I’d say the Kevin Love and LeBron James come to the Cleveland Cavaliers dream is dead, but frankly it was never alive save for in the minds of the delusional.
We’ll leave the LeBron half alone for now (he’s not leaving Miami anyway) and focus on Love — the Cavaliers have made a push to trade for him. At the heart of their offer was the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, the chance for Minnesota to get a very good to potential foundational piece player and jump-start the rebuilding process. Except Minnesota has generally asked for established young players — Klay Thompson, Taj Gibson, Bradley Beal — and more importantly Kevin Love doesn’t want to be in Cleveland. At all.
So the Cavaliers talks are dead according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.Cleveland’s pursuit of Minnesota Timberwolves All-Star forward Kevin Love – which included a package centered on the No. 1 overall pick in Thursday’s NBA draft – has sputtered because of Love’s warning that he’d never sign an extension with the Cavaliers, league sources told Yahoo Sports...
Cleveland was eager to build with Love and All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving and hoped that the pairing could’ve become an incentive for LeBron James to seriously consider a return to the Cavaliers in free agency, sources said. Through Love’s agent, Jeff Schwartz, Cleveland was warned that Love would opt out of his contract in 2015 and never consider the Cavaliers’ offer of a long-term maximum contract, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Now the question becomes what do the Cavaliers do with the No. 1 pick?
Reports surfaced recently (via Chad Ford at ESPN) that the Cavaliers front office was divided on the Jabari Parker/Andrew Wiggins question. Some wanted Parker, the more NBA-ready player right now, because he could help more next season and get the Cavaliers out of the lottery. Other people want to take Wiggins, the guy with the freakish athleticism that could lead to him being a foundational player for a franchise.
Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert took to twitter to refute there is a split.
Nonsense. We are united. RT @chadfordinsider: Cavs owner Dan Gilbert wants Wiggins at #1 Front office wants Parker. http://t.co/IMRUK09DKs
— Dan Gilbert (@cavsdan) June 25, 2014
I’ll ignore the whole “why does an owner care what Chad Ford says anyway?” angle of this thing. Although that is a valid question.
Rather my advice to Gilbert is this — if you don’t want people reporting these things shore up the leaks in your organization. Say what you will of Chad Ford’s opinions, or what Adrian Wojnarowski writes, neither just makes up reports. Both have connections.
Certain organizations are leaky, some are not — notice that when the Spurs make a move it seems to come out of left field? Notice how right before the Lakers made a huge trade for Pau Gasol there was no serious discussion of that deal? There are other teams in this camp.
Maybe the Cavaliers are talking out of both sides of their mouth in the run up to the draft as a smoke screen, but based on the organizational history I’m not sold.