Anderson Varejao

[Cavatt]

He truly is the Chosen 2

["Boobie" Gibson]

He's just something special... damn I love him. Trading him would be the biggest mistake.

[RedBlackAttack]

He's just something special... damn I love him. Trading him would be the biggest mistake.

The package offered would have to be considered before a deal is labeled a "big mistake," and his age may (not an absolute, but may) prohibit him from being this kind of player on a really good team in Cleveland... But damn. I love watching this guy play and I almost wish it made less sense to deal him. It would take quite a bit. He has been arguably the best center in the entire NBA through 16 games.

[Pioneer10]

Ugh, my heart wants Andy to finish his career in Cleveland and at this point he's so damn good you're almost guaranteed not to get equal value for him at least in the short term.

That being said, at this rate, no one is going to give Chris Grant a funny look when teams come asking for Andy and he answers unprotected lottery pick or bust. So conflicted as Andy's low altitude game and his lack of floor time thru the years (via injuries and playing behind Z/Gooden) makes it a not unreasonable possibility that he'll play at a high level for a few more years

[Pioneer10]

M.S. Boyer/J. Valade ‏@PDcavsinsider
Coach Byron Scott after #Cavs beat Hawks, 113-111: "Well, tonight Andy Varejao was again fantastic and everybody else didn’t suck.''

[Birdy89]

That being said, at this rate, no one is going to give Chris Grant a funny look when teams come asking for Andy and he answers unprotected lottery pick or bust.

No one ever was going to look at him funny.

Problem has always been at his age it eliminates many of the bad teams (like us) that are rebuilding (and have potentially really high picks) and aren't going to mortgage the future for a guy who is 30 now.

The only teams really interested in acquiring Andy are likely teams that think they are really close, and are veteran rosters.

OKC is the only team that fits the criteria of being win now and has a good asset (the Toronto pick), but their GM has pioneered the "draft pick and flexibility" strategy Chris Grant uses and you won't pry that Raptors pick from his cold dead hands.

They are up against it with the cap because of Durant/Westbrook/Ibaka's deals, they aren't going to give up a top 5 pick for Andy when they can draft a young impact player who makes very little money under the rookie cap for a bunch of years.

The time to move Andy was 2-3 years ago when he was still young enough to be a foundational piece of a rebuild, which greatly opened up field of teams that would pay a high price.

Now we are in no mans land where we can't get a package to replace his outrageous production, and given the circumstances the field of teams that would even be interested in trading for him is small given what we are looking for in return.

It is time for some fans to realize we are probably going to "rough it" and just keep our All-Star, best in the conference center for ourselves instead of selling him off for pennies on the dollar in return.

How many teams out there would love to be "stuck" with a starting center averaging 15/15 on a reasonable contract?

It is such a burden.

[KI4MVP]

Andy's last 5 games

16.8 points, 18.0 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.6 steals, .550 shooting, .857 from the line

[godfather]

Andy is wine and gold. I want something worth watching. It's him and Kyrie Irving. Andy makes everything better. Don't see the upside in dealing a straight up GREAT, GREAT basketball player for something that's likely never going to be as valuable.

Andy is not going to be traded. The Cavs simply don't want to move him. And why would they? He's good. Doesn't show any signs of slowing down to me.

[Tornicade]

No one ever was going to look at him funny.

Problem has always been at his age it eliminates many of the bad teams (like us) that are rebuilding (and have potentially really high picks) and aren't going to mortgage the future for a guy who is 30 now.

The only teams really interested in acquiring Andy are likely teams that think they are really close, and are veteran rosters.

OKC is the only team that fits the criteria of being win now and has a good asset (the Toronto pick), but their GM has pioneered the "draft pick and flexibility" strategy Chris Grant uses and you won't pry that Raptors pick from his cold dead hands.

They are up against it with the cap because of Durant/Westbrook/Ibaka's deals, they aren't going to give up a top 5 pick for Andy when they can draft a young impact player who makes very little money under the rookie cap for a bunch of years.

The time to move Andy was 2-3 years ago when he was still young enough to be a foundational piece of a rebuild, which greatly opened up field of teams that would pay a high price.

Now we are in no mans land where we can't get a package to replace his outrageous production, and given the circumstances the field of teams that would even be interested in trading for him is small given what we are looking for in return.

It is time for some fans to realize we are probably going to "rough it" and just keep our All-Star, best in the conference center for ourselves instead of selling him off for pennies on the dollar in return.

How many teams out there would love to be "stuck" with a starting center averaging 15/15 on a reasonable contract?

It is such a burden.

Sam presti is not a pioneer. he is good at what he does.

Here is an Article on Billy Knight

Knight understood change would not happen overnight. By removing underachieving players from the roster and avoiding the desire to take on potentially inflated salaries that affects a franchise’s ability to maintain flexibility, he has stayed the course and is committed more than ever to see his plan through. That’s a credit to Knight’s fundamental belief of developing one’s own talent and maintaining enough financial room to acquire the best talent mix without handicapping the future of the franchise.

Knight’s desire to create financial flexibility on the Hawks’ roster led to a complete restructuring of the 2003-04 team when he traded Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Theo Ratliff and Dan Dickau to the Portland Trail Blazers prior to the February trade deadline. By dismantling that high-priced unit, Knight believed it was more important to give the franchise a better opportunity to become a major player in the league by building the foundation through the draft and free agency.

Originally the team’s Director of Basketball Operations when he was hired by then-GM Pete Babcock prior to the 2002-03 season, Knight replaced him on April 2, 2003 when Babcock was relieved of his duties. During that offseason, Knight’s rebuilding plan started with the selection of Boris Diaw and Travis Hansen in the 2003 Draft, and his impressive changes continued when he obtained the $12 million contract of Terrell Brandon from Minnesota in a four-team trade that sent Glenn Robinson to Philadelphia and included a future first round draft pick. Brandon’s contract came off the Hawks’ books when the team released him on February 19, 2004.

In another clever move, Knight’s trade of Rasheed Wallace to the Detroit Pistons (also on Feb. 19) provided Atlanta with a second first round pick in the 2004 draft, which resulted in the selection of local prep star Josh Smith, who was an early-entry candidate from Oak Hill Academy and played his high school ball at Powder Springs (GA) High.


Both Presti and Ferry worked for Rc buford.

an article on buford

"I trust him implicitly," Spurs owner Peter Holt said of Buford. "He is always looking at the big picture and long term. So we never get ourselves in too awkward a position in terms of contracts or dollars so that we have flexibility, which is so hard to do these days. We have the main three (Tim Duncan, Parker and Ginobili), but we've always managed to bring the right players in around them."

Presti is a great GM and a spot on talent evaluator but he wasnt doing anything new or innovative when he went to Seattle dismantled the team and started from Scratch
What he did due is take sound Basketball management principles and stick to them.

Grant was being mentored these philosophies from a GM(billy Knight) who spent the nineties in Indiana who had a simliar philosphy under Donnie Walsh.

Rc Buford was an assistant coach for Larry Brown as was Walsh when Larry brown was in Denver. Knight of course was with the pacers under walsh before going to atlanta.

One of the reasons Ferry hired Grant was because he had similiar to philosphies that ferry valued from the spurs.

[BoomOuttaHere]

From Marc Stein's Weekend Dime

There were eight qualified players entering Friday night's games averaging a double-double this season … and only one of them resides in the East.

Alongside Western Conference muscle men Omer Asik, Kenneth Faried, J.J. Hickson, Dwight Howard, Al Jefferson, David Lee and Zach Randolph stands the Cavs' lonely Anderson Varejao. As one admiring official from a rival Eastern Conference team put it, Varejao is averaging 14.5 points and 14.9 rebounds on his "'get me out of Cleveland' tour."

Good line, but is it true? Varejao certainly hasn't been campaigning for a trade and has established an undeniable on-court connection with franchise Cavs guard Kyrie Irving. Considering that Varejao also earns a very reasonable $8.4 million this season at age 30, with one full season at $9.1 million and a $9.8 million team option in 2014-15 left on his contract, it's worth asking: Why would Cleveland ever want to trade him?

The latest word on the personnel grapevine is that the Cavs won't discourage offers for the Brazilian, knowing it probably wouldn't matter anyway after receiving a steady stream of calls from interested teams for the past few years, but it's worth noting that discussions have rarely progressed because Cleveland has always asked for a lot in return. You can safely presume, with the way Varejao's been playing, that Cleveland's price hasn't gone down.

Said one rival exec: "They've been expecting a ton for a while."

Varejao has racked up at least 10 points and 15 boards -- with at least five offensive rebounds -- in each of Cleveland's last six games. It's the first such streak that long, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, since Charles Barkley had one in January 1990.

http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/p...a-coaching-gig

[JSS2306]

No offense to some of you but can we shut the fuck up about the trade talk and just talk about Andys game?

It's like sitting down with a 16 oz steak and being worried the waitress is going to switch it with fish heads at any moment. It's not going to happen, there is absolutely NO PROOF it's going to happen so please shut the fuck up about it and talk about his game. You act like he's being traded tomorrow. Shut. The. Fuck. UP.

[KI4MVP]

Through 15 games, Andy is 7th in the league in PER (among players who have played more than half of their teams games), just 0.08 behind Bosh, who he is a better defender than, for best PER in the league for a center.

[CalBuckeyeRob]

No one ever was going to look at him funny.

Problem has always been at his age it eliminates many of the bad teams (like us) that are rebuilding (and have potentially really high picks) and aren't going to mortgage the future for a guy who is 30 now.

The only teams really interested in acquiring Andy are likely teams that think they are really close, and are veteran rosters.

OKC is the only team that fits the criteria of being win now and has a good asset (the Toronto pick), but their GM has pioneered the "draft pick and flexibility" strategy Chris Grant uses and you won't pry that Raptors pick from his cold dead hands.

They are up against it with the cap because of Durant/Westbrook/Ibaka's deals, they aren't going to give up a top 5 pick for Andy when they can draft a young impact player who makes very little money under the rookie cap for a bunch of years.

The time to move Andy was 2-3 years ago when he was still young enough to be a foundational piece of a rebuild, which greatly opened up field of teams that would pay a high price.

Now we are in no mans land where we can't get a package to replace his outrageous production, and given the circumstances the field of teams that would even be interested in trading for him is small given what we are looking for in return.

It is time for some fans to realize we are probably going to "rough it" and just keep our All-Star, best in the conference center for ourselves instead of selling him off for pennies on the dollar in return.

How many teams out there would love to be "stuck" with a starting center averaging 15/15 on a reasonable contract?

It is such a burden.

At some point, OKC will have to determine if they have enough, as is, to win it. If not, they will have to consider trading the pick and Cleveland seems to be a great fit. If they get Varejao, they will maximize their chances of success over the next 3 years. If they keep it, the draft pick will do nothing for them this year. Toronto's pick is protected and could stay with Toronto since they are in the mix for a top 3 pick. If that happens, the pick doesn't help them in 2013/14 either. For it to help them in 2014/15 it has to be a player that can be an impact rookie and fill a position of need. And if that player is worse than Varejao at that point, it still leaves them weaker. The pick should make OKC better from 2016 going forward. But is that what you want to do when you have Durant and Westbrook in their prime right now?

[TheISHT]

The way AV is playing if a trade to OKC would happen it would have to be something like Toronto's pick, Lamb, PJ3, and Perkins for AV and Gibson.

[KI4MVP]

Through 16 games, Andy is now 6th in the league in PER, 2nd in the east and 1st overall in the league for centers. Andy is also leading the league in rebounding by 2.6. As a career .618 foul shooter who never shot above .672, he is shooting .807 from the line this year. He had a career best year last year, but who saw this coming? Thus far this year, he's not just been a good center, he's been the best center in the entire league (assuming Duncan is a PF) and lately he's been getting even better (averaging 18.5 points and 18.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists, .633 shooting, .857 from the line over the last 4 games).


The players ahead of Andy in PER
1. LeBron
2. Durant
3. Duncan
4. Chris Paul
5. Kobe
6. Andy (just 0.08 behind Kobe)

Instead of talking about trading him, isn't it time to get Andy some help? Had we traded for Bynum (and he was actually healthy) or Howard and got the exact same production from either of them only to have the same record we have now, everyone would want us to get them help.