Fragmenting the Centers: Trade Talk

Is the upcoming trade deadline going to result in a reconfiguration of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ platoon of big men?

It feels like an entire season ago that Koby Altman turned Cleveland into the fulcrum of the James Harden megatrade, ending up with Jarrett Allen as the big man of the present (and, ostensibly, the future) for the Cavs. May Allen be blessed with incantations of “get that weak stuff out of here” for many years to come.

BLOCK of the Night: March 16th

👉 Jarrett Allen of the @cavs pic.twitter.com/bakokuFPez

— NBA Canada (@NBACanada) March 17, 2021

One analysis of Allen’s work in Cleveland, written by Brad Berreman, explained the outlook on his work from a contractual angle:

Allen is set to be a restricted free agent after the season. By recently reaching the starter criteria, he has boosted the value of his qualifying offer. A qualifying offer that was $5.66 million will now be worth $7.7 million for Allen. Since it allows them to match an offer sheet from another team, the Cavaliers will be levying that qualifying offer without question. A multi-year deal to keep him in Cleveland feels automatic, one way or another.

Allen’s recent free throw percentage has taken some lumps (he’s now averaging 68% as a Cavalier), but he still has the highest field goal percentage in the entire NBA, and is a screen-and-roll machine. So at least the starting role is sorted out.

This leaves Andre Drummond awaiting a trade or a buyout.

Also, I think this much ado about nothing. Aside from my doubt that Drummond gets bought out, I just don’t really see what he does for the Lakers in the playoffs when they inevitably go small. Could be helpful in the regular season, I suppose. https://t.co/RW63tvhZa7

— Sam Quinn (@SamQuinnCBS) March 8, 2021

Soon after the Cavs benched Drummond, Sam Quinn put his NYU-educated shoulder to the grindstone in the deepest dive you are likely to find on the unique difficulties of Drummond’s contract and the prospects for a buyout. In a trenchant and multi-angled piece of writing, Quinn describes some of the perils of the trade market for big men like Drummond, using Hassan Whiteside (currently playing for the veteran minimum) as a cautionary tale. Having gone through multiple possible off-ramps for Drummond and the Cavs, Quinn concludes:

…there is no universe in which Cleveland actually needs to risk losing Drummond for nothing in free agency. The only path that guarantees that the Cavs don’t get anything in return is the one in which they buy him out.

While Drummond’s status is “currently inactive” it might be more accurate to say that he is “awaiting activation,” just with another team, with Cleveland trying to avoid being punctured on the horns of the same organizational dilemma that ended up with Drummond departing from Detroit for a couple of marginal bench players and a second-round pick.

This brings us to JaVale McGee, who arrived in Cleveland around Thanksgiving 2020 along with the Lakers’ 2026 second round pick. There is clearly some trade interest in McGee out there, not least in Brooklyn. Leaving aside who would want his services and what they might send back in a trade, a more salient question might be who, then, is the Cavs backup center? And what might JaVale McKee’s absence do to the Cavs second unit?

Ty Lue played Love at center for stretches in 2017-18. Amadou Sow (writing for King James Gospel) ran a useful experiment on how the Cavs offense might open up by playing Love at the 5 and Dean Wade at the 4.

Report: Kevin Love putting on weight to play more center for Cavs https://t.co/OMhCDwiSVS

— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) November 22, 2020

Of course the problem here is Love’s durability this year, even if J.B. were to entertain such a solution. Like Drummond, it would be unusual for Love to accept coming off of the bench, and, moreover, Love would be a big downgrade from JaVale on the defensive end. Larry Nance Jr. and Dean Wade are listed on the Cavs official roster as Forward-Center.

Looking to rapid, cheap, and more tankable solutions to the backup center dilemma, Marques Bolden played a total of 29 minutes at center (doing so over a span of six games, scoring a total of 7 points) for the Cavs this year. Formerly of Duke University, Bolden was waived by the Cavs on February 24 and is currently having some good games in the G League for the Canton Charge. Thon Maker made some noise in the preseason, but was cut in January to make room for Jarrett Allen and Taurean Prince.

THE CAVS ARE PLAYING ANDRE DRUMMON, JAVALE MCGEE, LARRY NANCE, AND THON MAKER AT THE SAME TIME

— samuel (@samtrayter) January 10, 2021

Expanding our view of former Cavs big man, we look now to Boston, where (NBA champion) Tristan Thompson seems on the downswing. Thompson did not appear in the Celtics’ recent tilt against the Cavs in Cleveland, having been placed in health and safety protocols prior to the Celtic’ contest against Utah. Recent trade scuttlebutt from the ascendant Chris Haynes insists that TT may be on his way to Toronto. While Thompson’s inclusion in the orgy of clickbait and innuendo around the 25 March trade deadline is perhaps inevitable, there are a few key reasons why this rumor may have some credibility. The Celtics appear to be very pleased with the progression of Robert Williams III as their center of the future, and believe he is likely a better Embiid stopper than Thompson is. (Trigger warning: The following content contains Cavs-like uses of the word “growth” unconnected to actual wins.)

Rob Williams has carved out his role this year by showcasing his skills and growth on both ends of the court. pic.twitter.com/snxq7Oy0pW

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) March 18, 2021

Tristan is averaging about 8 points a game and has not been as impressive as hoped against the elite big men of the East, like Embiid or Clint Capella, although presumably he can still lull Al Horford to sleep at will.

For their part, Toronto is probably looking for an upgrade to Aaron Baynes, who is averaging a modest 6 points and 6 rebounds in 20 minutes per night. Baynes may have looked like Thor smashing alley-oops from Matthew Dellavadova at the 2019 FIBA World Cup, and he played some very good ball in tandem with Patty Mills, and Joe Ingalls. But at the moment he seems destined to play out the rest of his career on a declining scale of one-year contracts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iVB7d0nnfU

And to conclude this discussion of big men with a jump into small men filling big shoes in the Big 10, Brad Stevens has had to turn down speculation that he could join John Beilein in making a move from the NBA back into the university athletics sector. Stevens has been linked to the coaching vacancy at Indiana University, Bloomington, an oasis of liberality, music, and international cuisine in an intensely red state whose devotion to the game of basketball is the stuff of legend. Already in his eighth year in the job as Celtics head coach, Stevens reflected on his ties to the Hoosier State and even seemed to give some validity to the rumors, but insisted he wasn’t going anywhere.

If J.B. Bickerstaff weren’t so vested in the Cavs, he might also consider the newly-opened search for a head coach at another Big 10 position at the University of Minnesota, where Richard Pitino was fired this week after eight years in post. J.B. played in that temple of upper Midwestern hoops, Williams Arena, as a guard as a younger man, so if he were looking to make an unusual career move, the Twin Cities would be a familiar place. However, as Jeff Wald reports, the Gophers are thinking about poaching another coach from Cleveland, namely Cleveland State University’s Dennis Gates.

Story: the #Gophers men's basketball program needs a new coach, and several possible candidates are in the NCAA Tournament.

Here's how to see a few of them in action tomorrow. @FOX9 | https://t.co/Mi8mBovZ1s

— Jeff Wald (@JeffWaldFox9) March 18, 2021

Gates has led the Vikings to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009 where a first-round matchup awaits against the University of Houston, the number 2 seed in the bracket and the alma mater of the currently very-well-rested Cavs backup point guard Damyean Dotson.

Career movement seems to be a constant and in this heavily compressed and yet endless year, the NBA is doing its part to keep us all in orbit. We will see how the lineups look as the trade deadline arrives on 25 March. In a coming post we at Cavs: the Blog may take a look at how San Antonio, the upcoming opponent for the Cavs, is navigating now that the Spurs have agreed to sit LaMarcus Aldridge until he is traded. Perhaps he, Kevin Love, and ‘Dre should have a word on the sidelines of the next game, conspiring to again shift the axis of the NBA to one of the inevitable dynastic-seeking coasts of the United States.