BOS/CLE/HOU Blockbuster

[KuruptedCav]

BOS IN: Dwight Howard / Kevin Love
BOS OUT: Kelly Olynyk / Jae Crowder / David Lee / Amir Johnson / Marcus Smart / Jared Sullinger / 2016 Brooklyn #1

Boston cashes in the chips it has been storing up and acquires the star power for which they've been searching. BOS gets a big three with Howard/Love/Thomas; retains enough assets to fill out roster and depth. Immediately creates a 5-6 year window.

C: Dwight Howard / Tyler Zeller
PF: Kevin Love / Jonas Jerebko / Jordan Mickey
SF: Trevor Ariza / Evan Turner
SG: Avery Bradley / James Young
PG: Isaiah Thomas / Terry Rozier / RJ Hunter

CLE IN: Kelly Olynyk / Jae Crowder / Terrence Jones / Corey Brewer
CLE OUT: Kevin Love / Jared Cunningham / Timofey Mozgov

Cleveland trades star power for depth and lineup flexibility to better match up with the SAS and GSW in 7 game series.

C: Kelly Olynyk / Anderson Varejao / Sasha Kaun
PF: Trisan Thompson / Terrence Jones / James Jones
SF: Lebron James / Jae Crowder / Richard Jefferson
SG: Iman Shumpert / JR Smith / Corey Brewer
PG: Kyrie Irving / Matthew Dellavedova / Mo Williams

HOU IN: 2016 Brooklyn #1 / Timofey Mozgov / Amir Johnson / Jared Sullinger / David Lee / Jared Cunningham / Marcus Smart
HOU OUT: Dwight Howard / Terrence Jones / Trevor Ariza / Corey Brewer

Houston finally builds James Harden's team; with solid post role players in Sullinger & Johnson, a defensive minded young PG, a top-5 draft pick, and a max contract slot in free agency.

C: Jared Sullinger / Timofey Mozgov / Donatas Montijunas
PF: Amir Johnson / Montrezl Harrell / Clint Capela
SF: Josh Smith / Marcus Thornton / Sam Dekker
SG: James Harden / Jason Terry / KJ McDaniels
PG: Ty Lawson / Patrick Beverley / Marcus Smart

Jared Cunningham and David Lee hit waivers.

[giberish]

Howard doesn't have that sort of value. You don't want to be the team stuck paying him $30M/yr on his next contract as he declines.

If Boston can get Love that cheap they probably do it (I'm sure they'd prefer to keep Crowder but they still likely make that move). They may look for a replacement SF option to complement a Love deal during the season.

[jbk1234]

No chance the Cavs do this. Brewer sucks. At least Jefferson sucks for the league minimum. T. Jones has been bad this year and will be a F.A. this summer. You're only freeing up three roster spots and taking in four players (and I like Cunningham as a long term project at the end of the bench). Cavs have zero rim protection after trading Mozgov. This is really, really bad for the Cavs.

[r0drig0lac]

good trade (for the Celtics)

[yoyoboy]

Why are people so determined to trade Love? He's been playing great lately.

[KuruptedCav]

Why are people so determined to trade Love? He's been playing great lately.

Love, on this team, is very easy to game plan around. The Cavs are deep in the back court and front-court, but because they have James on the wing, can be exploited by teams with good wing depth. Lebron can always shift into the post, Love cannot do the inverse and shift to the wing.

[yoyoboy]

Why are people so determined to trade Love? He's been playing great lately.

Love, on this team, is very easy to game plan around. The Cavs are deep in the back court and front-court, but because they have James on the wing, can be exploited by teams with good wing depth. Lebron can always shift into the post, Love cannot do the inverse and shift to the wing.

I advise you to look at LeBron's shooting percentages with Love on vs. off the court. It's a drastic difference.

[KuruptedCav]

Why are people so determined to trade Love? He's been playing great lately.

Love, on this team, is very easy to game plan around. The Cavs are deep in the back court and front-court, but because they have James on the wing, can be exploited by teams with good wing depth. Lebron can always shift into the post, Love cannot do the inverse and shift to the wing.

I advise you to look at LeBron's shooting percentages with Love on vs. off the court. It's a drastic difference.

Yes, he is more offensively efficient when playing with good outside shooters. That is only possible when those players aren't game-planned off the court. Cavs are 1-3 in games where Love plays less than 25 minutes including an embarrassing GS loss where love spent nearly 27 minutes on the bench watching his team get picked apart.

[jbk1234]

Why are people so determined to trade Love? He's been playing great lately.

Love, on this team, is very easy to game plan around. The Cavs are deep in the back court and front-court, but because they have James on the wing, can be exploited by teams with good wing depth. Lebron can always shift into the post, Love cannot do the inverse and shift to the wing.

Love can be very easy to game plan around if you stick him out at the three point line and tell him he has to stay there. Love is not easy to game plan around if you actually allow him to do what he does well. I'm trying envision a scenario where LBJ doesn't play 38 mpg in the Finals and I can't think of one. Either JR or Shump can slide over to the three. But even if you think we need more dept depth at SF, you can address that without shipping out Love AND Mozgov. You've given away top tier talent, created a serious hole at center which could catch up with us before the Finals, and gotten back one good player in Crowder who would be luck to play 20 mpg in a Finals series.

[KuruptedCav]

Why are people so determined to trade Love? He's been playing great lately.

Love, on this team, is very easy to game plan around. The Cavs are deep in the back court and front-court, but because they have James on the wing, can be exploited by teams with good wing depth. Lebron can always shift into the post, Love cannot do the inverse and shift to the wing.

Love can be very easy to game plan around if you stick him out at the three point line and tell him he has to stay there. Love is not easy to game plan around if you actually allow him to do what he does well. I'm trying envision a scenario where LBJ doesn't play 38 mpg in the Finals and I can't think of one. Either JR or Shump can slide over to the three. But even if you think we need more dept depth at SF, you can address that without shipping out Love AND Mozgov. You've given away top tier talent, created a serious hole at center which could catch up with us before the Finals, and gotten back one good player in Crowder who would be luck to play 20 mpg in a Finals series.

That's our disconnect. I think that Olynyk gives you the exact same thing Lebron gets from Love (except at a higher FG%) because of the way the Cavs use him.

My concern is that against OKC, SAS, and GSW, Lebron is a more efficient shooter with Love on the bench than on the floor.

If the Cavs can get Jae Crowder, Trevor Ariza, Kyle Korver, JJ Reddick, Courtney Lee, etc. with their non-big three assets, I'd be interested in seeing that trade. I just don't know that they have the ammo and that's in part because of the wasted value that is Kevin Love.

[jbk1234]

Love, on this team, is very easy to game plan around. The Cavs are deep in the back court and front-court, but because they have James on the wing, can be exploited by teams with good wing depth. Lebron can always shift into the post, Love cannot do the inverse and shift to the wing.

Love can be very easy to game plan around if you stick him out at the three point line and tell him he has to stay there. Love is not easy to game plan around if you actually allow him to do what he does well. I'm trying envision a scenario where LBJ doesn't play 38 mpg in the Finals and I can't think of one. Either JR or Shump can slide over to the three. But even if you think we need more dept depth at SF, you can address that without shipping out Love AND Mozgov. You've given away top tier talent, created a serious hole at center which could catch up with us before the Finals, and gotten back one good player in Crowder who would be luck to play 20 mpg in a Finals series.

That's our disconnect. I think that Olynyk gives you the exact same thing Lebron gets from Love (except at a higher FG%) and has a block rate similar to Mozgov's this year.

My concern is that against OKC, SAS, and GSW, Lebron is a more efficient shooter with Love on the bench than on the floor.

If the Cavs can get Jae Crowder, Trevor Ariza, Kyle Korver, JJ Reddick, Courtney Lee, etc. with their non-big three assets, I'd be interested in seeing that trade. I just don't know that they have the ammo and that's in part because of the wasted value that is Kevin Love.

That bolded part is insane. First off, even with the Cavs trying to turn Love into Kelly Olynyk, Olynyk isn't the same league as Love when it comes to rebounding. As far as defense or rim protection, watch Olynyk play. That should disabuse you of the notion that Olynyk can defend anywhere near as well as Mozgov.

All the advanced stats suggest that LBJ is a more efficient shooter with Love on the floor than off it. There is no problem with LBJ and Love. The problem is with Kyrie and Love. After five years of waiting for Kyrie to get better at the exact same things, I'm not trading Love to fix that problem.

[yoyoboy]

Love can be very easy to game plan around if you stick him out at the three point line and tell him he has to stay there. Love is not easy to game plan around if you actually allow him to do what he does well. I'm trying envision a scenario where LBJ doesn't play 38 mpg in the Finals and I can't think of one. Either JR or Shump can slide over to the three. But even if you think we need more dept depth at SF, you can address that without shipping out Love AND Mozgov. You've given away top tier talent, created a serious hole at center which could catch up with us before the Finals, and gotten back one good player in Crowder who would be luck to play 20 mpg in a Finals series.

That's our disconnect. I think that Olynyk gives you the exact same thing Lebron gets from Love (except at a higher FG%) and has a block rate similar to Mozgov's this year.

My concern is that against OKC, SAS, and GSW, Lebron is a more efficient shooter with Love on the bench than on the floor.

If the Cavs can get Jae Crowder, Trevor Ariza, Kyle Korver, JJ Reddick, Courtney Lee, etc. with their non-big three assets, I'd be interested in seeing that trade. I just don't know that they have the ammo and that's in part because of the wasted value that is Kevin Love.

That bolded part is insane. First off, even with the Cavs trying to turn Love into Kelly Olynyk, Olynyk isn't the same league as Love when it comes to rebounding. As far as defense or rim protection, watch Olynyk play. That should disabuse you of the notion that Olynyk can defend anywhere near as well as Mozgov.

All the advanced stats suggest that LBJ is a more efficient shooter with Love on the floor than off it. There is no problem with LBJ and Love. The problem is with Kyrie and Love. After five years of waiting for Kyrie to get better at the exact same things, I'm not trading Love to fix that problem.

This. Kyrie is the one who's currently fitting in the least - not Love. It's maddening how many times he misses LeBron cutting or Love posting up/spotting up for an open jumper. The PnR game between him and LeBron/Love isn't even close to reaching its potential almost entirely because of Kyrie's poor decision making.

I'm not ready to trade the kid because he's still only 23 and he's barely into his second season on a winning team, so he's still shedding bad habits, but he has to improve his court vision and decisions making abilities.

[jbk1234]

That's our disconnect. I think that Olynyk gives you the exact same thing Lebron gets from Love (except at a higher FG%) and has a block rate similar to Mozgov's this year.

My concern is that against OKC, SAS, and GSW, Lebron is a more efficient shooter with Love on the bench than on the floor.

If the Cavs can get Jae Crowder, Trevor Ariza, Kyle Korver, JJ Reddick, Courtney Lee, etc. with their non-big three assets, I'd be interested in seeing that trade. I just don't know that they have the ammo and that's in part because of the wasted value that is Kevin Love.

That bolded part is insane. First off, even with the Cavs trying to turn Love into Kelly Olynyk, Olynyk isn't the same league as Love when it comes to rebounding. As far as defense or rim protection, watch Olynyk play. That should disabuse you of the notion that Olynyk can defend anywhere near as well as Mozgov.

All the advanced stats suggest that LBJ is a more efficient shooter with Love on the floor than off it. There is no problem with LBJ and Love. The problem is with Kyrie and Love. After five years of waiting for Kyrie to get better at the exact same things, I'm not trading Love to fix that problem.

This. Kyrie is the one who's currently fitting in the least - not Love. It's maddening how many times he misses LeBron cutting or Love posting up/spotting up for an open jumper. The PnR game between him and LeBron/Love isn't even close to reaching its potential almost entirely because of Kyrie's poor decision making.

I'm not ready to trade the kid because he's still only 23 and he's barely into his second season on a winning team, so he's still shedding bad habits, but he has to improve his court vision and decisions making abilities.

I'm not ready to trade him, but we'll know soon enough whether Lue is serious about holding players accountable - or not. But Kyrie needs to start sitting some when he chucks the playbook out the window.

[K_chile22]

The problem with having Love on the Cavs team is that because he's a third option he does not have that big of a positive impact on offense as any other stretch four would (like Olynik in this trade). And while you're only getting a slight offensive plus from having him with LeBron on Kyrie your defense takes a decent sized hit against elite teams like GS. If Kyrie were to step down to the third option you'd have the same problem with him instead of Love. Imo both parties would play better separated from each other


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[[EverGreen]]

Love can be very easy to game plan around if you stick him out at the three point line and tell him he has to stay there. Love is not easy to game plan around if you actually allow him to do what he does well. I'm trying envision a scenario where LBJ doesn't play 38 mpg in the Finals and I can't think of one. Either JR or Shump can slide over to the three. But even if you think we need more dept depth at SF, you can address that without shipping out Love AND Mozgov. You've given away top tier talent, created a serious hole at center which could catch up with us before the Finals, and gotten back one good player in Crowder who would be luck to play 20 mpg in a Finals series.

That's our disconnect. I think that Olynyk gives you the exact same thing Lebron gets from Love (except at a higher FG%) and has a block rate similar to Mozgov's this year.

My concern is that against OKC, SAS, and GSW, Lebron is a more efficient shooter with Love on the bench than on the floor.

If the Cavs can get Jae Crowder, Trevor Ariza, Kyle Korver, JJ Reddick, Courtney Lee, etc. with their non-big three assets, I'd be interested in seeing that trade. I just don't know that they have the ammo and that's in part because of the wasted value that is Kevin Love.

That bolded part is insane. First off, even with the Cavs trying to turn Love into Kelly Olynyk, Olynyk isn't the same league as Love when it comes to rebounding. As far as defense or rim protection, watch Olynyk play. That should disabuse you of the notion that Olynyk can defend anywhere near as well as Mozgov.

All the advanced stats suggest that LBJ is a more efficient shooter with Love on the floor than off it. There is no problem with LBJ and Love. The problem is with Kyrie and Love. After five years of waiting for Kyrie to get better at the exact same things, I'm not trading Love to fix that problem.

While you're under no obligation to trade Love, I think you're taking the bolded point out of context. The conversation had been about offence, not the total package. Love is a vastly better rebounder and better defender (although not a strong point). I'm not sure how many off. boards Love is grabbing camped on the 3pt line. There is also a pretty good rebounder on the Cavs depth chart who just got an absurdly large contract that might be worth considering to cover that void.

I wholeheartedly agree about the lack of rim protection though and for that reason, I can't see this happening.

[Smitty731]

You left out Ariza to Boston in the OP, but put him in the depth chart.

My fear is that it would take a long time for that group to dwell. Howard is very unlikely to stay in Boston. The fanbase and media are notorious critical and he couldn't handle anything negative in Orlando where he was basically beloved.

So, the Celtics give up every asset they have to make one title run. If they don't win it, they basically ruined their team for the next few years.

[KuruptedCav]

You left out Ariza to Boston in the OP, but put him in the depth chart.

My fear is that it would take a long time for that group to dwell. Howard is very unlikely to stay in Boston. The fanbase and media are notorious critical and he couldn't handle anything negative in Orlando where he was basically beloved.

So, the Celtics give up every asset they have to make one title run. If they don't win it, they basically ruined their team for the next few years.

Thanks for the feedback, I didn't consider the personality. Figured big market with storied history, he'd stick around if they won.


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[jbk1234]

You left out Ariza to Boston in the OP, but put him in the depth chart.

My fear is that it would take a long time for that group to dwell. Howard is very unlikely to stay in Boston. The fanbase and media are notorious critical and he couldn't handle anything negative in Orlando where he was basically beloved.

So, the Celtics give up every asset they have to make one title run. If they don't win it, they basically ruined their team for the next few years.

Thanks for the feedback, I didn't consider the personality. Figured big market with storied history, he'd stick around if they won.


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If they win, it's because they just beat the Cavs and we handed them the means to do it.