Camden wrote:
They would be getting great value for that No. 1 pick, considering he's far from a sure thing and while he has a high ceiling, he could just as easily bottom out and become a better version of Corey Brewer. You trade guys like that plus other unknowns for a star to lock up an NBA trophy 10 times out of 10 in my book.
Waiters' draft class is over. I couldn't care less if he was picked No. 4 or No. 40. I do realize the talent he has, though, which is why I'd like to get him and see if Flip could get the best out of him. His value around the league though isn't that desirable. He's known as a locker room cancer and a chucker, while already being slightly undersized for his position.
The reason the rest of the world is on the fence about Love/Wiggins is because the majority is absolutely clueless as to how good Love is. They think he's just a stat stuffer on a bad team who's never made the playoffs because he's just not that good, which is so far from the truth as you should know. Intelligent basketball minds know his ability, though, and that's what I'm working off of.
This isn't a situation that should be compared to trades in the past. This is different for a couple reasons:
1) LeBron has reached out to Love about playing with him. LeBron gets what LeBron wants.
2) According to NBA rules, salary in a trade has to match or be somewhat close (don't kill me if the wording/length of the rule is off). Cleveland doesn't have other contracts to make this trade work other than a Bennett, Waiters, Varejao or Thompson. Varejao is practically off the table since that's LeBron's buddy. That leaves three former high first round picks with salaries around $5M each. If you're Cleveland, there's not much you can really do except give up several, if not all, of those young players to get this trade to match salary-wise. Even if they sign Wiggins today and wait this out a month, two of those young players + Wiggins will still need to return to Minnesota.
"Personally, I think they can get Love without giving up Waiters and Wiggins. So if they give up both... they "lose" the trade. Make sense?"
And how do they get Love without trading for him? Even if they wiped their roster clean except for Irving and LeBron next summer, they'd still be cutting it close on the cap (in which they should have just made the trade in July). Not to mention Flip would probably trade Love elsewhere (Golden State) before that time so that would difficult some things as well. There is absolutely no way Love lands on the Cavs without them trading for him, and to do that it will take Wiggins ++.
PS: I can't remember the last time a team traded for a star player, won a championship because of that trade, then looked back at the trade as them losing it. The whole goal of building a team is to win a ring. If that trade was the necessary factor in putting them over the top, then it was a grand success and nobody in Cleveland would give a shit about Wiggins/Waiters/Bennett/Thompson being in Minnesota.
Well put. To go further with that first point. Just the other day ESPN had a segment that mentioned how the Wolves actually have underachieved. They said the Wolves should have been a 50 win team last year, but had a lot of bad bounces among other things. We were in A LOT of close games and sure some of that could come down to Love, but IMO that's more about team defense which I put a chunk of that on Martin too.
Lebron wanting him is a nice bit of leverage too, especially when they can't sign him as a FA as you pointed out.
