As the Cleveland Cavaliers continue to come together and move towards the status of title contender, rumors continue to swirl regarding players they could be interested in adding to the team. Just this week, while making multiple appearances on WKNR, ESPN Cleveland Radio, Brian Windhorst of ESPN mentioned that the Cavaliers have shown interest in Memphis Grizzlies’ forward Tayshaun Prince.
On the surface, the Cavaliers’ interest in Prince makes sense. While many have focused on the need for a big man who can protect the rim, a superior perimeter defender who is also a good three point shooter may be a bigger need. After all, Anderson Varejao and Tristan Thompson have done a solid job protecting the rim, while LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Shawn Marion are all playing more minutes than the Cavaliers would prefer due to the lack of perimeter options behind them.
In theory, Prince fits the bill for what the Cavaliers are looking for. He has always been a tremendous defender (four time NBA All-Defensive Second Team), and even as he has aged his teams are still better defensively when Prince is on the floor. Prince is also a solid three-point shooter, averaging 36.7% from deep for his career, albeit on just 1.7 attempts per game. Prince is also as playoff tested as nearly any player in the league, having played in the postseason nine times with the Grizzlies and Detroit Pistons, making the Eastern Conference Finals six times, the NBA Finals twice, and winning the NBA Championship with the Pistons in 2004.
The problem isn’t what Prince has accomplished in his long career, it’s what that long career has done to Prince. While still a solid defender due to his length and intelligence on that end, Prince’s declining athleticism has caused his rebounding and shot blocking rates to decline, and he now struggles defending shooting guards or quicker small forwards.
Things are much worse on the offensive end. Prince’s two-point percentage has been in decline for years as his waning athleticism caused him to shift from attacking the rim to taking the second-highest percentage of long twos in the league. Prince has also seen his assist rate drop, and perhaps most alarming, he shot just 29% from three and 56.7% from the free throw line (career average of 75.7% from the line) making him one of the worst shooting perimeter players in the league. Prince’s offense was so bad last year that it more than gave up his value on the defensive end, and has now caused him to fall out of the Grizzlies’ rotation. In fact, ESPN’s Kevin Pelton rated Prince 3.8 wins below replacement using his WARP metric, the worst ranking in the entire NBA.
Another problem with trading for Prince is what it would require for the Cavaliers to complete the deal. This has nothing to do with the assets the Cavaliers would have to give up, as the Grizzlies would likely be happy with even a protected second round pick for Prince. Rather, the issues is Prince’s salary. Prince is in the last year of a four-year $28 million contract, which pays him $7,707,865 this season. Despite what you may have read, this contract is too big to fit into the Traded Player Exception the Cavaliers currently have.
There are currently three routes the Cavaliers could use to trade for Prince. They could match salaries using players currently on the roster, (unlikely as all of the players with large enough salaries are part of the rotation and even Dion Waiters hasn’t fallen that far). The second option would be to see if Prince would try to agree to a buyout with the Grizzlies, (also unlikely as the Grizzlies are title contenders).
The final path would be to use the TPE to acquire several players with non-guaranteed contracts and add in the non-guaranteed deal of a player already on the roster (Alex Kirk, Lou Amundson, A.J. Price) to make the salaries match. While this route may be possible (if the league approved it, which they may not as players often have to spend thirty days with a team before they are traded and the league may not allow this to work as one multi-team deal), it seems unlikely that the Cavaliers would go through so much trouble for a player who performed on the level Prince had last season.
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There is some reason to believe Prince could bounce back a bit this year. He battled a variety of injuries all of last season and a return to health should lead to something of a rebound year despite his age. While Prince is not currently a regular part of the Grizzlies’ rotation, his shoot shooting percentages are much closer to his career averages than last year, and he did score 20 points on Friday night against the Spurs. Still, the evidence points to Prince’s time as an effective NBA player being over, particularly on the offensive end. Considering the Cavaliers’ recent improvement on the defensive end, unless they somehow acquire Prince without giving up any assets at all, they are likely better off looking elsewhere to help their defense and depth on the perimeter.