What to make of Anderson Varejao planning to sign with Cavs via rest of season deal

It’s been a while since I’ve thought about the Anderson Varejao times with the Cleveland Cavaliers, that’s for sure.

When on the subject of Varejao with the Wine and Gold, as the kids say these days, “It’s been a minute.” That’s for sure.

So why do I bring that up, you ask, then?

Well, the reasoning there has to do with this report from recently on Friday evening from Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium. Per that report from Charania, the Cavaliers are “planning to sign” Varejao to a rest of season deal.

Albeit for Cleveland, they don’t currently have an available roster spot. Although Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com did state in a report that the Cavs “are still working through that but it’s something they have been wanting to do and are hopeful will get done.”

Varejao was most notably an energy piece for Cleveland during LeBron James’ first stint with the club, and was a good defensive piece.

In 12 seasons with the Cavs, which did include him sticking around during the first-post LeBron departure years, so to speak, even while he was oft-injured, Varejao did overall have 7.6 points and 7.5 rebounds in 25.0 minutes per outing. He was a part of two runs to the NBA Finals, back in 2007 and in 2015 in LeBron’s first year back of his second stint with Cleveland, though the latter time his season was cut short.

Varejao was mostly a solid defender, as was noted, and would often sell out for loose balls and with his hairstyle meshed in with the energy he provided in the good ole days for him, was affectionately referred to by Cavs fans as “Wild Thing.” That was definitely fitting for his playstyle.

It’s been a while since Varejao has been in the NBA, though. And after spending a short stint with the Golden State Warriors after being waived by the Portland Trail Blazers after he was acquired by them at the 2016 deadline via three-team deal, he’s had experience playing in Brazil for Flamengo.

So what’s to make of Varejao planning to sign with the Cavs via rest of season deal, then?

It’s terms of what’s to come now, I guess this could be for the leadership element regarding Varejao with the Cavs, as Sam Amico of Forty Eight Minutes and OutKick alluded to.

Varejao is 38, in that realm, so perhaps his presence in these last two-plus weeks or so of the season for Cleveland could be meaningful for guys such as Darius Garland, Collin Sexton and Isaac Okoro.

The Cavaliers are also pretty banged up with their bigs, such as with Larry Nance Jr. seemingly set to miss the rest of this season because of a fractured right thumb and Isaiah Hartenstein recently sustaining a concussion.

That said, when you also consider the Cavs recently signed Mfiondu Kabengele to a rest of season deal, with the next two seasons non-guaranteed, what’s the move here? Fedor also reported that Kabengele will be signed on Saturday, for a side note, for what it’s worth.

We’ll have to see what the Cavaliers do to make this work, of which Fedor’s report stated they have apparently been looking to do with their former energy big.

Pun intended or not, this news regarding a Varejao to-be return to the Cavs, even via short end of season stint seemingly, is pretty wild. Maybe we’ll see him take a few charges for old time’s sake, though.

But as Chris Manning of Fear The Sword suggested, this could very well just be an “end-of-career moment” for Varejao.

We’ll find out soon enough.