LeBron James headed back to the Cavaliers

[benji]

LeBron's deal is a two year one.

That means the 2016 FA class will have LeBron, Durant, Dwight, Noah, Horford, Conley, KOBE BRYANT...

[NovU]

if they can somehow get love without giving up wiggins the cavs have to be the favorites. i expect them to pick up a couple more players like ray to fill the gaps which will make them scary on paper. a lineup of irving, wiggins, james, love, varejao can be deadly. get the right players to come off the bench and they are easily the east favorites if not the league.

I don't expect Wiggins in his first season to be a plus player. Nor LBJ or KD was at age of 19. Wiggins will need to find a way to develop without ball in his hand and with Irving and LBJ who are high usage players and this might be tricky. It will require him to be efficient, and capable when LBJ & Irving are off the floor as the team is in Win-Now mode. He's not the center of the team for the first time and it's interesting how he'll fare alongside the greatest player in the league with overlapping position.

And I think it's extremely unlikely the Wolves will accept a trade from Cavaliers not involving Wiggins.

[Sauru]

if they can somehow get love without giving up wiggins the cavs have to be the favorites. i expect them to pick up a couple more players like ray to fill the gaps which will make them scary on paper. a lineup of irving, wiggins, james, love, varejao can be deadly. get the right players to come off the bench and they are easily the east favorites if not the league.

I don't expect Wiggins in his first season to be a plus player. Nor LBJ or KD was at age of 19. Wiggins will need to find a way to develop without ball in his hand and with Irving and LBJ who are high usage players and this might be tricky. It will require him to be efficient, and capable when LBJ & Irving are off the floor as the team is in Win-Now mode. He's not the center of the team for the first time and it's interesting how he'll fare alongside the greatest player in the league with overlapping position.

And I think it's extremely unlikely the Wolves will accept a trade from Cavaliers not involving Wiggins.

i mention wiggins because of his defense. he wont need to be a big scorer with that line up.

also i agree that the wolves will mention wiggins in every single discussion but they have little bargaining power. he will walk if they dont trade him. i think cleveland should wait a while, see how wiggins plays out before sending him to the wolves for love. closer the the deadline the more they will want to trade love and it will give them time to see how much they like wiggins and more importantly how much lebron likes him

[NovU]

Price of Love is very high. Wait for all the FA market to dry out, the Wolves will start taking offers seriously, as those teams that missed out on big name FAs will chase after Love even harder than now.

The Wolves certainly aren't going to trade Love for Bennett and Varejao. They want Wiggins when it comes to Cleveland. I personally think Love will be worth Wiggins as LeBron needs to win now and within next few years.

[benji]

The Wolves have no leverage, it's get whatever low ball offers they can get or nothing.

[NovU]

Neither do the Cavs without giving up Wiggins. More the Cavs try it'll only make the Celtics overpay even more for Love. I actually like this scenario.

[benji]

Unless everyone reduces their offers. They peaked with the Warriors offer, they aren't going to get close again.

[NovU]

31 year old over the hill David Lee is a peak that the Wolves refused. I'm not too surprised.

[Sauru]

love is good but the price for him will only continue to go down. teams know he will walk and they will need to convince him to resign before making any deals which further limits the offers. the wolves have no power, its take the best offer or watch him walk. if wiggins is on the table they take that deal is a fucking heart beat but the cavs are going to do everything they can to keep him. be interesting to see how it plays out

[benji]

http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=k7rtc74

everybody happy

[NovU]

There's still time, FA just opened up yesterday. Love's price will remain high for at least another few months.

What's on the table right now is Waiters + Bennett + 2 first round picks, lol. How much do you think the Cavaliers can do better without coughing up actual goodies for Love.

[benji]

What team is offering more and Love has expressed a willingness to resign with?

[NovU]

Who says there won't be.

Melo and CP3 were in similar shoes and teams that owned them got more. Love's also a superstar. Bennett and Waiters just won't cut it. What other leverage do the Cavs have? Wiggins.

[benji]

So you're not even using any rumors or making up a hypothetical you're just saying it's possible even though it's probably not because Love's trade value drops with every day he's still in Minnesota unless he changes his mind about staying.

The only cards Minnesota holds are to the extent of which teams Love will likely resign with, same thing with Dwight a couple years ago. And few teams that don't get that commitment from Love are not going to offer the assets Minnesota actually wants.

I feel like I've already gone over this with you during the Dwight Clusterfuck. In Orlando's case they got back exactly two players who had played over 850 minutes in the prior season and both of them were for salary reasons. (And everyone but the players they got from Philly are already gone from the team, Afflalo the only one lasting past a season.)

[Kevin]

Is there a Cavaliers Thread here somewhere?

[NovU]

benji, don't be ridiculous. All I'm saying is that it's unlikely as the Cavaliers have little assets to offer outside Wiggins. Especially at this moment when Love's value still remains extremely high. Get closer to the deadline, why the fucking not.

The Timberwolves are willing to let the market "play out" until LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh make their decisions, according to Yahoo! Sports.

It makes sense. There are going to be multiple teams missing the boat on making a splash in free agency, so those teams may be more willing to overpay. The latest rumor is Love for Andrew Wiggins, but there would have to be other moving parts for that to work. The Wolves keep pushing back their expectations on dealing the All-Star, but they'll be dealing him at some point. Jul 9 - 9:40 PM

Good that the Cavs are trying to land him without giving up Wiggins but is that realistic at this moment? Are you saying it's likely?

[benji]

The Hornets barely got a better deal after their owners nixed the first trade for basketball reasons. And Paul didn't have a list of location demands, he was willing to return but the team was afraid he'd leave as a FA.

Melo did want New York only plus his extension, and the Knicks being infamously run by morons gave in because Melo needed the extra money to feed his family and the Knicks were competing not just against other potential suitors but a time table for an extension.

If Love is willing to sign an extension with the Cavs, then the Cavs can lowball the Wolves and wait to see if Love is still interested in a year after seeing LeBron in action. Then they're out even less.

[NovU]

Well then. Look who's the one that's being hypothetical.

[Sauru]

all i am saying is it would be stupid for the cavs to jump the gun and throw wiggins at the wolves now, they can take their time and let the wolves sweat a bit while also seeing how wiggins plays

[benji]

Right, I'm saying you weren't even offering a hypothetical.

The Cavs have no reason to "overpay" in trading for Love now, because missing out on Love this year is no big deal and missing out on him in FA isn't really a big deal either.

LeBron has signed for the max for two years. This team isn't going to be expected to compete for a ring immediately, LeBron can take it easy for two years after playing five plus seasons in four years as the team wins 45-50 games, gets some playoff battle testing, kinda like the Spurs do. Because LeBron can turn up his effort to 90% and push them over the hump in close games if Irving or Wiggins or whoever isn't delivering that kind of game and his lesser efforts aren't enough.

So in two years you have a still young team that's now got experience and has been winning close to 50 games, LeBron got his max and now he can take a big paycut and they can bring in somebody like Dwight or Durant or Horford or a handful of players instead to put the team over the top, LeBron can step it back up in the playoffs because getting to the conference finals isn't just an exiting potential goal for a young team but short of the bare minimum of success.

The Timberwolves are losing Love, they gain more from sending him somewhere he says he might want to go than forcing him to play for them and then watching him go sign somewhere else just to "win" that battle.

[NovU]

Why did you expect me to be hypothetical when I was stating the fact that it's unlikely. I'd rather discuss whether or not Wiggins's potential is worth not getting Love because if the Cavaliers wanna get serious about getting Love, they'd have to start talking Wiggins. By then there's also possibility the Warriors finally coughing up Klay and make things more interesting. This Love war is still extremely hot.

45-50 wins looks like a decent prediction for the Cavaliers. I have them little less at 43-48 with current roster but that will probably improve slightly after completing the roster with scrubs like Ray Allen and Miller. Wiggins for Love probably would place them in 55-60 wins range if they aren't asked to give up Varejao. I don't know if LBJ wants to wait 2 seasons when he can contend instantly with Love. The Cavs are showing great interests and probably will end up overpaying(?) with Wiggins if they want to get serious about it.

[benji]

The Love "war" isn't even simmering, nobody is going to give up a Klay Thompson for him anymore. That was the best deal the Wolves were going to get talent wise, and it wasn't that good. And they're insisting on including Kevin Martin.

The Cavaliers would have to be as mismanaged as they were before LeBron left to even discuss Wiggins for Love. There's no way LeBron allows that.

Love-LeBron-Miller/Allen-Waiters-Irving wouldn't contend right away because it has no bench or defense.

There's no reason for the Cavs to "get serious" about Love and start getting on their knees and begging for him when Minnesota can either take what they're offered or get nothing in 12 months. If anything they should low ball further so anyone else wanting Love has to low ball even more since they don't have commitments on an extension. The Cavs can wait a year and try to sign Love outright.

I asked you for a hypothetical because you were suggesting there were better deals out there. When we haven't heard of a single one outside the Warriors offer which requires a third team. What's Boston going to offer, Gerald Wallace and Brandon Bass? Jeff Green? Why would they put any combo of Sullinger/Olynyk/Zeller on the table when they don't have a commitment from Love? (Or Rondo.)

[NovU]

I asked you for a hypothetical because you were suggesting there were better deals out there.

Except that I didn't.

[Nick]

Late to the party here, but super classy essay by LeBron / Lee Jenkins.

As for the K-Love talk, i would easily trade Wiggins for K-Love. Why wouldn't you? Wiggin's trade value is probably as high as it will ever be right now. People see him with all this "upside" and star "potential". Truth is, he's very toolsy and athletic but he's not that good. His ball handling is super raw, and his instincts are average. But no doubt he will be able to impact games with his physical tools i guess.
With that said, if Cleveland can manage to send Waiters, Bennett, and a 1st round pick like was rumoured then that would be amazing for them. Waiters is a player who needs the ball in his hands to be effective and that aint gonna happen much with LeBron+Kyrie on the roster. Bennett is expendable if Love is the one replacing him. Wolves get 2 nice young pieces (Bennett looks to be in much better shape now, both physically and mentally), and a pick. Then the Cavs can keep Wiggins, who doesn't need the ball to be effective and projects as a good defender, they will have K-Love to team up with Bron and Kyrie, and their roster would make a lot more sense and be super dangerous.

They just need a rim protector.

So in two years you have a still young team that's now got experience and has been winning close to 50 games, LeBron got his max and now he can take a big paycut and they can bring in somebody like Dwight or Durant or Horford or a handful of players instead to put the team over the top, LeBron can step it back up in the playoffs because getting to the conference finals isn't just an exiting potential goal for a young team but short of the bare minimum of success.

I doubt LeBron takes a paycut.
a) He's never had a max contract before in his career.
b) He has stated he wants to be the first billionaire athlete
c) He's leveraged for a 2 year deal, putting himself in a position to structure a new contract when the new CBA comes out, the old TV deals are renewed, and the salary cap goes up.
LeBron is gonna get paid in 2 years.

[Andrew]

But why give up Wiggins when you don't have to? Why not go for broke and try to pry Love away while keeping Wiggins? With LeBron, Kyrie, and a handful of capable role players...well, you've got a hell of a team, at least on paper.

There's no need to jump the gun and include Wiggins in the deal. The Cavs just got LeBron James back, there's no need for desperation moves. The Timberwolves, on the other hand, have the ticking clock of Love's expiring contract, combined with his complete lack of interest in re-signing. As benji said, the offers likely aren't going to get much better from here on out.

That's not to say it would be unfathomable to trade Wiggins for Love, but with the Timberwolves rapidly losing leverage - and time - there's no need for the Cavs to put him on the table straight away.