Differing philosophies for Cavaliers and Indians still lead to same goal
Cleveland Cavaliers’ philosophy: Win now at all costs.
After LeBron James left in 2010, the Cavaliers organization was left in shambles and for four years were the bottom feeders of the NBA. Although they drafted players such as Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson, they struggled to find any sustained success from 2010 through 2014.
However, once James made the move from the Miami Heat back to Cleveland, Gilbert opened up his wallet and started throwing money around. Now, essentially, no trade or any move for that matter was considered to be off the table because of the Cavaliers willingness to spend money.
Kevin Love received a five-year, $110 million contract extension with the Cavaliers in 2015. The summer before that Kyrie Irving was given a max extension of five years and $94 million.
As the team began to take shape in LeBron’s first season back, the other core pieces began to get paid as well. Tristan Thompson held out for a new deal and eventually got a five-year, $82 million deal right before the 2015-16 season.
Cleveland Cavaliers
Backup guard Iman Shumpert was also given a four-year, $40 million deal. Once-troubled sharpshooter J.R. Smith also got a four-year, $57 million extension after the Cavaliers won the title in 2016.
Not to mention LeBron will earn $33 million this coming season for the Wine & Gold.
Simply, the only thing that is preventing the Cavaliers from spending even more money was the salary cap and salary tax limitations set up by the NBA.
Where the Cavaliers will be in trouble is the fact that if their team falls off and becomes one of the worst in the NBA again, they will have no draft picks to help better their team.
While the NBA does prevent trading 1st-round picks in consecutive years, the Cavaliers have mortgaged their future to win now. The highs the team, the fanbase and the city as a whole are experiencing now is something they will always remember.
However, this is all set up to be a dramatic drop-off after this run for the Cavaliers is all over. We could go from witnessing the best years of Cavaliers basketball to the worst years of basketball in a very short amount of time.
It could very well take a decade or more to right the ship after LeBron is no longer apart of the franchise. For all we know there could be permanent damage that has already been done by Gilbert and the front office, which could have the Cavaliers reeling for the next quarter century.
The counter-argument to that though is the fact that the Cavaliers organization recognized their window of opportunity and pounced on it. They could very well have sacrificed their success of the franchise’s long-term future, but in the moment, it was worth it for the feeling of winning a championship.
For all the flack that Gilbert receives (some of it deserved) he has always backed up his talk with his checkbook. Thanks to a willingness to spend large amounts of money, Gilbert put a team on the floor that ultimately brought a championship to Cleveland for the first time in 52 years.