There was a buzz surrounding Omri Casspi when he came into the league with the Sacramento Kings back in 2009, and not only because he was the NBA’s first Israeli-born player.
Casspi showed signs of being more than a serviceable rotation player early in his career, but his numbers have regressed in each of the seasons that followed his rookie campaign.
Now with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Casspi finds himself out of the rotation completely, and apparently is not willing to accept the organization’s decision in silence.
From Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports:Dropped out of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ rotation, forward Omri Casspi, the NBA’s first Israeli-born player, has requested a trade, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.
Cavaliers general manager Chris Grant has been making calls on possible deals for Casspi, but nothing has materialized. The request for a trade was made through Casspi’s representatives with Creative Arts Agency (CAA), sources said.
Cleveland officials privately insist that no such request was made, but multiple league sources with knowledge say that CAA recently made the request. Per league rules, neither the agent nor Casspi can publicly make a trade request without being subject to league-mandated fines.
Conversely, Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal reported that he heard this hasn’t happened, but that Casspi declined comment once Lloyd reached out.
Casspi might be an interesting piece for a team to acquire in a deal alongside Anderson Varejao, whose name always comes up on the wish lists of opposing teams as the trade deadline approaches.
But with the price for Varejao remaining steep as ever, it’s unclear what Cleveland could get back in return for Casspi alone -- he’s averaging career lows in every meaningful statistical category, while receiving just a single minute of playing time over his current team’s last 13 games.