You want to be careful revealing anything from the sanctity of the group chat.
Yet at risk of breaking the code, something both interesting and common occurred in the King James Gospel group chat prior to the Cleveland Cavaliers' Tuesday night NBA Cup showdown with the Washington Wizards. One of our writers typed the following:
"I think the Cavaliers are facing a future teammate of theirs tonight."
That statement was in reference to Kyle Kuzma, a veteran forward and commonly thought to be the best player on the Wizards. He is also a player who has been linked to the Cavaliers multiple times as the combo forward they need to connect the team's two bigs with their two small guards.
Rumors are swirling right now that Kuzma may be available for trade; given that the Wizards are now 2-17 after the Cavaliers handed them their 15th-straight loss, it's likely that every veteran on the roster is available for trade. And the Cavaliers could reasonably be in the market for another forward, someone who can play the 4 next to Evan Mobley or Jarrett Allen when the Cavs get into their rotation. Georges Niang is likely not the answer for a contender in the playoffs.
At this point, however, we have exhausted every possible shred of argument for the Cavaliers trading for Kyle Kuzma. He is a player that the team must avoid at all costs, and in trading for him they very likely would take their title chances and utterly destroy them.
Trading for Kyle Kuzma would be a disaster
Kyle Kuzma is in his eighth season in the league, and he has established himself as a player who is able to take a lot of shots. That's not necessarily as negative as it sounds; it takes a lot of skill to even get shots off against NBA defenses.
As you can probably expect, however, Kuzma has proven himself wholly unable to make those shots he is taking. The highest that he has ever shots from 3-point range was 36.6 percent, as a rookie, and in four seasons in Washington he has shot just 33.4 percent.
This season? He is all the way down at 27.6 percent from deep, yet he is still taking 4.8 such shots per game. He is also hitting only 48.8 percent of his 2-point shots, a truly frigid number for a player of his size.
Cleaning the Class tracks a statistic called "points per shot attempt" which scores a player on how many points they score per 100 shot attempts. Kuzma scores just 97.4 points per 100 shots, which is literally the worst number in the NBA.
The Wizards are obviously struggling for more reasons than just Kuzma, especially since he has played in just 12 games this season as he battles nagging injuries, but Kuzma has been their worst regular player. He is combining incredibly poor shooting accuracy with incredibly high shooting volume, and it's destroying Washington on offense.
He's certainly not making up any ground on defense, either. His steal and block percentages are microscopic for the size player he is, and he plays a form of matador defense where he waves his arms a bit to make it look like he is defending as he allows opposing players to do whatever they want around him.
Terrible offensive player? Check. Terrible defensive player? Check. Terrible decision-making and a complete lack of understanding of how to take a good shot? Check.
Expensive contract? Check! Kyle Kuzma makes $23.5 million this season and is under contract for roughly $41 million over the next two. That's not a cripplingly bad contract, but it's a lot of money for the Cavaliers to pay someone unless they are a clear-cut fifth star for this group. Kuzma doesn't fit the bill.
To even trade for him they would have to move on from Caris LeVert or Max Strus; the former is better than Kuzma at everything Kuzma is trying to do, but is also a great shooter and defender. Strus is injured but fits the Cavs' needs much more than Kuzma.
Kyle Kuzma puts up points, which is attractive to many in the NBA even still. He still has a little bit of shine left from the Los Angeles Lakers' 2020 championship. But Kyle Kuzma is a player actively damaging the Wizards' already meager chances of winning, and he would be a terrible fit on the Cavaliers.
It's possible that Cleveland and other contenders are looking at Kuzma and seeing the possibility for a recent Wizards trade. Last year, the Dallas Mavericks traded for Wizards center Daniel Gafford, and he started for them and was a key piece of their run to the NBA Finals.
Unfortunately, teams need to be looking at Kuzma and remembering a different Wizards trade. The reason Kuzma is in Washington in the first place is that the Los Angeles Lakers traded him for Russell Westbrook, a player who was so bad on both ends of the court that it destroyed a contender. The Lakers haven't recovered since.
Stay away, Cleveland Cavaliers. Kyle Kuzma is radioactive and they need to avoid trading for him at all costs.