Wilson Chandler Should Be A Trade Target For The Cleveland Cavaliers

With a history of playing his best when paired with another combo forward, LeBron James should be calling David Griffin up about forward Wilson Chandler.

Adding a combo forward to the roster to pair with LeBron James will make the Cleveland Cavaliers even more formidable. Over his NBA career, James has played well next to combo forwards Antawn Jamison, Shane Battier, Rashard Lewis and Shawn Marion.

In All-Star play and Olympic competition James’ game fits seamlessly with Carmelo Anthony, another combo forward. Wilson Chandler is a player whose style is similar to all of the aforementioned players.

Wilson Chandler, following injury and with a hefty contract on a rebuilding team, is an ideal trade target for the defending NBA champions.

By trading Chandler to the Cavaliers, the Denver Nuggets solve their roster imbalance and get out of paying $11.2 million to a 29-year-old player returning from hip surgery. Chandler was valuable for the Nuggets in 2014-15 with averages of 13.9 points and 6.1 rebounds and knocking down an impressive 139 threes.

Nonetheless, the Nuggets are better off dumping his contract and going after a tandem of high-profile free agents during the summer of 2017.

From a list that could include Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, Gordon Hayward and Paul Millsap, all of these max-contract worthy players could feasibly choose the Nuggets if they’ll be playing with another max-contract superstar.

Hayward and Millsap seem like the most likely duo from off the list, but perhaps Paul could be convinced to play with Hayward or Wade in Denver. If the Golden State Warriors have some sort of major rift, perhaps the megastar tandem Curry and Griffin could form a star-studded duo in the Mile High City and try to take a talented young roster to the mountaintop.

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By trading Chandler the Nuggets also free up playing time for a young prospects such as small forwards Will Barton and 15th overall pick Juan Hernangomez.

Last year, Barton took a big leap forward as an NBA player by doubling his scoring average to 14.4 points per game after scoring 6.8 points per game the previous season. Rookie Hernangomez averaged 10.2 points and 8.2 rebounds per game in Summer League action.

After the return of forward Danilo Gallinari, the Nuggets are set at forward. Last season, Gallinari averaged 19.5 points per game while shooting 36.4 percent from the three-point line.

The team completes their foursome with a fearsome force near the rim, Kenneth Faried, “The Manimal.” Last year, Faried averaged 12.5 points and 8.7 rebounds per game. With an average of 3.5 offensive rebounds per game, Faried is invaluable as a power forward who gets his team second opportunities.

Chandler doesn’t fit in with the forward group, nor does he demand minutes over third-year pro Gary Harris who averaged 12.3 points per game last season, or the Nuggets seventh overall pick Jamal Murray, who averaged 19.6 points and 5.0 rebounds per game in Summer League action, at shooting guard.

The Cleveland Cavaliers would be the perfect buyers if they trade Mo Williams because Williams could retire and save the Nuggets millions of dollars. Williams could also decide to play one more year in Denver, and have a strong chance of receiving regular playing time behind second-year pro Emmanuel Mudiay with 34-year old Jameer Nelson being the only other point guard on the roster. Mudiay isn’t a strong jump shooter and Nelson’s ability to score dwindles with his age and decreased athleticism.

Before Williams’ thumb injury, he was on fire for the Cleveland Cavaliers and consistently put up big numbers at the beginning of the season. As a spot starter for the Cavaliers while the team waited for Kyrie Irving to return from injury, Williams was an aggressive scorer from all levels of the court and it led to him scoring 15.6 points per game on 53.1 percent shooting from the field and 34.9 percent from the three-point line in the month of November.

In addition, Williams dished out 4.5 assists per game and was one of the big reasons the team came into the All-Star break on pace to be a 60-win team despite missing Irving for the first 29 contests of the 2015-16 NBA season.

The Cavaliers have a trade exception from the Anderson Varejao trade that allows them to absorb $9.3 million in salary like a team with cap space would be able to absorb the value of their contract with cap space. The issue is that a franchise with that amount of cap is a team preparing to rebuild and Chandler is not a player a rebuilding team spends $11.2 million on.

James plays well with floor-spacing combo forwards because it gives him the liberty to switch at will offensively and defensively and take advantage of his individual matchup. Chandler won’t be starting beside James, unless there is an injury to Kevin Love, but having Chandler as an option at either forward spot gives Tyronn Lue the ability to use Love, Richard Jefferson or Mike Dunleavy Jr. at the other forward spot.

This will allow the Cavs to play James at the point guard position as Irving rests, which is important for a team that may only have a rookie point guard to rely on as Irving’s backup.

The Cavaliers won’t have to be a team that goes “small” or “big” in their match ups with multiple, versatile 6-foot-8 players on the roster. In the NBA, coaches say that to win they have to set the tone early as a team and establish their team identity and style of play in the matchup. By adding a productive and versatile combo forward to their roster, the Cavaliers will consistently be able to play their game for an entire 48 minutes.

For the Cleveland Cavaliers, their key to repeating as NBA champions lies in their experience, positional versatility and LeBron James.

With Love, Channing Frye and Tristan Thompson in the frontcourt the team can provide any opposing center with a mismatch.

With Irving and James running the show at point guard full-time, the Cavaliers will have the style, substance, and experience at that position to minimize their potential reliance inexperienced players such as Kay Felder and Jordan McRae. Those two positions, more than the other three, are where players can provide opponents with biggest mismatches.

Trading for Chandler allows the team use James more as a facilitator, enhances the teams depth on the wing, and gives Lue a great forward option to pair with James.

As James ages, putting him in position to succeed will be as important as James putting the Cavaliers in position to succeed. The big-framed athlete in Chandler can play on the wing or in the paint with equal effectiveness and will minimize the amount James has to play power forward while increasing the amount that James can play point guard.

The Cavaliers could use another forward-center to keep James from having to play that position. The team seems to have pegged Chris Andersen as the team’s rim protector and Thompson and Frye do a decent job at it, so a player like Boris Diaw would be beneficial as a power forward to get minutes behind Love.

The Cavaliers could find a fit in Boris Diaw, whose fit on the Jazz is questionable.

Though Diaw fits as an additional playmaker and backup center for the Jazz, he won’t receive much playing time behind Hayward, Derrick Favors, Rudy Gobert and Trey Lyles which minimizes his effectiveness as a playmaker. Diaw has a spot in the frontcourt, but it’s a small one. If it gets any larger, the drop in defensive play from Favors, Lyles, and Gobert to Diaw could cause Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder to sit Diaw on the bench anyways.

Iman Shumpert is more of a fit as he can slide down to small forward to adjust to the potential of point guard Raul Neto. The Jazz will receive Shumpert as they attempt to continue the defensive play that made the team a surprisingly formidable team in the league last year.

Alec Burks, Dante Exum and Rodney Hood are the primary guard trio for the Jazz and after acquiring George Hill to solve their point guard conundrum, Burks or Exum could be on the trading block on the future. Shumpert provides clarity to the Jazz roster, projecting to fit in as a guard with a clear niche and position as a defensive-minded shooting guard.

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By trading Shumpert, the Cavaliers lose a versatile defender on the wing, but opens up space for dependable veterans such as Jefferson and Dunleavy. Shooting guard DeAndre Liggins is also a defensive minded guard and is a better distributor than Shumpert. Liggins rounds out a shooting guard group that should include sharpshooter J.R. Smith in addition to McRae.

The Cavaliers would acquire a player who specializes in ball movement with forward-center Diaw. He will come off the bench for the Cavaliers along with fellow veterans Jefferson, Dunleavy, Chandler and Frye as the team uses James as the nominal backup point guard, and tries not to lean too much on inexperienced players such as Felder or McRae to be core players and key distributors from off of the bench.

With this three-team trade, each team puts itself in position to be successful for years to come. The Denver Nuggets will dump enough salary to go after a pair of max-contract players in free agency. The Utah Jazz add a defensive stud to fortify the abilities of an outstanding defensive unit. The Cleveland Cavaliers live and die standing by their positionless identity as they try to repeat as NBA champions and will add two more positionless players to its roster

Do you like the idea of acquiring Wilson Chandler and Boris Diaw? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section or follow and tweet us @KJG_NBA.