The Cleveland Cap Strappers

It appears that the Cavaliers have spent themselves out of options.

Daniel Zimmermann
Jul 24, 2017 · 5 min read
Mike Lawrie/Getty Images North America

With the unexpected trade demand from Kyrie Irving surfacing, and an unstable situation in Cleveland already brewing, the former top dogs in the East are looking like they are on the brink of a major move and possibly collapse.

With Lebron James’ free agency haunting in 2018, and with accredited sources like Adrian Wojnarowski noting how legitimate a chance there is for him to leave, the Cavaliers need to figure out a franchise direction.

From Woj’s podcast in June -

“Not only is there no guarantee he’s coming back, I’m not sure there’s an expectation he’s re-signing there. I think they feel, I think within Cleveland and around the league, they feel that he’s very much in play to leave again and likely head out West to one of the two L.A. teams. The Lakers could very well be a target.

The possibility of Miami again, based on how they, what that team looks like and where they are. Would Dwyane Wade go back there?

But I think the focus, a lot of LeBron’s — his business interests, his Hollywood aspirations, his media ventures are base out there.

And I wrote this last year and said it and believed it: The minute he won that championship in Cleveland he was liberated to leave again. Now, if he had not won a title in Cleveland and then left again, I think there would be tremendous backlash again. But the fact that he came back and did what he set out to do, which was to bring a title to Cleveland.”

LeBron is more than free to go at the end of the 2018 season, and that, among other things, seems to be on Kyrie Irving’s mind. Irving’s trade demands also comes attached to the report that he doesn’t want to play alongside LeBron James, and that he wants to be the focal point of his own team.

This shocked LeBron as much, or probably more, than it shocked the Twitterverse. It is an odd time, coming off three straight trips to the Finals, to demand you don’t want to play alongside a top 3 player of all time anymore.

However, his desire of being the focal point on a team is fair. For a player of his stature and skill, it makes sense to want to be the Alpha. But historically, teams with Alpha point guards have failed to make any sort of noise in terms of championships.

With the exception of Steph Curry in 2015, it can be argued that a team whose best player is their point guard hasn’t won an NBA championship in decades. The Heat, Spurs, Cavs, Lakers, and Pistons of the 2000-present era were all led by forwards or shooting guards. Even before 2000, the Bulls were a shooting guard driven team by Michael Jordan. A move to a team as an alpha doesn’t bode well historically if Kyrie wants to add another ring.

However, that may not be the primary desire here. His list of preferred destinations that he handed to the Cavaliers management included the San Antonio Spurs, Minnesota Timberwolves, New York Knicks, and Miami Heat.

Now besides the Spurs, none of these teams are capable of getting to the Finals anytime soon. The Wolves have great pieces and will be in the conversation in several years, and the Heat would most likely win 50 games with Irving at the helm, but only the Spurs would provide a chance for Irving to even get out of his conference.

As a career move, though, a trade to New York or Miami would do wonders for his already sturdy promotional value and marketability. If he wants to take over a town and logo, doing so in a megamarket like New York City or Miami is the place for it.


No matter where he goes, Irving seems to be on his way out of Cleveland. While it’s entirely plausible the Cavaliers decline to satisfy his demand and keep him around, the problem will only grow bigger during the season or potentially next off season, with a potential LeBron departure already there to rip any hope from the desolate streets of Cleveland.

The Cavaliers should trade Irving. His stock is among the highest for players in the league, and the Cavs could net some assets that really set them up for life post James. Or, they could go the route of trading win now for win now — an Irving for Melo swap, or something along the lines of an established star for star.

The Cavaliers are going to be paying around $175 million for their roster as it stands, due to being $40 million over the salary cap as well as being blessed with the repeater tax, which applies to teams who are in the luxury tax for multiple years in a row.

Trading Kyrie Irving will do nothing to lighten that load. It’s almost certain that whatever package they would take back in a deal for him would be a big contract or several sizeable deals that would likely match or exceed his 2017–2018 payroll.

The Cavaliers could trade him for Melo and picks, and get Melo off the books next summer. But if Melo were to come to Cleveland, it likely wouldn’t be as a rental, not unless LeBron James makes it be. The likely scenario is both would leave next summer, leaving the Cavaliers with more than a Durant sized hole.

They could trade Kevin Love’s contract, but this again would result in one of two things — equal money coming back, or sacrificing a major piece to win now. Neither of which help the Cavaliers deal with the long term problem of sustaining relevance.

Other than that, the contracts of Tristan Thompson, Kyle Korver, J.R. Smith, and Iman Shumpert may look tasty to opposing teams in a Cleveland firesale next July, but for now have minimal trade value.

Financially, the Cavs are as close to screwed as you can be. They can’t prepare for a massive rebuild without giving up any chance of keeping the core together, which means they can spend a lot of money and probably lose their two best players, or they can spend little money and definitely lose their best players.

It’s a job that David Griffin might have been able to deal with — but one that hurriedly hired new Cavalier GM Koby Altman will struggle with.

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