The Cleveland Cavaliers have a deal in the works that will bring Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic and first round pick that the Brooklyn Nets gave to the Celtics to the team for Kyrie Irving.
This deal will add depth to the team and must get done because it has insurance for the future. Because of Isaiah Thomas’ hip injury that he suffered on March 15 against the Minnesota Timberwolves, now the Cavaliers need one more asset to get the deal done. They would like Jaylen Brown or Jayson Tatum. Those two players could be assets to develop in case Lebron leaves. Tatum has shown potential to be a star. If you were the Boston Celtics, you wouldn’t want to do this because young players are so valuable. They have the potential to be big for you in the future and they help give you a future period.
I mentioned in the past that the Cavaliers have almost no players under 25 on their team and that hurts their offseason now. If they can obtain that first round pick and a young asset like a Brown or Tatum, all that goes out the window. The Nets were the worst team in the league last year. This means that the pick that the Cavs would get would be a high pick more than likely. Adding a lottery pick that may be in the top five and having an asset that is young like Brown or Tatum means two things for the Cavaliers. First, it means that LeBron and Thomas who are both going to be free agents next year could see that the Cavs have something there and they will want to stay, or secondly, if they do leave then the team would be able to rebuild better than before this deal.
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In my opinion the Cavs are winning in this deal because of the simple fact that they have LeBron James. When you have the best player in the NBA that means if you add more depth to the team then you are flexible. Thomas is called Mr. Fourth Quarter so LeBron can just hand the ball to Thomas and let him shine during those games that are going to be tough to close out. Thomas will be playing with a top tier wing player. That is something that he wasn’t able to do when he was in Boston and was probably the reason it was so hard for the team to score. Now Thomas will be the microwave that he is and have pieces around him that make him better and not the focal point.
This deal does not make the Cavs better on paper because they are losing a top five point guard in the league but what it does is it makes the team deeper. When you take out LeBron, you have players that are experienced and able to score for your team. With Crowder, Jeff Green, Kyle Korver, and Derrick Rose coming off the bench that is a one to four back up line up that can put points on the board and keep the game stable for you so LeBron can actually rest unlike last year when he couldn’t rest. LeBron played 74 games last year and led the league in minutes per game with 37.8.
As said before, if LeBron sees that this team can win games and he doesn’t have to play all the minutes in the game, then a move to LA might be an afterthought. Think about this. Why leave a team that is the best in the east that has depth to go out west to join a team of old players with almost no depth and have to face Golden State to get into the finals?
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This deal could keep LeBron on the team.