2 goals for suggested FA target Josh Jackson if he ends up with Cavs

Previously suggested free agent target Josh Jackson would be a nice addition for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

To be clear here, I wouldn’t fault the Cleveland Cavaliers if they ended up bringing back the expiring Tristan Thompson this upcoming offseason, feasibly via one-year deal.

According to a report from Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor (subscription required), one source of Fedor’s/Cleveland.com said that they believe Thompson being back next season is ’50-50,” so perhaps Thompson will be back.

Fedor did also note how the Cavaliers do have Thompson’s “Bird Rights,” and could exceed the seemingly estimated $8-9 million or so mid-level exception to compensate Thompson without going into luxury tax territory. Somewhat in that realm, KJG’s Mason Cole highlighted Thompson’s leadership as a key reason why he believes Thompson should be re-signed via one-year deal, too, and that’s a reasonable take.

Albeit there does seem to be a good possibility that TT is not re-signed/back with the Cavs next season, and to me, previously suggested Cleveland free agent target Josh Jackson would be a nice pickup.

Jackson could seemingly, per Fedor who suggested Jackson as a target in May in a prior report, be picked up without a full MLE offer and it’d be a “more favorable price tag.”

Now to me, the allure with Jackson is that he did very well in his play with the Memphis Grizzlies G-League affiliate in 2019-20, the Memphis Hustle, of which he mostly appeared with following being to the Grizz by the Phoenix Suns before this now-past season. Plus, Jackson did do well with the Grizz when he did appear with them, which was encouraging for his outlook.

Granted, Jackson did have his reported off-court issues last year, of which you can view more about, via Cole, but Jackson has seemingly gotten himself right off the floor.

With that being the case, and while the Grizzlies could maybe not look to realistically bring Jackson back with a number of other key young pieces for them in the fold, I’d foresee him as a meaningful unrestricted free agency target for Cleveland.

So for the Cleveland Cavaliers, we’ll emphasize two goals for Jackson if he were to be signed by them this upcoming offseason.

The first has to do with Jackson in the overall sense for next season if he were to sign with Cleveland, feasibly via team-friendly one-year deal or perhaps two it’d seem.