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j/c...

Great game. Great effort.

Getting rid of the dead weight and cliques was exactly what this team needed to breathe new life into the team.

Nance Jr. played more minutes than TT tonight and was on the court when it mattered most.

51 points off the bench tonight.

Pretty good for a team that just got thrown together.

No matter who starts, I bet that Nance closes out games as we go forward. He is already the best defender on this team, and impacts shots.

JR looks renewed with the new guys. Total difference.

Our 3 top +/- guys tonight ......

Clarkson +16
Nance Jr +14
Green +14

Followed by Korvar (+9)and Hood.(+8)

No one in the starting 5 had a positive +/-. The bench brought this win home.

Nice post, bro.

Great point about it isn't so much about who starts but instead it is more about who finishes.

vers lover update:.


T. Thompson C 23:08 1-2 0-0 0-0 -6 1 5 1 0 0 1 3 2

L. Nance Jr. 24:52 5-10 3-6 0-0 +14 8 9 2 3 1 0 3 13

one makes 1.1 million, and the other 16million.. yep vers, we just can't win without TT...lmao
no matter how much you try to say he impacts a game or has a role...he really doesn't and I'd bet my entire retirement on the fact that if TT had a friendlier contract he'd be gone

Nice post. I just got done saying how well Nance played and how poorly TT played.

Crawl back in your hole. Your negativity sucks ass!

Cedi starting is fine until love comes back. Right now he needs the minutes more than anybody else on the team, especially since for us to win, we’re gonna have to use our bench like GSW does and not rely on our starting 5 playing 44 minutes a game in the playoffs.

We have a deep team w/all kinds of rotation options. It's great we can mix and match so many guys into the lineups.

This team is going to be something to behold.

Lebron played way too much ISO ball tonight, it really hurt that unit. They were already offensively limited. I think after the ASB we will swap one or two of the new guys with the starters to be a little more balanced. Anytime you get 51 points from your bench is balling. Funniest thing is it is all without our 2nd best player. My only fear would be not enough shots for everyone. I don't envy Lue in that regards when he has everyone at his disposal, some of these vets like korver and green are probably going to see a significant minutes reduction

yep, play the crap out of Cedi now, then you should have a good idea exactly where you can play him in the playoffs. I do think we need to really watch lebrons minutes down the stretch. Lue rode him into the ground the first half of the season because it was almost necessary. I think we could have pulled this one out with him on the bench tonight, thats a huge deal for us

anyone else find it funny that IT and crowder both trying to throw shade? they must be real mad that their one chance at playing for a ring is done. Crowder must need to be on teams with no expectations or aspirations. I mean does he really thing the Jazz are legit in the west?

I just read that Nance had 9 rebounds, and 8 of them were offensive boards! Man, that's just crazy!

what's funny is he is so slinky and such a quick jumper, he could just beat adams to the ball. You can tell Nance learned to rebound the right way..his rebounding to close the game out was huge

Yeah, he was really active.

And his switches on D were impressive.

I always admired his athleticism, but he is coming across as very cerebral player. He seems to have a deeper understanding of the game than most guys. I never noticed that before.

Great acquisition.

Time for the negative crap to stop and get behind this team!

Don't look now, but Toronto quietly taking over the East

it is funny, especially since Crowder wouldn't have got moved if he performed anything close to how he played in Boston.

IT throwing shade doesn't mean anything anymore. he had his 15 minutes of fame, but he's a guy more suited coming off the bench.

oh well.

Superior effort by an energized team.

Clarkson on the floor with LeBron cuts his workload down even if minutes stay high.

Nance is something we've been missing for a long time. Kid is a lot of fun to watch. Tristan going to have to go back to doing the "dirty work" to earn his minutes.

We traded Channing for much more athletic Channing and better defender in Hood.

Flow on offense was suspect at times but never enough to put us in a funk because we were creating turnovers and bad shots on defense. We fed off our defense.

Seven turnovers as a team... LeBron had that by himself in one quarter a couple weeks ago.

Cedi looked a little rough around the edges but by all accounts he's earned his time with hard work. His game will get plenty of polish while Love is gone.

JR Smith showing why he was an integral part in our Championship run two years ago. Let's hope he stays focused.

This second team plays as good as and will out-defend Golden State or Houston.

We are going to see a raucous crowd next Thursday on TNT when the Wiz come to town. Can't wait to hear the ovation for Nance, I hope Sr. is in the house.

I can move my Cavs shirts back to the front of the closet, I was all but embarrassed two weeks ago.

The Cavs looked like they wanted it more. They controlled the pace and made the shots.

The Top ten things I like about this trade, in order of importance:

1) It got rid of the locker-room cancers. IT and apparently Wade must of caused much more distraction than known. The guys left on the the team look like the world has been lifted off their shoulders. IT now seems to be causing all kinds of distractions with the Lakers now, saying he needs to start and such.

2) George Hill is exactly the type of Point Guard we've needed for a long time. A guy that doesn't need the ball in his hands, yet can still generate some offense, hit threes at a 40% clip, and most importantly, play defense! We haven't seen that, outside of Delly's scrappiness, for years at the point position.

3) Larry Nance Jr I think could be a hidden gem. I was already ecstatic that we got the kid from Akron back home to play under his Dad's jersey. I knew he was an athletic guy who could fly out of the gym and was really liked by the Lakers, but I really think this guy flew completely under the radar. Not only is he a younger, slightly more athletic version of TT, he's not a liability on offense. He can hit shots outside of 5 feet and he can actually run an offense out of the post. I've seen him a couple of times take the ball in the post or at the elbow and dish the ball off to guys running cuts. I haven't seen one of our centers do things like that since Z. I think his biggest short-coming is that he's ... err, too short for a center. Hope he wins the dunk contest!

4) I've mentioned this before, but the loss of half the roster sort of forced Lue's hand in that he's had to play (and now start) Cedi Osman. The guy's energy is infectious and the team seems to feed off of it, the same way it did back when Andy was diving for lose balls or Delly was doing the same. It's an element that doesn't show up in box scores, but is still really important.

5) Jordan Clarkson is in a much better situation now. The Lakers sort of played him in the same situation, as a bench microwave guy that was asked to come in and provide instant offense. But here, I don't think he's going to have the focus on him like he did for the Lakers. He's going to get a lot better catch and shoot looks because guys like Lebron are going to pull in the defense. But he can still create his own shots if needed and also run the point.

6) JR Smith seems to have come back from the dead. I don't know if it's the subtraction of the aforementioned cancers or the increase in the number of guys that can replace him, but JR is looking more like the guy that we had in 2016. He's taking those swagger 3's again (and hitting them), and looking alive on the defensive end again. He probably doesn't want to lose his job too ...

7) Rodney Hood. I can't believe this guy is the 7th best part of the trade now! He's a more than capable Guard and could be a big part of the future. Can hit the three and play defense.

8) We got rid of dead-weight. Similar to No. 1, but not quite as important. Guys like Rose, Crowder and Shump were just collecting paychecks. Crowder was a little disappointing, as I thought he could of been a lot better. But his head just wasn't right here. Shump said thanks for the contract and seemed to mail it in since. Rose is just a shell of himself, both physically and mentally. The fact that we somehow turned these three into Hill and Hood should put Altman up for GM of the year by itself.

9) This new roster has kind of dummy-proofed things for Lue. Before, I think Lue was concerned about how to work rotations. He had guys like Wade and IT that thought they deserved minutes, but had liabilities. Lebron couldn't be on the floor with both of them either, because you had 3 guys that needed the ball in their hands. He didn't know when to play Frye or TT because one couldn't play defense and the other couldn't play offense. Now it seems we've got a bunch of younger guys that aren't super-stars but can at least play both ways, bring energy and don't have to have the ball. We can pick any 5 guys and it will still work.

10) We might have a future if Lebron happens to leave. I almost made #10 "Lebron is happy again", but I think outside of that, we've got a younger team now that seem content in doing the little things, moving the ball around and playing on both side of the court. Not to mention, we've still got the Nets pick because we DIDN'T trade that. In the last two games, Lebron has gone to the bench and we haven't had a steep drop-off in play. The guys look competent without him in there. That could also go a long way in convincing him to stay.

Crowder didn't play well pretty much his whole time here and I don't think I ever watched him play in Boston/don't remember.

He had cool hair, that's pretty much it.

your whining about Lead is pretty negative.

Nice post. They are looking like slam dunk trades so far. Of course, we'll see how things go the rest of the season but early returns are promising.

j/c...

Pretty interesting read from Woj detailing how the trades went down.

Inside the 24 hours that changed the Cavaliers' season

These trades def. took the sting out of the Kyrie trade a bit. We kept the most important part of it with the Brooklyn pick. It was kind of a rushed deal, Altman didn't even get to change his windows password before having to jump into the fire with this. These showed he put in tons of homework and was probably relentless. It paid off.

The problem with the Kyrie trade is that Kyrie was demanding it. That sort of took any leverage we may of had in trade negotiations. I think that Brooklyn pick was the biggest reason we made the trade, and probably why we didn't back out of it when we found out about IT's hip. I said at the time that IT was the worst part of the trade. I just didn't know he'd be that big of a locker-room cancer. Zizic was a nice throw in and maybe he pans out later, but Crowder was probably the biggest disappointment. He should of been a good 3-and-D guy like he was for the Celtics, but for whatever reason, his heart never seemed to be in it here. Maybe he was still mad at JR for witch-slapping him a few playoffs ago?

Hahahahahahhahaha!

I like the fact that we not only added shooters, but that Clarkson and Hood can also create their own shots in addition to being able to knock down the open 3. That brings so much to the offense, especially when Lebron is on the bench. While we added shooters, none of them are ball dominant, who go into a funk if they don't handle the ball every time up the court. They all know how to play without the ball. The offense looks so good when the ball is moving. The game against the Celtics was just amazing, as we had shooters open by 10'-15' on many of our 3's.

Nance is not a shooter like the others, but man, he does a lot of things really, really well. I was absolutely floored when I saw that he had 8 offensive rebounds to go along with 3 blocks against the Thunder. That is astonishing given the limited amount of time he was on the floor. He is also strong finishing at the hoop. He is a solid, and more than willing defender. He understands how to create space under the hoop. He's not a "great" player, but he is a guy who can play on almost any team because he does so many things that every team needs.

The new guys combined for 49 points against the Celtics, and combined for 48 points, 15 boards, 10 assists, and 4 steals against the Thunder. Know how many turnovers they had against the Thunder? They combined for ...... 1 turnover.

These new Cavaliers also bring a ton of energy. Add them to Cedi, and guys like JR, Green, and Korvar look revitalized. Lebron looks happy, and he is back to playing all out. Thompson is the only holdover who doesn't seem to really fit yet. Hopefully he'll find his role on this revised team. I can't wait to see how we'll look when Love comes back. He is a great passer, in addition to his obvious offensive skills, and we should be an even more fun team to watch.

I don't know if we can beat the Warriors or not, but I like our chances when Lebron is surrounded by shooters, and that's what we can put on the floor now.

His poppa was one if the best ever at this, and he was so smart about it. He would not only block shots but block them to his own players to start the transition game

I agree with everything you said.

I think that last point hits the hardest. The Cavs are sitting golden right now. They not only have put together a nice young roster that they can move forward with, but adding that pick from Brooklyn, which right now they are a few losses from the worst record, I think you present plenty of nice reasons for Lebron to stay. Good young athletic players to move forward with, and the chance to maybe add someone really special in the draft.

And if Lebron decides to leave? You have some good young players, A good player in Kevin Love, who if he doesn't want to stick around, could net back more assets, and a lottery pick.

I know we all smashed the panic button when David Griffin wasn't a part of the team anymore, but this front office deserves a lot of credit for what they have had to deal with.

I loved the look on all the Boston players, coaches, and fans' faces the other day. You could tell they just had their dreams smashed, LOL.

After reading Woj's column about the Clippers trade that almost was, I'm really glad that one fell through and we went with the Lakers/Jazz/Kings trades instead.

Yes, DeAndre is a bigger "name", but he's also on a one year contract. Had that trade gone through, who knows if we do the Jazz/Kings deal. IT also wasn't a part of that deal either. So we'd be left with IT on the team, just one quick fix improvement at Center, and not much else. What we ended up getting is much better, and sets us up for the long term.

Lakers lost again, mostly because they gave up 139 points. IT even got himself ejected late in the first too. Okay, so IT got ejected early ... he shouldn't of been responsible for the Lakers bad D all game, right? Well, they gave up 46 of those 139 in the first QUARTER.

I think they might miss Nance and Clarkston's Defense.

I think this trade is better than anything griffin ever pulled off. I actually didn't like any of the trades griffin did. He gave away 1sts like candy and got really non impact guys back. Mosgov, and Korver, korver is meh, he'll hit a few threes once every 5 or 6 games and then go scoreless for another 5, he's a decent glue guy and does other things to help, but he's not 1st level talent. The best thing about this trade was the value we brought back. I'm glad Altman stayed strong on the clipps taking shump or no deal. I wouldn't have done that deal for just jordan anyways. You don't give away firsts for rentals, you need to have some future control on anything coming in when a first is going out. Not only did this trade help us this year, but we actually have options for a few years

I'm not so sure I would of wanted to do the Jordan deal anyway. He's an upgraded version of Thompson, that's it. He'll give you a lot better post defense, but outside of that, he's a bit of an offensive liability outside of dunks and his free throw shooting makes Tristan look like Mark Price.

That said, I think you're still really over-valuing first round picks in the 20-30 range. We probably *should* be trading them for guys that can at least contribute. The year we traded Mozgov, here's the next 10 guys we missed out on with those two picks at #24 and #29:

24 Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot SG/SF
25 Brice Johnson PF
26 Furkan Korkmaz SG/SF
27 Pascal Siakam PF
28 Skal Labissière PF/C
29 Dejounte Murray PG/SG
30 Damian Jones C
31 Deyonta Davis PF/C
32 Ivica Zubac C
33 Cheick Diallo PF/C

I'd argue a year and a half of Mozgov was worth more than any of those picks. Also, the guy picked one spot before the #24 spot happened to be Zizic, and he was just a toss-in for the Kyrie trade. The mystique of the unknown "draft pick" seems to carry a lot more value than the actual guy you draft in those spots.

Dejounte is fire. TLC is criminally slept on, but probably doesn't benefit on playing on such a team. Still #Trusttheprocess

Dejounte is alright, but he also plays for the Spurs (system player!) If any of those guys played for the Cavs, they'd be getting Joe Harris/Sasha Kaun minutes.

I would say even further, Mozgov helped the 2014-15 team reach the Finals. He started 20 games in the playoffs that season (avg 10.6, 7.3 and 1.8 blocks ). In game 2 of the Finals, after Kyrie went down in game 1, he had 17 and 11 in a win.

Even if that 1st rounder we traded turned out to be a player better than the ones you listed, we traded for Mozgov to help us that specific season, which he did. Holding that pick wouldn't have helped us get to the Finals and win two games.

While Mozgov's play fell off a cliff in year 2 with the Cavs, I think the trade was still worth it. Heck, maybe winning those two games without Kyrie and Kevin gave the team the belief that they could take the Warriors down if they were 100% healthy. Those two 2015 wins in the Finals may have built a foundation of confidence for 2016.

Yeah, I'm being unrealistic. Spurs actually develop draft picks (or lets Europe do it) a practice that may be illegal across all three sports franchises in Cleveland.

As for Mozgov he did a very good job that first year with the team. When Kyrie and Love went out, Mozgov did a very good job in a few final games. Then again, he is just a decent big man. I'm not sure he's better than Boban Marjanovic or another traditional big man. Small ball has really killed that side of the American game. 6'11 270+ dudes who can play with their back to the basket. Just take a look at this upcoming draft class. Wendell Carter Jr. is the only center weighing in at 260+ . All the other talented big men, and there are many, Bamba, Marvin Bagley III and Ayton.

All I'm trying to say is that against small ball teams, big men can really shine.

Give me a big man 7 ft 290 pounds who can jump, shoot, protect the rim, pass, and rebound, and he is, was, and arways will be worth his weight in gold.

Based on this link (http://onlygold.com/Info/Value-Your-Weight-In-Gold.asp), Mozgov would be worth $5,721,593.38 according to today's gold price.

His 2017-18 NBA salary is $15 million (On July 8, 2016, Mozgov signed a four-year, $64 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers).

[/mebeingasmartass]

See ... the Lakers overpaid!