Another report that Cavaliers really loved Joel Embiid’s workout

With just more than a week before the draft, every source around the league is spinning. Hard.

Agents are trying to spin their guys up the draft board by creating false demand. Teams are spinning to try to hide their actual intentions — for example giving conflicting information out about a player who worked out for them.

Enter the Cleveland Cavaliers, who have the No. 1 pick. There is more smoke around the Cavaliers draft moves than a Cypress Hill concert.

Joel Embiid worked out for Cleveland last week and the first leaks out of that were about red flags in his medical report — Embiid missed the end of the season in Kansas with a stress fracture in his back and while he’s a top three pick teams wanted their doctors to get a good look at him first.

Ever since those initial reports, however, more and more people have said the Cavaliers actually loved Embiid’s workout and his back checked out fine. The latest of those is Chad Ford at ESPN in his latest mock draft ($$).

Embiid did a full workout there in front of the Cavs’ front office and owner Dan Gilbert. Multiple sources said that the team was blown away with the workout. Embiid even ended one session by launching and nailing a series of 3s. Directly after the workout, two different sources told me that Embiid was the strong favorite to be drafted by the Cavs. Even Gilbert was on board.

The team owner is at the workout and has to be on board with the pick? And you wonder what the main difference is between the Cavaliers and Spurs organizations.

As a rule of thumb teams will take a big man over a wing if they grade out evenly, under the “you can’t teach size” premise. Which suggests that even if the Cavaliers think Andrew Wiggins is on par with Embiid, the size of the 7’0” center makes his skill set harder to replicate.

A lot of draft boards have Embiid as the Cavaliers pick.

The Sixers are reportedly higher on Wiggins, but are concerned he will not fall to them at No. 3, so they have offered that third pick and Thaddeus Young to the Cavaliers in a trade the No. 1. If the Cavs really like Embiid but want to make that trade, leaking info about Embiid’s back may be a way to try to scare off the Bucks at No. 2 (who are reportedly leaning Jabari Parker anyway). Of course, the Bucks worked out Embiid and had their doctors look at him, with reports saying Embiid got a clean bill of healthy from the Bucks doctors.

It’s all part of the game.

Do the Cavaliers move that pick in a deal with the Sixers? Depends on how they answer this question: Do the Cavaliers think Embiid is a transcendent player? If so, if they think Embiid is a future top 10 player in the NBA and can be a guy you build a champion around (with Kyrie Irving), then you take him. Talent wins in the NBA, you need those elite guys. But if you think Embiid/Wiggins/Parker are potentially very good but not future top 10 talents, you make the deal.

Joel Embiid throws down dunks in workout