If we haven’t said the words out loud, most of us have thought about it: Do the Cavs need to make a trade in order to win the championship?
I’ve offered implicit clues as to what my opinion on this subject is since the season started in October.
To recap:
The Cavs are the #1 seed in the entire NBA and have the best point differential of anyone in the league (+7.38). This means that, as of today, they have a very good chance to win the championship. Somewhere less than 25% but as far as chances to win championships go, that’s about as good as it’s going to get.
The Cavs also look good match-up wise against the Lakers and the Hawks. It’s hard to argue definitively one way or another when it comes to the Celtics and the Magic, given the fact that the Cavs have only played each of those teams once, but the Celtics look very old. The Magic still concern me, although they have weaknesses - poor guard play (so far) and no team leader, to name two; we may have a better sense come Friday morning, after Thursday night’s contest on TNT has gone one way or the other.
I’ve noted previously, as well, that I would feel more comfortable with the shape of the team going into the playoffs if they had an extra high-efficiency scorer. This stems from Mo’s streakiness, the average to below average production of the rest of the starting line-up, and the poor adjusted +/- numbers of everyone besides LeBron and Andy.
These stats, of course, can improve as the season goes along. But right now this team is built around LeBron as commander-in-chief; he’s so great that the other guys only have to be decent … and right now, that may actually be the best way to keep LeBron in sync. I suspect it’s how he likes it.
Having said all of that, it’s obviously more important to peer inside the mind of Danny Ferry and consider what he’s thinking. Nobody in the Cavs organization gives a shit about what I think, after all. Nor should they. So here’s a rundown of Ferry’s major considerations as he approaches the deadline…
- If Z is traded, will he and his agent negotiate a buyout with the receiving team and come back to Cleveland in 30 days?
- Am I okay with allowing one of my biggest assets - Z’s expiring contract - to vanish after the season? Taking his money off the books won’t bring my team underneath the salary cap this summer.
- If I have to, will I give up J.J. Hickson now - who could be two or three years away from reaching his potential - to acquire championship-level talent?
- Can I go to my owner and ask him to take on money now for a player who will either be overpaid under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (which, barring a lockout, will start in 2011), or will potential kill my team’s salary structure if the league moves from a soft cap to a hard cap?
- Will I be the GM of the Cavaliers at the start of next season?
Notice that I didn’t include, “Will LeBron James be a Cavalier in 2010-11?” This is because the ramifications of Bron not re-signing with the Cavs this summer would be gargantuan, not just for the team, but for the entire organization. At that point, Ferry would essentially have to go to the nuclear option anyway - meaning every bet in the universe would be off.
I can only come up with hypothetical answers to these questions, of course. But here goes, using what I believe is solid logic.
The Z buyout issue is dicey, given Z’s spat earlier in the year with Coldstone over his pseudo-benching in the record-breaking game against the Mavericks and the uncertainty involved with relying on one of your competitors, i.e. the team that Z would be traded to, trustworthily revealing whether or not they would try to buy Z out.
This is, ultimately, an unknown, even for Ferry, since buyouts can’t be negotiated prior to trades. I have to believe, however, that Ferry won’t move Z unless he’d bet his life that he’ll come back - the Cavs desperately need his length for likely match-ups in the playoffs.
The idea of losing Z’s contract as an asset at the end of this season is also complicated. Teams only have so many opportunities to use cap space, and when you’re paying the luxury tax, your version of free agency is trading expiring contracts. I think that Ferry has to feel like he could possibly create some sign-and-trade options this summer (by using assets like Mo, Danny Green, Boobie, Anthony Parker, Jamario Moon, even Christian Eyenga), but there’s no doubt that the biggest, simplest asset is Z’s contract - and it’s in the chamber right now. The clock is ticking. You don’t have forever to fire it.
As for JJ, when you’re the GM of a team that’s playing for a championship, you never think about what a player might become in three years, not if you can get a player that you know is better than him right now. This one, to me, is easy - Hickson is gone if it becomes necessary.
The issue of the new CBA is a big one … but it’s completely surrounded by uncertainty, especially since Ric Bucher recently reported that the owners’ pitch actually has a clause in it that would not allow old contracts to be grandfathered in. Essentially, what this means, is that salaries negotiated under the current CBA would be revised to fit into the salary structure of the new CBA. In other words, contracts like Andre Iguodala’s - which has 4 years and about $62M left on it - would become much less of an issue because they would be reduced.
In fact, it’s that word - uncertainty - that has to rule the day for Ferry, particularly since he’s not under contract for next season. I don’t know if this has something to do with LeBron’s pending free agency - would Ferry not want to be in Cleveland if he doesn’t have LeBron? If Ferry isn’t given an extension by the end of the season, would the Cavs even have a GM when LeBron becomes a free agent (I don’t know how far out, in terms of which day of which month, Ferry’s contract runs)? Maybe it’s up to Dan Gilbert, who could want to fire Ferry if he isn’t able to keep LeBron in Cleveland (I know one thing, Gilbert would probably prefer to pay a lot less for a GM in that situation).
The bottomline is that nothing is certain. Nothing can be predicted. And within that framework, Danny Ferry has to make a decision to trade or not to trade.
The only thing we can bet on for sure is that if Ferry believes a trade can be made that will increase the Cavs’ chances of winning a championship this year, then a deal is going to get made. As I said earlier, teams don’t get to play for championships forever - you do everything you can to try and get one when you have a shot.
And those are the parameters that I think will dictate whether or not we see “Cavs trade Z for…” on Twitter prior to February 18th.
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