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Kawhi ?

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As far as trading him goes; he's going to cost the farm, flat out .. and if he's willing to re-up with the Cavs, then we should be willing to pay it.
No we shouldn't; it's rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Gutting our team and jettisoning Love just to pair Kawhi with 34-year old LeBron and scrap metal isn't getting it done. We need a 3rd star or a drafted stud to go with LeBron and Love...you don't trade the latter.

I'd offer the Spurs the pick, Cedi, TT and maybe Zizic if they demand him. Anything beyond that and they can fuck off.
 
What he is doing is pretty ... peculiar ...

But I don't think Spurs "fans" or their front office is done with him.. I think they're upset, as the entire NBA is outside of the Bay area, but, he's decided to sit out the playoffs -- which is pretty remarkable.

That being said, there is nothing coming out of the Spurs front office about him being made unavailable -- it's his decision. I think they're doing that not only to protect themselves, and to avoid distractions, but to protect Kawhi's value this summer.

As far as trading him goes; he's going to cost the farm, flat out .. and if he's willing to re-up with the Cavs, then we should be willing to pay it.

What he is doing in unprecedented and quite frankly irritate the crap out of me.

If it takes what you think it takes to get him, we are left with absolutely no depth at all and with his injury and the the possibility that Kawhi wouldn't be as good offensively( have the same superstar impact) sharing the floor with Lebron and it becomes pretty damn risky.

He is unpredictable...what if he bails out and we are left with absolutely nothing and our own draft selection, Zizic, Osman and Nance(you had included him as well?) become much, much more than what some of us thought? If it happened, it could turn out to be one of the worst trades ever. You even included Love right? Damn, that's crazy.

Who knows if he would be willing to re-up when the time came from what we have seen so far?

From what I gather he is all about exposure, fame, money and the likes. Our team would look even worse than the 2014-2015 team before the deadline in terms of depth, and if we don't win it all in the first year we might as well pack his bags with how unpredictable he is. Are you ready for that scenario instead of seeing what we with this draft pick, youngsters and the potential ability to sign a star in 2019 if we get rid of both TT and JR(Expirings)?

To tell you frankly, for once I want our team to grow together...that would give me the absolute joy, and if they can do that with Lebron then fucking AWESOME. I'm tired of all that mercenary bullshit, especially if it guts our whole team and doesn't guarantee a championship at all.
 
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No we shouldn't; it's rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I'm not sure what better course of action exists? If you use game theory to resolve the question, there doesn't seem to be many other near-optimal solutions.

Lot's of other options in spoiler tags...
Let's just chart out some hypothetical solutions to see why the Cavs are in a tough spot:

1) We keep Kevin Love, our players, and the 8th pick... We lose the Finals again (if we even make it), we likely lose LeBron and thus Kevin Love to free agency next year.. We start full rebuild.

2) We lose LeBron this summer, we trade Kevin Love per his request on the last year of his deal, we keep the 8th pick. We start full rebuild.

3) We trade the 8th pick and salary dump other players to complete a sign-and-trade for Paul George.. We're hard-capped, but this is still a very good outcome, IMHO; probably the most optimal scenario.

4) We trade Kevin Love for Brad Beal straight up, or the pick, Love, Thompson, Osman, Nance and salary for Beal, Porter and a Wizards salary dump perhaps Gortat/Mahinmi(?) ... I think the Cavs are a better team even though we've taken on the Wizards salary problem for them.

5) We trade Love+Hill for John Wall .. I don't know if we're actually better as a result of this trade, although, we would be more stable as a franchise since Wall is under contract for the foreseeable future.. The good part about a deal like this is that we'd still have the pick to trade.

6) We trade Love for CJ McCollum; move LeBron to PF full-time ... Again, not sure if much is changed here? We might even be worse..

7) We trade the pick for Kemba Walker... This isn't a bad outcome at all since the pick is slotted at 8th. It doesn't require a sign-and-trade, but, Walker is, IMHO, not as useful against the Warriors as Paul George. To me, this solution is substantially worse than solution #3, but is not a bad outcome.

So... players we've discussed thus far? Walker, McCollum, Beal, Porter, Wall, and Paul George...

Now, consider another potential solution:

8) We trade Kevin Love, BKN pick, Cedi Osman, Ante Zizic and JR Smith (or Hill) and get back Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green or Rudy Gay (either would have to opt-in), and Pau Gasol.

.. Are the Cavs worse off?

From a production standpoint, no, I don't think so. Osman and Zizic are great prospects, but aren't yet productive and IMHO are still years away. I think that's reasonable - so that places them outside of James' remaining window, right? Smith is done, period, his value next year is as an expiring contract (given his non-guaranteed salary).

So the loss here is Kevin Love.

However, we'd gain Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green (or Rudy Gay); and to an extent Gasol as whatever sort of asset you'd like to consider -- either a useful rotational big, or as a valuable non-guaranteed 2019 contract.

I don't think I need to explain to you just how good Kawhi Leonard is, right? He's a bonafide superstar talent; Top 5 when healthy; and he's not even in his prime yet. There is no way the Cavs could get a better player than this. So we would have two MVP caliber players at that point, at least for the next 2 years or so depending upon LeBron's remaining window.

Kawhi can guard anyone on the Warriors roster, and Green can guard the 1-3 as well...

A potential lineup of Hill, Green/Gay, Kawhi, James, Nance is solid and is a good start..

Nonetheless you'd still have Rodney Hood and Larry Nance, both promising prospects, both cheap (I don't see Hood getting more than $12M this offseason); so you're not exactly without a bench.

You'd also have the tMLE to add another player, but I don't anticipate that being easy with most players likely opting in given the lack of abundant cap space this summer and minimal opportunity to get significant raises.

But in this scenario, again, the are the Cavs better than they are this year? Yes, I think so.. Out of all of the aforementioned scenarios, is this the best? ... err ... I think it's comparable to solutions #3 and #4b (adding Paul George for the pick+salary, and trading the farm for Beal and Porter). It is better than #4b from a salary perspective, assuredly; with #3 being the most optimal salary scenario the hard-cap notwithstanding...

Do we win the Finals with this team? Well, I think we'd have a better shot, but I also think that depends on how the trade is configured... Nonetheless, it's possible that we'd end up with a sufficiently robust team that we could contend.. What's more, talent-wise, it is possible that LeBron and Kawhi could be the two best players on the floor over a 7 game series against the Warriors; particularly if we consider Kawhi and LeBron both guarding Durant and say Green and Hill defending the backcourt and doubling Curry (allowing Thompson/Green to get looks, granted) ..

Gutting our team and jettisoning Love just to pair Kawhi with 34-year old LeBron and scrap metal isn't getting it done. We need a 3rd star or a drafted stud to go with LeBron and Love...you don't trade the latter.

I don't think a ("drafted stud @ 8th" + Kevin Love) > Kawhi Leonard in the context of a series against Golden State. I actually don't think that inequality is even remotely close.

From everything I've outlined above; the two stars that would be available for the 8th pick would be Paul George and Kemba Walker. However to get George, you've got to get below the apron -- which means trading off Thompson, Smith and likely Hill (two of which would go to OKC) .. Kemba is simpler since his salary is low, so you could potentially just trade Smith+BKN pick for Kemba Walker... (btw, you could've done that at the deadline).

Again, if I'm measuring these potentials I'd rank them from best to worse, thusly:

1) LeBron + Love + George
2) LeBron + Beal + Porter
3) LeBron + Kawhi
4) LeBron + Love + Kemba

I'd offer the Spurs the pick, Cedi, TT and maybe Zizic if they demand him. Anything beyond that and they can fuck off.

I would just remind you that what you're describing is less than we initially got for Kyrie (Thompson is not an asset, BTW) ....

The only better solution that I think is remotely possible is if the Spurs and Cavs could come up with a third team, and somehow trade Love for Kawhi while taking back Gasol; but obviously this would be Love going to another team or Aldridge going to another team.

In that case, we'd still have the pick.. But again, I highly doubt this is possible, since, Love is not as a valuable as other players who would become available if the Spurs put Kawhi on the market.

tl;dr: trading the farm for Kawhi is among one of the better solutions for the Cavs. It's not the best, but, it's definitely better than doing nothing (i.e., drafting a player and developing him) which I think results in us losing both Love and James for nothing.
 
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I'm not sure what better course of action exists? If you use game theory to resolve the question, there doesn't seem to be many other near-optimal solutions.

Lot's of other options in spoiler tags...
Let's just chart out some hypothetical solutions to see why the Cavs are in a tough spot:

1) We keep Kevin Love, our players, and the 8th pick... We lose the Finals again (if we even make it), we likely lose LeBron and thus Kevin Love to free agency next year.. We start full rebuild.

2) We lose LeBron this summer, we trade Kevin Love per his request on the last year of his deal, we keep the 8th pick. We start full rebuild.

3) We trade the 8th pick and salary dump other players to complete a sign-and-trade for Paul George.. We're hard-capped, but this is still a very good outcome, IMHO; probably the most optimal scenario.

4) We trade Kevin Love for Brad Beal straight up, or the pick, Love, Thompson, Osman, Nance and salary for Beal, Porter and a Wizards salary dump perhaps Gortat/Mahinmi(?) ... I think the Cavs are a better team even though we've taken on the Wizards salary problem for them.

5) We trade Love+Hill for John Wall .. I don't know if we're actually better as a result of this trade, although, we would be more stable as a franchise since Wall is under contract for the foreseeable future.. The good part about a deal like this is that we'd still have the pick to trade.

6) We trade Love for CJ McCollum; move LeBron to PF full-time ... Again, not sure if much is changed here? We might even be worse..

7) We trade the pick for Kemba Walker... This isn't a bad outcome at all since the pick is slotted at 8th. It doesn't require a sign-and-trade, but, Walker is, IMHO, not as useful against the Warriors as Paul George. To me, this solution is substantially worse than solution #3, but is not a bad outcome.

So... players we've discussed thus far? Walker, McCollum, Beal, Porter, Wall, and Paul George...

Now, consider another potential solution:

8) We trade Kevin Love, BKN pick, Cedi Osman, Ante Zizic and JR Smith (or Hill) and get back Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green or Rudy Gay (either would have to opt-in), and Pau Gasol.

.. Are the Cavs worse off?

From a production standpoint, no, I don't think so. Osman and Zizic are great prospects, but aren't yet productive and IMHO are still years away. I think that's reasonable - so that places them outside of James' remaining window, right? Smith is done, period, his value next year is as an expiring contract (given his non-guaranteed salary).

So the loss here is Kevin Love.

However, we'd gain Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green (or Rudy Gay); and to an extent Gasol as whatever sort of asset you'd like to consider -- either a useful rotational big, or as a valuable non-guaranteed 2019 contract.

I don't think I need to explain to you just how good Kawhi Leonard is, right? He's a bonafide superstar talent; Top 5 when healthy; and he's not even in his prime yet. There is no way the Cavs could get a better player than this. So we would have two MVP caliber players at that point, at least for the next 2 years or so depending upon LeBron's remaining window.

Kawhi can guard anyone on the Warriors roster, and Green can guard the 1-3 as well...

A potential lineup of Hill, Green/Gay, Kawhi, James, Nance is solid and is a good start..

Nonetheless you'd still have Rodney Hood and Larry Nance, both promising prospects, both cheap (I don't see Hood getting more than $12M this offseason); so you're not exactly without a bench.

You'd also have the tMLE to add another player, but I don't anticipate that being easy with most players likely opting in given the lack of abundant cap space this summer and minimal opportunity to get significant raises.

But in this scenario, again, the are the Cavs better than they are this year? Yes, I think so.. Out of all of the aforementioned scenarios, is this the best? ... err ... I think it's comparable to solutions #3 and #4b (adding Paul George for the pick+salary, and trading the farm for Beal and Porter). It is better than #4b from a salary perspective, assuredly; with #3 being the most optimal salary scenario the hard-cap notwithstanding...

Do we win the Finals with this team? Well, I think we'd have a better shot, but I also think that depends on how the trade is configured... Nonetheless, it's possible that we'd end up with a sufficiently robust team that we could contend.. What's more, talent-wise, it is possible that LeBron and Kawhi could be the two best players on the floor over a 7 game series against the Warriors; particularly if we consider Kawhi and LeBron both guarding Durant and say Green and Hill defending the backcourt and doubling Curry (allowing Thompson/Green to get looks, granted) ..



I don't think a ("drafted stud @ 8th" + Kevin Love) > Kawhi Leonard in the context of a series against Golden State. I actually don't think that inequality is even remotely close.

From everything I've outlined above; the two stars that would be available for the 8th pick would be Paul George and Kemba Walker. However to get George, you've got to get below the apron -- which means trading off Thompson, Smith and likely Hill (two of which would go to OKC) .. Kemba is simpler since his salary is low, so you could potentially just trade Smith+BKN pick for Kemba Walker... (btw, you could've done that at the deadline).

Again, if I'm measuring these potentials I'd rank them from best to worse, thusly:

1) LeBron + Love + George
2) LeBron + Beal + Porter
3) LeBron + Kawhi
4) LeBron + Love + Kemba



I would just remind you that what you're describing is less than we initially got for Kyrie (Thompson is not an asset, BTW) ....

The only better solution that I think is remotely possible is if the Spurs and Cavs could come up with a third team, and somehow trade Love for Kawhi while taking back Gasol; but obviously this would be Love going to another team or Aldridge going to another team.

In that case, we'd still have the pick.. But again, I highly doubt this is possible, since, Love is not as a valuable as other players who would become available if the Spurs put Kawhi on the market.

tl;dr: trading the farm for Kawhi is among one of the better solutions for the Cavs. It's not the best, but, it's definitely better than doing nothing (i.e., drafting a player and developing him) which I think results in us losing both Love and James for nothing.
Heh okay. It’s a typical @gourimoko, grass-is-greener scenario, where the Cavs give up too much and wind up with too little.

I’ll get multi-quoted and dissected to high hell, but I don’t give a fuck...we’re not parceling off half the team for quitter Kawhi. There’s a reason the Cavs didn’t sell everything off for LA, Melo, Wade or any other outlandish thing you’ve conceived the past few years...it doesn’t work.
 
Heh okay. It’s a typical @gourimoko, grass-is-greener scenario, where the Cavs give up too much and wind up with too little.

I always try to portray trades as near worst-case scenarios for the Cavs ... And I'm not saying the grass is greener, I think the Cavs > Spurs, by a mile. But I am saying that Kawhi would vastly improve the Cavs over most other options available to us, even if it meant Love and the pick.

I’ll get multi-quoted and dissected to high hell, but I don’t give a fuck...

.. That much is obvious ..

we’re not parceling off half the team for quitter Kawhi.

Can I ask you what the fuck are you doing in this thread .. this is a thread specifically about trading for Kawhi Leonard.. That's the thread topic..

And to your point, over this season we literally traded almost half the team for Jordan Clarkson, Rodney Hood, Larry Nance, George Hill, and Ante Zizic. You said prior to the deadline that we wouldn't make such a move because it was too large; you always say that. And yet, we did... Now here you are, again, saying the same thing, as though the deadline never happened..

There’s a reason the Cavs didn’t sell everything off for LA, Melo, Wade or any other outlandish thing you’ve conceived the past few years...it doesn’t work.

You somehow forgot Kevin Love in that list... When I first argued we'd trade for Melo, that was right after we signed James -- I said we should trade for Love or Melo, and we did.

You also forgot Paul George and we actually completed a trade sending Kevin Love out for George before Kevin Pritchard pulled it back -- you said we shouldn't do that too...

You also forgot Rodney Hood and George Hill, both players I suggested we trade for.. and we did..

We ultimately signed Wade to the team, he took a paycut to play here .. So I'm not sure what you mean here since we acquired D. Wade the first chance we got.

We didn't trade for Aldridge because Aldridge didn't want to play for the Cavs; he didn't want to play alongside Kevin Love which he believed would force him to play center the vast majority of the time.

More on Aldridge:
Moreover, the entire argument was in the context of Aldridge being traded and/or sign-and-traded to Cleveland by his request.. We had two entire threads on it because Aldridge had Cleveland on his list of destinations. The Cavs had made trade offers for Aldridge since 2013 trying to sell a package of Dion Waiters and Tristan Thompson; ultimately in 2017, Aldridge made it known he didn't want to play in a town where "there was nothing to do," like Portland, and made Portland aware that he wasn't returning.

So it seems you're saying my argument somehow didn't make sense because it didn't happen? Think about how absurd that is... Of course the Cavs should have tried to trade for LMA, why wouldn't we...? And to the Cavs credit, we tried to trade for Aldridge, at least up to the deadline. Why? Because, prior to the deadline, a trade made all the sense in the world for the Cavs -- the only argument thereafter was about depth and a hard-cap; to which, some posters argued we needed Thompson and our end of the bench players. I was one of the few posters that said we should trade Tristan Thompson before his contract negotiations commence because "we don't know how that will play out."

So simply put, there is no way with the benefit of hindsight, that you can sit here and say the Cavs were better off not trading for LaMarcus Aldridge... That makes absolutely no sense.. None, whatsoever.

What is the logic about not trading non-All Star players and picks for LMA? Because he chose the Spurs over the Cavs -- thus, we shouldn't have even bothered? Is that your logic?
...

Honestly man; instead of explaining how or why Kevin Love, Osman and the pick is more valuable to any basketball team in the league than Kawhi Leonard; you resort to ad hominems? That's a pretty weak defense.
 
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Some of these offers assume the Spurs want to reboot. Does Pop want to do that? They'll be looking for All Stars.

Yea this is my point and why I've talked about Love. I just dont see a host of young, largely unproven players, being all that appealing. They're gonna want someone that can play big minutes. They haven't had a losing season in a bazillion years. They draft late better than anyone.

No reason to believe they'll start tanking now.

But the goal with this move is win a title. Taking back Gasol locks you into a roster that can't do it until LeBron is too old. Thats why I call it off at taking back Gasol.

EDIT: Just to further the point about the Spurs and tanking: Tony Parker was drafted in the late 20s, Manu was drafted in the 2nd round, and George Hill, who they traded for Kawhi, was drafted in the late 20s.

So why, if you can draft like that, would you ever tank and lose the subsequent revenue from doing so?
 
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Here's the thing if you dont include Love: what stop Boston or Philly from just beating the offer.

Ive talked about a Philly offer built around Fultz, Covington and the Lakers pick. That's better than pretty much anything we can throw together without Love.

But, as I quoted Chi above, I think its premature to assume the Spurs wouldnt want high quality player(s) back. So I think they'd value Al Horford, for instance. So Boston offers Horford, Jaylen Brown and the Kings pick.

Now maybe trading Love and the pick for Kawhi still doesnt get us close enough, and thats why it isnt worth it. I get that argument.

But I really don't think the BKN pick, Osman and a host of role players is going to be the best offer they see.
 
Now that he isn't playing in the playoffs, i am seriously worried about whether he is damaged or mentally not there. Very concerning that he hasn't played a healthy game since last playoffs and maybe longer.

Basically my worried about giving up a healthy Kawhi price for a Kawhi that isn't healthy.

Love is worth him healthy, but if not?
 
"Healthy Kawhi" is the most valuable asset in the entire NBA. The best deal we could possibly put together would still fall well short of healthy Kawhi price.
 
Now that he isn't playing in the playoffs, i am seriously worried about whether he is damaged or mentally not there. Very concerning that he hasn't played a healthy game since last playoffs and maybe longer.

Basically my worried about giving up a healthy Kawhi price for a Kawhi that isn't healthy.

Love is worth him healthy, but if not?

Yeah, I think I gotta go with @Nathan S 's estimation here.. Kawhi, when healthy, is in another stratosphere from 98% of the rest of the NBA; including Kevin Love.

So our only chance at trading for him is if there is a question of his health, mental, physical or otherwise.

Because if that weren't a question, then as @Rich said, there would be many other teams lined up ready to trade better packages for him than what we could realistically offer.
 
"Healthy Kawhi" is the most valuable asset in the entire NBA. The best deal we could possibly put together would still fall well short of healthy Kawhi price.

I like him, but man, I just don't think he's in that Anthony Davis category. Whom, I think has to be the most valuable asset in the league right now. 25 and really, really a fucking monster right now.

Fuck, I mean since Boogie went down, Davis has been averaging 30 ppg over 11 rpg, and 3 blocks per game. Those are elite numbers across the board.

I would offer the moon and stars for Davis. Leonard, I wouldn't.

Although our shitty lottery pick and Love, I don't think is the moon and stars.
 
No we shouldn't; it's rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Gutting our team and jettisoning Love just to pair Kawhi with 34-year old LeBron and scrap metal isn't getting it done. We need a 3rd star or a drafted stud to go with LeBron and Love...you don't trade the latter.

I'd offer the Spurs the pick, Cedi, TT and maybe Zizic if they demand him. Anything beyond that and they can fuck off.

But the pick isn't going to be THAT good. If it lands in the top-3, agree, I would NOT offer that and Love for Leonard.

But if its the top-9. I mean, come on.... Do you really think the 9th pick has any shot at landing any star player, much less Leonard? Bro, teams can, and will EASILY outbid that.

If you want a player like Leonard, you're going to have to include Love, or it won't come close to getting it done.

LOL at the Spurs taking on TT and his ass contract. Never going to happen bro. Teams dumping really good players like Leonard aren't in the market of taking back shit, and shitty contracts to boot.
 

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