Cavaliers agree to 5-year, $82M contract with RFA Tristan Thompson

[AustinPowers]

Btw, this might set a bad precedent where more superstar players (e.g. Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant) get intimate with sports agencies and start demanding that they will leave unless a mediocre player on a team (who is also signed with that agency) is taken care of as well.

Welp, when they've made the Finals 5 times in a row we will get to see if your theory of a slippery slope is correct.

[HotelVitale]

I In a market like that, its nearly impossible to overpay. This contract is bad for this year, but the final 3 years will span the NBA coming influx of cash. Its a player's market and smart NBA teams will do whatever they have to do to secure talent. Even though TT is just as mediocre as everyone knows he is, this is still a pretty solid deal for each team, especially since the Cavs are going for it all right now and wouldn't have had much flexibility above the cap anyway. If you think this deal is crazy, wait until Alex Len gets $100m and everyone declares it a bargain.

Nah, I think it's clearly an overpay. Even with the cap rising, this is still like a current $12m a year deal, and TT looks like a back-up talent. There's no back up-level guy in the league who looks like smart signing at that price; closest I can think of is Iggy, and he's certainly a better player than TT. TT wouldn't start on at least half the teams in the NBA, and he more or less failed as a starter before Love came around.

At the same time, I agree with others who say that the Cavs can do whatever the hell they want with their money. They've got a core locked in and they don't have much room to improve the team. No more assets left to trade, no cap space for years, etc. Overpaying TT only hurts one person--Dan Gilbert--and I don't really care about that dude.

[inquisitive]

either TT or Klove will get moved down the road before their contract ends, but i see them playing together for this season at least. no wonder GMs had them the favorites. this team is loaded now.

[ken6199]

He caved then


Sent from my iPhone 6S Plus using Tapatalk

Officially the 'man city' of NBA.

[DarthDiggler69]

Question is what happens to Mozgov when he negotiates

[HotelVitale]

It's an overpay, but to me he showed that he isn't just a rebounder, he's a playoff level rebounder and defender. A guy who can dominate on the glass in the playoffs is pretty valuable. If they can keep Mozgov, I have no issue with the signing.

We all remember a couple of great rebounds he made but he didn't 'dominate' anything. He averaged under 11rpg per 36 in the playoffs, and even in the GSW series he averaged exactly 13rpg in over 40mpg. That's solid but it's clearly second-tier--guys like D12 and Deandre averaged near 14 rpg and had 6-game peaks much higher than TT's. He's a pretty good playoff rebounder, not a dominant one.

[ocelot17]

either TT or Klove will get moved down the road before their contract ends, but i see them playing together for this season at least. no wonder GMs had them the favorites. this team is loaded now.

Not really. I still see the Cavs losing in the finals to whichever team comes out of the west.

They're pretty much guaranteed to come out of the east, but not necessarily because they're a good team, but because the east is so week.

If Cavs were in the west, they would probably be somewhere around the 6th-8th seed.

[inquisitive]

Question is what happens to Mozgov when he negotiates

TT will be moved by then i believe.

[coachcav]

As a die hard cavs fan especially through the last 5 years, this is a massive overpay. He doesnt deserve it. This will also ruin any flexibility we have to get better in the next 5 years. Way too much money tied up in one position.

[improvisor]

either TT or Klove will get moved down the road before their contract ends, but i see them playing together for this season at least. no wonder GMs had them the favorites. this team is loaded now.

Not really. I still see the Cavs losing in the finals to whichever team comes out of the west.

They're pretty much guaranteed to come out of the east, but not necessarily because they're a good team, but because the east is so week.

If Cavs were in the west, they would probably be somewhere around the 6th-8th seed.

Yet when the team was healthy and finally complete with the Mozgov trade last season they DESTROYED the west. They are a better team this year btw.

[RonSwanson]

Question is what happens to Mozgov when he negotiates

TT will be moved by then i believe.

No way in hell LeBron lets this happen. And there's no way they trade Love. If a trade happens it's going to be several years down the road.

You guys continue to underestimate Gilbert's willingness to pay the luxury / repeater taxes. He's going to pay Mozgov. TT still has room to improve as a young baller and it's quite obvious that Rich Paul used that as a selling point on a big contract. Mozgov does not have that luxury. He's certainly valuable and the Cavs need to (and will) pay him, but I wouldn't necessarily bank on him getting an $80 million deal.

[tyguy]

either TT or Klove will get moved down the road before their contract ends, but i see them playing together for this season at least. no wonder GMs had them the favorites. this team is loaded now.

Not really. I still see the Cavs losing in the finals to whichever team comes out of the west.

They're pretty much guaranteed to come out of the east, but not necessarily because they're a good team, but because the east is so week.

If Cavs were in the west, they would probably be somewhere around the 6th-8th seed.

The Cav's are a very good team though that is extremely deep. They are stacked with top tier talent (LeBron, Kyrie, Love) and the rest of the roster is filled out with quality players that can fill multiple positions and compliment their star power. They are dealing with some injury problems early, and they will likely not put the foot to the gas pedal because of being in the east and wanting to roll into the playoffs as healthy as possible. Let's not get it twisted though; they could very well be the best team in the NBA regardless of their regular season record (which could very well be good for 6-8th seed in the east). It's a very bad argument to say they aren't a true contender just because they reside in the east and someone has to get to the finals from there.

Irving, Dellavedova, williams, shumpert, JR, LeBron, Jefferson, Love, Mozgov, Tristan, Varajao,

That's 11 guys that are all guys that can give you great NBA quality minutes. Blatt has a ton of flexibility with this roster and will be hard pressed to give everybody minutes.

[Neutral 123]

It's an overpay, but to me he showed that he isn't just a rebounder, he's a playoff level rebounder and defender. A guy who can dominate on the glass in the playoffs is pretty valuable. If they can keep Mozgov, I have no issue with the signing.

We all remember a couple of great rebounds he made but he didn't 'dominate' anything. He averaged under 11rpg per 36 in the playoffs, and even in the GSW series he averaged exactly 13rpg in over 40mpg. That's solid but it's clearly second-tier--guys like D12 and Deandre averaged near 14 rpg and had 6-game peaks much higher than TT's. He's a pretty good playoff rebounder, not a dominant one.

How many guys would you put over him? I agree he's not Deandre or Dwight, but there's few guys out there I'd take over him battling on the boards. What's more, I think he's an important piece to what the Cavs need. Yeah, when the team is healthy he does become more of a situational player. He can be the difference between a title and not. The Cavs just need to go all in and be done with it. It's funny, because I'm reading posts here where people are saying they could just replace him with Reggie Evans. That's silly.

[RonSwanson]

either TT or Klove will get moved down the road before their contract ends, but i see them playing together for this season at least. no wonder GMs had them the favorites. this team is loaded now.

Not really. I still see the Cavs losing in the finals to whichever team comes out of the west.

They're pretty much guaranteed to come out of the east, but not necessarily because they're a good team, but because the east is so week.

If Cavs were in the west, they would probably be somewhere around the 6th-8th seed.

I still find this absurd narrative hilarious. If this were a team that was still starting Anderson Varejao and Dion Waiters, I could see it. But there is no chance, at all, that a team with the best player on the planet, another player that was an all star just two years ago in the big bad western conference and one of the best young all star point guards (and players) in the league to go along with a supporting cast that allows them to go at least two deep at every position with quality players, finishes anywhere below 3rd in the West.

6th - 8th? Hell the Cavs were missing their second and third best players in the finals and still won more games against Golden State than Houston did in the previous round. You act as if the Cavs are littered with stiffs around LeBron when in all reality they have one of the most stacked rosters in the NBA. They went 34-7 after the Mozgov trade beore wrapping up the second seed. That's including running through several Western conference teams along the way. It's a minimum 60-win team when healthy.

[mtron929]

It's an overpay, but to me he showed that he isn't just a rebounder, he's a playoff level rebounder and defender. A guy who can dominate on the glass in the playoffs is pretty valuable. If they can keep Mozgov, I have no issue with the signing.

We all remember a couple of great rebounds he made but he didn't 'dominate' anything. He averaged under 11rpg per 36 in the playoffs, and even in the GSW series he averaged exactly 13rpg in over 40mpg. That's solid but it's clearly second-tier--guys like D12 and Deandre averaged near 14 rpg and had 6-game peaks much higher than TT's. He's a pretty good playoff rebounder, not a dominant one.

How many guys would you put over him? I agree he's not Deandre or Dwight, but there's few guys out there I'd take over him battling on the boards. What's more, I think he's an important piece to what the Cavs need. Yeah, when the team is healthy he does become more of a situational player. He can be the difference between a title and not. The Cavs just need to go all in and be done with it. It's funny, because I'm reading posts here where people are saying they could just replace him with Reggie Evans. That's silly.

The only reason why he is seen as the difference between a title and no title (I really hate this argument) is because he's the last guy to sign. If he signed early on and Delly was holding out, then we can be saying that Delly can be the deciding factor on the Cavs winning the title vs not winning.

[tyguy]

We all remember a couple of great rebounds he made but he didn't 'dominate' anything. He averaged under 11rpg per 36 in the playoffs, and even in the GSW series he averaged exactly 13rpg in over 40mpg. That's solid but it's clearly second-tier--guys like D12 and Deandre averaged near 14 rpg and had 6-game peaks much higher than TT's. He's a pretty good playoff rebounder, not a dominant one.

How many guys would you put over him? I agree he's not Deandre or Dwight, but there's few guys out there I'd take over him battling on the boards. What's more, I think he's an important piece to what the Cavs need. Yeah, when the team is healthy he does become more of a situational player. He can be the difference between a title and not. The Cavs just need to go all in and be done with it. It's funny, because I'm reading posts here where people are saying they could just replace him with Reggie Evans. That's silly.

The only reason why he is seen as the difference between a title and no title (I really hate this argument) is because he's the last guy to sign. If he signed early on and Delly was holding out, then we can be saying that Delly can be the deciding factor on the Cavs winning the title vs not winning.

Adding more guys (or in this case bringing guys back) that can give you plus minutes are going to increase your odds of a championship. It has nothing to do with when they agreed to sign or come back. The goal is to have as wide of a margin of error as possible from a team building standpoint. Both players increase your margin of error.

[Moose]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHABAHABABAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHABBABABABAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Frank Dux]

This is the worst contract I've ever seen.

[Dobber-16]

I can see another lockout coming, the owners are going to have to protect themselves from themselves again. Massive overpay.

[ubernathan]

This is the worst contract I've ever seen.

Still better than Eddy Curry's Knicks contract.