The Cavs were only willing to give up two of three assets they relinquished in the Kevin Love trade until owner Dan Gilbert met with Love earlier this summer in Las Vegas, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN said in his appearance Monday with Tom Rizzo on ESPN Cleveland radio (audio link). Cleveland switched gears after that meeting and decided to give up its entire package of Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and the 2015 first-round pick it had previously acquired from Miami, as Windhorst details. The ESPN scribe speculates that Gilbert probably emerged from having spoken with Love more confident that the superstar power forward would remain in Cleveland long-term, which led him to up the Cavs’ offer. Windhorst had plenty more to say on Rizzo’s “The Really Big Show,” and we already touched on the Zydrunas Ilgauskas news earlier today. We’ll share the rest of the highlights here:
- Cleveland’s acquisition of John Lucas III, Erik Murphy and Malcolm Thomas in last month’s trade with the Jazz was made with Timofey Mozgov in mind, according to Windhorst, who says the Cavs continue to try to pry the center from the Nuggets. The Cavs envisioned flipping some combination of those three for Mozgov, as Windhorst indicates. Still, the Nuggets are reluctant to give him up, Windhorst adds, even though the Cavs offered a first-round pick as part of a deal for him, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported a few weeks ago.
- The Cavs tried to acquire Alexey Shved in the Love trade, in part because of his connection to coach David Blatt from their time together on the Russian national team, Windhorst says. Shved went to the Sixers instead.
- Windhorst asserts that the Cavs will sign Tristan Thompson to a rookie scale extension, suggesting that it would make the power forward a trade asset. An extension would complicate any trade involving Thompson because of the Poison Pill Provision, however.
What do you think it would take for the Cavs to get Mozgov from Denver?
I’d think they’d want a rotation-caliber player plus the first-rounder. Maybe Matthew Dellavedova, though that’s just my speculation.
–Chuck
Thanks for the reply. I have a crazy idea–it will probably never get done–but it would make the Cavs the best/most balanced team in the NBA + fix some potential future salary cap problems:
Trade Tristan Thompson to NYK for Iman Shumpert + Jason Smith.
Then Trade Dion Waiters to Denver for Mozgov.
Replacing Thompson with Smith (coming off the bench) gets rid of a terrible defender and replaces him with a merely below average defender and avoids the difficulty of deciding whether or not to extend him. Plus, Mozgov anchors your defensive front court.
Replacing Waiters with Shumpert removes another poor defender with a great perimeter defender and serviceable 3-point shooter.
Starting lineup: Irving, Shumpert, James, Love, Mozgov. James, Shumpert and Mozgov anchor the defense. And James, Love and Irving anchor the offense.
Bench: Dellavedova, Miller, Marion, Smith, Varejao. The bench runs 5 deep and has a good mix of veterans, glue guys and role players.
Additionally, Cleveland keeps all their picks (2015 Grizz first rounder + 2018 first rounder) AND Haywood’s valuable contract.
Just looking at this … that’s not a bad idea! I think the Knicks might hesitate to do Shumpert AND Smith for Thompson, and I think the Nuggets wouldn’t be particularly motivated to do the Waiters-Mozgov deal since they just traded for Arron Afflalo. But neither move would be far-fetched.
–Chuck