Cleveland Cavaliers forward/center Anderson Varejao's season is over due to a torn tendon in his right ankle. The injury occurred during practice on January 6th and he is set to finally have surgery on February 12th by Dr. Robert Anderson in Charlotte, North Carolina.
After the surgery is completed Anderson will require 3-4 months of rehab before being able to resume basketball activities. He is currently planning on doing his rehab in Cleveland. However, there is a very good chance that he could be moved sometime in the next 19 days before the NBA's February 24th trade deadline.
Sources told HOOPSWORLD that there is still a great deal of interest in Varejao throughout the league despite the fact that he is going to be inactive for the remainder of the season.
In 31 games this season Varejao was playing so well that Byron Scott, his head coach, started going on an All-Star campaign for him. At that time Varejao was one of the lone bright spots for the Cavaliers, averaging just under a double-double with nine points and nine rebounds a night. He was also connecting on 52% of his looks from the field while blocking 1.2 shots a contest.
As one source put it, there are few players in the league that play with Anderson's type of intensity and effort especially on the defensive end, making him attractive even while injured. There's little concern that this injury will have any long-term effects on Anderson, so teams are looking at this as an opportunity to get him while his stock is low. Because he's out for the remainder of the season the Cavaliers aren't able to put the same type of price tag on him that they would if he were healthy.
Prior to the tendon tear the Oklahoma City Thunder were voicing strong interest in the Brazilian big man. Considering his health status, though, the odds of the Thunder or any playoff-bound team making a move for him is unlikely. Teams who have already accepted that they're out of it, on the other hand, are far more likely to be willing to make a move for Varejao since they won't have the chance to make any type of serious noise until 2011-2012 anyway.
Two teams that immediately fit that description are the Toronto Raptors and Minnesota Timberwolves. The Timberwolves are in the cellar of the Western Conference while the Raptors aren't much better in the East in 13th place at 14-37. With their trade exceptions and amount of young talent they could have what it takes to entice Cleveland to accept a deal. They could also greatly use someone with Anderson's combination of physicality and skill at the center position.
Varejao is greatly valued by the Cavaliers franchise and is someone that they aren't going to give away for nothing. But a massive rebuilding process has become inevitable due to being in the midst of one of the worst losing streaks in league history.
Varejao is under contract through at least 2014 with a minimum of $25.2 million owed to him. His deal has a team option for 2015 that would pay him $9.8 million if picked up.
While that is a reasonable contract for someone who scouts compare to a slightly-less-effective version of Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah, it could be a little bit prohibitive in the Cavaliers rebuilding efforts. That's why we could see Varejao's rehab process moved to somewhere other than Cleveland in the coming weeks.
