Tristan Thompson

[The Human Q-Tip]

Completely disagree. Thompson is this team's 'small ball' center and we just witnessed a Warriors team smash through the NBA season and the playoffs by going small. The Warriors beat the Cavs by doing this,

The "small ball" you're talking about was played without Kevin Love, and without Kyrie Irving. That's why we got smashed.

TT was our small ball center by default. I'd say that our ideal small ball lineup against GSW would have included both Love and Kyrie. TT may or may not have started at "center". We might have gone with a starting small ball lineup of Irving, Delly, Shump, Love and LBJ. Delly and Shump would have harassed the hell out of their guards defensively, and we'd have had plenty of outside shooting/scoring, plus LBJ and Love both would have destroyed their opposite number in the post. TT and JR would have been the primary bench guys. Although I can see the argument for going TT, Love, LBJ, Shump, Kyrie. The point is, at full strength, TT is not essential for going small.

Of course, if we had both Kyrie and Love, I think we might have stayed big with Mozgov anyway. We did better with Moz on the floor in those 3 small-ball games than we did with him off it. The problem was that our non-Moz players got worn out from too many minutes, and the lack of Kyrie and Love meant we didn't have enough outside shooting to compensate for their quicker, but smaller, lineup.

Look, I think TT is going to - and should - get overpaid (relative to his value on the open market) simply because he's our only realistic option for a 3rd big man. It is very much like the Hot Rod Williams situation. He was our 3rd big, but we had to overpay him simply because we were over the cap and couldn't afford to lose him without the chance to replace him. The value of both TT and Hot Rod to the Cavs is/was inflated because we have/had their Bird rights.

 

[The Oi]

Does Windy still have access to LeBron?

Did he ever? I feel like he was assigned to write about him but I don't recall ever having the impression he had LeBron's undivided attention or allegiance at any point with either Cavs or Heat.

What was/is the story on this?

 

[edwinx]

The "small ball" you're talking about was played without Kevin Love, and without Kyrie Irving. That's why we got smashed.

TT was our small ball center by default. I'd say that our ideal small ball lineup against GSW would have included both Love and Kyrie. TT may or may not have started at "center". We might have gone with a starting small ball lineup of Irving, Delly, Shump, Love and LBJ. Delly and Shump would have harassed the hell out of their guards defensively, and we'd have had plenty of outside shooting/scoring, plus LBJ and Love both would have destroyed their opposite number in the post. TT and JR would have been the primary bench guys. Although I can see the argument for going TT, Love, LBJ, Shump, Kyrie. The point is, at full strength, TT is not essential for going small.

Of course, if we had both Kyrie and Love, I think we might have stayed big with Mozgov anyway. We did better with Moz on the floor in those 3 small-ball games than we did with him off it. The problem was that our non-Moz players got worn out from too many minutes, and the lack of Kyrie and Love meant we didn't have enough outside shooting to compensate for their quicker, but smaller, lineup.

Look, I think TT is going to - and should - get overpaid (relative to his value on the open market) simply because he's our only realistic option for a 3rd big man. It is very much like the Hot Rod Williams situation. He was our 3rd big, but we had to overpay him simply because we were over the cap and couldn't afford to lose him without the chance to replace him. The value of both TT and Hot Rod to the Cavs is/was inflated because we have/had their Bird rights.

Looking at G5 of the finals, our small ball line-up with TT at C position can almost match up with GSW's until last quarter when all the rotation players were extremely exhausted.

Last season, no matter regular season or playoffs, per BBR stats, out of our top 10 line-ups in overall efficiency/100 poss, the only small ball line-ups in the rank are those with TT at C position. So regarding small ball, TT is ultimately the best big man in our team.

 

[Kizzle]

Completely disagree. Thompson is this team's 'small ball' center and we just witnessed a Warriors team smash through the NBA season and the playoffs by going small. The Warriors beat the Cavs by doing this, and come playoff time this is how every team will front the Cavs. Thompson is going to continue to get ample playing time come the playoffs because he defends and hustles. Love being back allows Thompson to shoulder little to no load offensively while freeing him up to all the dirty work that fans, coaches and GMs love. Love being back just keeps Jones out of the small ball situation.

Some team on the cusp, with a bunch of new cap space next year, is going to see Tristan as that ' championship proven' guy and get stupid. Being unrestricted he will have all the leverage. He will only get more expensive if they fail to get it done this off-season.

I gotta caveat this and say the Warriors beat the Cavs because 3 of our top 5 guys didn't play. The one game we had even just Kyrie we won.

The Warriors got away with going small because we didn't have Love and Kyrie. So I'd have to ask you to rethink the wisdom of saying because it worked against us, it's the new way of the NBA. We're the only team they did that on for a reason.

 

[Cavs Down Under]

I gotta caveat this and say the Warriors beat the Cavs because 3 of our top 5 guys didn't play. The one game we had even just Kyrie we won.

The Warriors got away with going small because we didn't have Love and Kyrie. So I'd have to ask you to rethink the wisdom of saying because it worked against us, it's the new way of the NBA. We're the only team they did that on for a reason.

Kyrie got injured Game 1, we lost that, then won games 2 and 3, without Kyrie and Kevin. BUT, the argument that GSW won with small-ball is slightly skewed as we didn't have K-Love or Kyrie and Role players were exhausted, so in that sense, your argument does have logic

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Looking at G5 of the finals, our small ball line-up with TT at C position can almost match up with GSW's until last quarter when all the rotation players were extremely exhausted.

"Almost" doesn't really cut it. We did better with Moz at center than TT, even against their small-ball line-ups.

Last season, no matter regular season or playoffs, per BBR stats, out of our top 10 line-ups in overall efficiency/100 poss, the only small ball line-ups in the rank are those with TT at C position. So regarding small ball, TT is ultimately the best big man in our team.

The playoffs really don't factor into it because Boston didn't go small enough to matter, and Love was injured for the last two series. So we're really just talking about regular season. And the lineup decisions coaches make in the regular season are different than what they sometimes do in the playoffs. LBJ didn't want to play either C or PF during the regular season, so using him as our small-ball center during the regular season really wasn't an option. Also, when you're trying to space minutes so as not to burn guys out over an 82 game regular season, you sometimes play a guy like TT rather than stacking all the minutes on LBJ and Love. I have a hard time believing that Blatt would have started TT over a healthy Love when GSW went as small as it did.

I'm not saying that TT isn't useful in small ball line-ups -- he certainly is. But we have enough other options -- staying big with Moz, starting LBJ at small-ball center and Love at PF, or vice-versa -- that TT's small ball-utility doesn't justify a $16-18M/year contract.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not a TT basher and I like his game a lot more than some. I'm simply talking about the huge amount he's going to command, which I think is disproportionate to his overall contribution. To put it differently, if we had $16-18/year to spend in the open market on a PF/C who can go small, I can think of guys I'd prefer to spend it on other than TT. But we don't have that option.

TT's Bird rights very clearly have value that we can't afford to lose.

 

[JMoneyYourHoney]

I would've liked to see the Warriors pull Bogut if we had Irving....he would have had a field day at the rim.

 

[SanduskyCav]

Lebron and Co. will be in Toronto with TT this weekend. Not sure if they will talk business or not. Although I hope they do so.

 

[Ohio]

Lebron and Co. will be in Toronto with TT this weekend. Not sure if they will talk business or not. Although I hope they do so.

By "Co." , who do you mean?

 

[kookoo]

Lebron and Co. will be in Toronto with TT this weekend. Not sure if they will talk business or not. Although I hope they do so.

They have a party at Caribana Pool Bar. It's the closest thing to Miami in Toronto. Douches included. Been planned for a long time.

 

[Cavatt]

"Almost" doesn't really cut it. We did better with Moz at center than TT, even against their small-ball line-ups.



The playoffs really don't factor into it because Boston didn't go small enough to matter, and Love was injured for the last two series. So we're really just talking about regular season. And the lineup decisions coaches make in the regular season are different than what they sometimes do in the playoffs. LBJ didn't want to play either C or PF during the regular season, so using him as our small-ball center during the regular season really wasn't an option. Also, when you're trying to space minutes so as not to burn guys out over an 82 game regular season, you sometimes play a guy like TT rather than stacking all the minutes on LBJ and Love. I have a hard time believing that Blatt would have started TT over a healthy Love when GSW went as small as it did.

I'm not saying that TT isn't useful in small ball line-ups -- he certainly is. But we have enough other options -- staying big with Moz, starting LBJ at small-ball center and Love at PF, or vice-versa -- that TT's small ball-utility doesn't justify a $16-18M/year contract.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not a TT basher and I like his game a lot more than some. I'm simply talking about the huge amount he's going to command, which I think is disproportionate to his overall contribution. To put it differently, if we had $16-18/year to spend in the open market on a PF/C who can go small, I can think of guys I'd prefer to spend it on other than TT. But we don't have that option.

TT's Bird rights very clearly have value that we can't afford to lose.

I think most of this post is spot on. I do think they were foolish not to go to the bigs to score for stretches. Mozgov destroyed them at certain points, and they didn't seem to have much in the way of stopping TT either in the post. The trouble was partially that we would score 2 and they would score 3 on the other end. They were also able to foul quote a bit without the Cavs being able to convert the free throws.

Another problem was that there was just no change of pace like they usually got by swapping Love for TT or Moz for TT. That change of pace and play style had really gotten a lot of opponents off guard, and getting TT in at the end of the game to steal rebounds when he was still fresh was not something we could do when playing him basically all game.

I am really not a proponent of TT trying to squeeze the team. If the money that has already been offered is true, he should take that and thank his luckiest of lucky stars IMO. It's a generous offer

 

[#1 in the world]

They have a party at Caribana Pool Bar. It's the closest thing to Miami in Toronto. Douches included. Been planned for a long time.

So far Lebron is 1 for 1 on poolside meetings. Let's hope the Cavs get the better (more cap friendly) end of the stick on this one too.

 

[HurricaneKid]

It seems to me that TT is just attempting to leverage his Klutch Sports connection at this point. There aren't any teams interested in paying him as much as Cle seems happy to offer at this point. I think it is in LBJs best interests, the Cavs best interests, etc to make sure this deal is a more reasonable one than what has been leaked to this point. Not only are the tax consequences enormous at this point, but with a crowded front court we have to maintain some flexibility in case holes need to be filled elsewhere. That means deals have to have value in the open market. Overpaying is especially punitive.

And while I really like TTs game, it fits the role of the energy big better than the heavy min he was forced to play in the postseason. His production wanes as his minutes go up (which is really common for energy bench guys). And its clear that his minutes are going to be reduced next year as there are just more guys who need to play.

5/75 seems more than fair to me. It also provides he and his family generational wealth. Seems far better to me than signing a 7M QO. He would need >4/68M next year to make up for taking such a step. Thats a lot of guaranteed money to give up given his limited skill sets (can't defend the rim and can't stretch the defense).

 

[secund2nun]

Offer him 11 a year and that's it. Let him sign the one year offer. His mins stats will be down next year and so will his value as a result. He has no leverage

 

[TitleTown]

Offer him 11 a year and that's it. Let him sign the one year offer. His mins stats will be down next year and so will his value as a result. He has no leverage

His mins wont be down much at all. He's the most durable big we have, Blatt and LBJ love him, he's great in small ball lineups, and he's great next to both Love and Moz.

His value will continue to increase as he continues to benefit from LBJ's spotlight. And just as we saw overpays based on an increase cap this year, they will be just as big if not bigger next year.

You're wrong, TT has plenty of leverage.