[Windhorst] Cavs payroll w/tax now scheduled to come in at $170+ million. It will be 2nd highest all time. Nets paid $197M in '13-14 including $90M tax
Hard to call anything too high anymore with the cap situation. Thompson is a one-of-a-kind player, but I don't know if you can pay him like a cornerstone and get away with it for long. I'm not surprised he didn't get what he was looking for, but that's still a lot of money.
By "one-of-a-kind" you must mean one-dimensional. Stupid Cavs. If they are lucky, he might be tradeable if the cap grows to $105 million in 2017.
why not just trade for reggie evans? same player for a microscopic fraction of the price! AND HE GRABS PLAYERS BALL SACKS WHEN HE BOXES OUT!
Let me guess, the Cavs are still not hard capped? This is a a nasty business, I'll you that much. How can anyone on the team still like this guy? He literally refused to play with his team and would give up on his team mates over money. That's what it boils down to for me.
Us (the players) vs. them （management) mentality? I stated in another post, there's absolutely ZERO harm from a basketball perspective to paying Tristan Thompson more than $80 Mil given who Cavs have locked up and the length of time they are. All it does is save Dan Gilbert some money, which Lebron (and probably Kyrie and KLove) by the virtual being capped by the max contract limit, is already saving him. So if it was the players, they should be expecting Dan Gilbert to open up the wallet and sign Tristan to the max. It only lasted this long because Dan Gilbert was cheap.
I'm also not saying Dan Gilbert is actually cheap (he's paying $170 Mil to field a basketball team this season), but rather it's pretty easy to see how players would side with Tristan in the current scenario.
Literally, all Thompson's good at is guarding in space and offensive rebounding. Mediocre post defender, no real offensive moves, bad passer, no shooting range beyond 10 feet, and he wasn't even a great finisher until LeBron showed up. Oh, and playing him and Mozgov together completely gums up the Cavs' offense, and neither he nor Love should be playing more than 5-10 minutes per game at the 5. Insanity.
Basically, Lebron left Miami so he could play GM in Cleveland? You know he's not going to have much control with Riley in charge.
Very expensive and overpaid deal, BUT they needed to keep Thompson. Considering his defense, rebounding, and energy in the game. He's a fairly above-average player and it gives them alot of depth. Salary cap-wise, this is a nightmare, but they are in a win-now mode --- championship or bust. So, it was worth it. He's still pretty young and he makes up for what Kevin Love is missing...defense, garbage work, and intensity. I think Thompson on the right team would've peaked as 14-16 ppg with 10+ rebounds and really good defense. At some point, I think he would live up to that contract around Year 2-3, admirably on another team. Next season, with the deals going up to 25 - 30+ MM, it may be an affordable deal, down the road.
