time, injury and poor fit will slowly erode Irvings' overall trade value.
LBJ could have won this year's ring and the next four. But he's a lousy GM.
Thats a good post. Its so true--when the players act as de facto GM its almost always they get it wrong. I said the Wiggins trade would backfire on him--look back on this site to how many fans thought it was a good trade. It was AWFUL just moronic traded the number 1 pick +++ for K Love who is hurt every year has padded stats and looks like he did not get along with his teammates same as Minny?
