Kyrie Irving traded for Isaiah Thomas

Rose is China material at this point

 

For a team with a singular purpose this season -- to defeat the Warriors -- the Cavaliers have failed with this trade.

Forget for a moment Isaiah Thomas' health problems, his potential matchup with the Warriors is looking really bad. Cavaliers will not be able to hide Thomas on defense vs. Curry or Thompson. Thus, Thomas is a liability wherever you plug him on defense.

Sure, Kyrie was also bad defender, but at 6' 3" he had the size to keep a body and a hand in the shooter's face. Thomas doesn't have that luxury. What spark Thomas provides on the offense is quickly negated by the defensive beatdown he's sure to receive from Curry and Thompson raining threes right over him.

This trade was one step forward, two steps back.

 

I'm amazed at how much people overrate Irving on this board. What makes a pg "championship caliber" or not? The only reason Irving has a ring is because Lebron came back to Cleveland, prior to Lebron Cleveland under Irving has been collecting top 5 picks every year. Now I'm not saying Irving is a total scrub, but so far he hasn't really proven anything would his stock be this high if Lebron hadn't been carrying him to the Finals year after year? How good is he really compared to other pgs that have been toiling on their own like Wall, Beal, Lillard, Lowry etc? I think all these other pgs would have also performed extremely well if they had Lebron to carry them and allow them to shine on the biggest stage year after year.

Personally I think Boston paid too much for Irving, the package they gave out could've given them so many other options including Chris Paul (who is better than Irving and can complement Horford), Butler, George, and maybe even a Davis or Porzingis if they moved quick enough and/or added a piece more to the package. All of those players are better than Irving and although Irving is younger at 25, how much untapped potential does he really have left? Irving is going from a situation where he is on a star laden team to another star laden team, it's not like Harden or Dirk or Nash who all grew to another level because they need to carry a team on their shoulders, Irving is going to a team with no expectations (everyone knows they will get killed by Cleveland in the playoffs) and with two other mature superstars in Horford and Hayward.

As for Cleveland, I really can't praise this move enough. Trading Irving to Boston might seem like they are making their rivals stronger, but in reality it gives Lebron motivation to stay in Cleveland just to keep beating up Irving. Everyone knows Lebron keeps a grudge list, and I'm sure Irving's announcement caught him by surprise and also made him angry because it paints him in a very bad light. With this move Cleveland is telling Lebron "here's your chance to eliminate Irving for the next 5 years" while also keeping up his string of Finals appearances. I think chances of Lebron leaving now drastically lowered because with this move Cleveland was able to improve their team while still keeping pieces for the future. What if next season Davis tells NO he wants out? Cleveland can come in with the pick and maybe Love and then that's a very enticing package for a disgruntled superstar.

Paying IT his max salary isn't a big deal if Thomas comes back healthy. Cleveland already pays a no name like Tristan Thompson the max, what more one of the MVP candidates? Thomas at his max salary is still cheaper than what they would have paid Irving had he stayed because Irving is eligible for the mega max extension.

 

Cleveland's goal wasn't to beat the Warriors, that's like saying your goal is to beat Amazon in sales wtf. Nobody is beating the Warriors because Kevin Durant took a discount to make sure GSW can afford everyone on the team. GSW has 5 stars on their team along with KD who is arguably the 2nd best player in the planet and Curry/Draymond Green are easily top 5/10 superstars. Cleveland's goal was to make the team good enough that Lebron doesn't leave, I think that they succeeded.

The second part of your statement doesn't make any sense, if Irving was able to keep a hand in the shooter's face and body them up then he wouldn't be called a bad defender. Ever seen a bad defender who can always body their targets and keep a hand in their face? That's like saying Harden is a horrible ft shooter except he shoots 84.7% from the line. Irving was already getting the beatdown from GSW so I dunno exactly how much worse Thomas will be abused, it can't be that much worse since Curry and Thompson already made it rain on Irving's head. Sure you can argue that Irving has the body type to be a good defender and he just doesn't want to play defense, but so what it doesn't matter if he can choose to defend better at the end of the day Irving still didn't defend. Maybe Stevens can elevate Irving's game and maybe he turns into the best player in the league, but that doesn't really have anything to do with Cleveland anymore. Cleveland has a joke for a coach, so if Irving stays on the team there is no way he will suddenly become a great defender when he was totally uninterested even during the NBA Finals.

This trade is 2 steps forward, 1st because it makes Cleveland more promising, instead of a team that has maxxed out suddenly they have potential since the pick can be flipped for another star. It also fills out the bench by giving them Crowder, a solid 3nD guy who can play with Rose and the rest of Cleveland's bench, he can even play alongside Lebron since his skillset is perfect for him. 2nd is it gives Lebron motivation to stay in Cleveland and eliminate Irving every year. If Lebron leaves Boston will likely be the Finals candidate from the East every year and Lebron would not like to see Irving get the lime light.

 

I agree in part with roslolian, Irving is a proven winner because he played with Lebron, without Lebron and with Irving as a franchise player the Cavs drowned in lottery for years in the worst East ever. He's a terrific scoring talent, but no defense, can't make his teammates better...we'll see how well he does in Boston, but put him in Harden or Westbrook place and Rockets and Thunder don't even make the playoffs. To me he's not even top 10 in the league tbh, more like top 20, at best.

 

for a guy who's never won jack without lebron hoisting him up, irving is delusional as can be. oh wait, he did win the lottery a couple times without lebron

 

Meanwhile in Cleveland...

 

It's actually not the worst thing that IT is not really healthy, since he's in the last season of his contract. If he cannot perform well, he might be more willing to settle for a less than max contract. This could help the Cavs in negotiations, though when Lebron leaves they should rebuild and IT should want to play elsewhere.

 

Not really. LeBron is leaving the Cavs. Without LeBron, Cavs will return to what they naturally are: A franchise nobody wants to play for if they have a choice.

Therefore, the only way IT stays in Cleveland is they give him the max. Either they lose IT for nothing or get stupid and max him out.

Main value the Cavs got in this trade is the draft pick (which could amount to very little). Crowder has good value, but post-LeBron he does nothing for them.

I have no clue about Ante Zizic, but he'll fit in very well on the very young Cavs 2018/19 squad.

 

You act like Lebron isn't leaving if Irving didn't want out. The pick at WORST is gonna be a top 10 pick, since when did lottery picks amount to very little? If Lebron does leave at least they can start the rebuild with max space, Zizic, KLove, Crowder and pick that's way better than what they had previously...which is just Love.

In a situation where Irving wanted to leave the team and Lebron was already making hints he will also leave the Cavs positioned themselves both for now and the future and also gave Lebron 1 more reason to stay (cockblock Irving). How's that supposed to be a bad move?

 

Now that I think about it more, the "risk" of IT doesn't even matter, he's really just there to stall for Lebron until this year is done. They can use the pick to get Melo, and then Cleveland will have 3/4 of the banana boat team with Wade, Lebron and Melo. Conveniently Cp3 will also be an unrestricted free agent so whats stopping him from going to Cleveland too in FA?

 

they need Harden or someone equal to Harden to beat GSW

 

Is it just me, or does it look like he's in much better shape than before? Maybe it's the clean cut facial hair, but looks like he's leaner.

 

Yeah he does. Looks ready to go! Say what you want, but Irving at least gives you a shot at doing something as opposed to IT who just gives you points.