Date: February 8th, 2018
I am not late on this trade in the NBA as of course I had to be on these trades. I am going to evaluate each trade then see who the winners were. First, when I first got notified by my friend in school I was super shocked. I ended lunch at about 12:10 or 12:15 today and there were no trades and I saw my friend just 3 and a half hours later and he told me that the Cavaliers did 3 trades.
So the first of them was that they traded Isaiah Thomas, Channing Frye, and their protected 1st round pick to the Los Angeles Lakers for Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance Jr. I obviously thought that this was a terrible deal for the Cavaliers because they traded Isaiah Thomas who they just traded for Jordan Clarkson. I knew that Isaiah Thomas was a huge superstar last year and I thought that the Cavaliers won the Kyrie Irving trade but then with his hip injury he had a slow start getting back. That was normal for a person coming back from an injury but the Cavaliers needed star talent right away so they had to get rid of him. He was averaging 14.7 points a game and Jordan Clarkson was averaging 14.5 so they were basically averaging the same. Jordan is 4 years younger than Isaiah Thomas and is better for the long run. The Cavaliers knew in an NBA with super teams they needed to rebuild. Isaiah Thomas just turned 29 yesterday and the Cavaliers game him a present but we don’t know if he liked it. As for Channing Frye vs Larry Nance Jr I personally think Larry’s athleticism will help the Cavaliers down low on the post. Channing Frye could shoot 3’s at some time but really wasn’t doing anything and wasn’t getting any play time. Right now I might be wrong but I’ll just have to see how the people in that trade play but right now I am going to say that was kind of a draw. I liked Isaiah Thomas and his ability to play make and shoot so I hope Jordan Clarkson can do better.
The next trade was Dwyane Wade going to his old team the Miami Heat for a heavily protected 2nd round pick. That trade I didn’t understand until the next trade. They had to get that pick to do the next trade and it wasn’t a salary dump because he was getting $2,000,000 and he was a person that I think should be getting more. That trade was terrible for the Cavaliers because Dwyane Wade had a lot of chemistry with LeBron James and he was doing fine but they needed that pick to make the next 3 team deal work.
In the final deal they acquired Rodney Hood from the Utah Jazz and George Hill from the Sacramento Kings. They traded Derrick Rose and Jae Crowder to the Jazz and the Kings got Joe Johnson, Iman Shumpert from the Cavaliers, and the 2020 2nd round pick that the Heat gave them. That is a big trade so I will break it up. For the Cavaliers they got two guards that were upgraded defenders than the guards that they traded so that was a big plus because the Cavaliers are either the worst or one of the worst defensive teams in the league. Giving away Derrick Rose was fine and so was giving away Iman Shumpert. The 2nd round pick was really just trading Dwyane Wade and I think it was okay. I didn’t like trading away Jae Crowder at all though because he was a good defender and could shoot well at times. I think he was the price to pay for those guards.
I think that the Cavaliers were thinking ahead to the future. They did all of this without trading their Brooklyn Nets 1st round pick which was awesome because just in case LeBron James leaves they would have younger stars and players to build around. We still have to think about what is going on in LeBron’s mind because he might not like it and they will have no chemistry with the new players.
Overall I hope that this made the Cavaliers a better team. I hope LeBron doesn’t leave or else I will probably be a bandwagon and like a different team (probably the team LeBron goes to!)