NBA Trade Deadline: What the Hell just happened?
Ridiculous. Wild. Insane. I can’t believe what just happened. The entire Cavs roster is changed. Everyone was saying all along that the Cavs needed to make a move. Nobody expected that move to be as colossal as this.
For anybody who has missed out, which wouldn’t be surprising seeing how fast this all happened, here are the moves the Cavs made:
1. Cavs trade Isaiah Thomas, Channing Frye and their own 2018 first round pick (not the Brooklyn pick) to the Lakers for Larry Nance Jr. and Jordan Clarkson.
2. Three team trade between Cavs, Kings and Jazz. The Cavs land Rodney Hood and George Hill, Kings get Joe Johnson and Iman Shumpert and the Jazz receive Jae Crowder and Derrick Rose.
3. Cavs trade Dwayne Wade to Miami for a 2020 2nd round pick, which is then sent to Sacramento.
There is so much to process, it’s hard to even collect my thoughts. The IT and Jae Crowder experiment is officially over, which now completely cements the Kyrie trade as a bust, if it wasn’t considered one already. It hurts to lose Channing and Wade, but Channing was one of their best trade assets besides the Brooklyn pick and it sounded like Wade wanted out. Unlike those two, you’re not going to see me crying about Shumpert or Rose being gone.
My initial reaction to all this is a positive one. The Cavs completely overhauled a roster that wasn’t working. Anyone on the team who had expressed any sort of friction with LeBron or the rest of the team is out. Cavs are now way younger and more athletic, one of their biggest weaknesses for this season. Best of all, they were able to do all this without giving up the coveted Brooklyn pick.
Now, obviously, there will be negatives to every deal. There are some big ones here. There are no guarantees this new roster will mesh or work out. These trades didn’t put them on the same talent level as the Rockets or Warriors, not that I thought there was any trade out there that could’ve done that though. By trading for Clarkson and Nance, the Cavs freed up a ton of cap space for the Lakers next year as well. Los Angeles can now afford LeBron and another superstar max contract. So, that could end up killing the Cavs if LeBron decides to leave. Plus, if he does leave, they won’t have anyone to rebuild around besides Kevin Love and the team will definitely suck for an extremely long time.
I will say, they were going to suck for a very long time regardless if LeBron left anyway. Hopefully, this trade can express to LeBron the organization’s commitment to competing for a championship. Dan Gilbert has shown once again money is no object when it comes to improving this team. The Cavs aren’t done making moves either. They now have open rosters spots and will definitely sign someone after a buyout. With Kevin Love out for over a month still, I’m guessing one of those spots will be filled by a center.
Whether you like the trade or not, we should all agree that it’s exciting the team hit the reset button with how awful they’ve been. We won’t know if it’ll work out or not until we see how they play together, but at least this has given us a fresh start for the second half of the season.
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