The effort was there, the shooting was not.
That's exactly why they need to be aggressive to the hoop, instead of chucking prayer 3s. So no, there only minimal effort.
I disagree. We had plenty of open threes that we missed.
Can't just blame effort...other teams simply have better players.
Just knew when Cleveland made those trades the season was over for all the teams in the Eastern Conference.
None of those moves made sense from a value perspective for any of Cleveland's trading partners....none. (Yeah, LA's looking to land LeBron...good luck after giving away the farm.)It wasn't even close to being fair trade value.
Kudos to the Cleveland brass. On the other hand - worst GM's of the year awards for those taking in players Cleveland cast off. Can't think of one that was worth more than a 2nd round pick. Yet, they received top line talent in return.
Not sure I agree - let's just look at what those other teams received, individually:
Lakers acquired IT4 and a 1st round pick (and an expiring Frye) while escaping Jordan Clarkson's bad deal and clearing tons of cap space after THIS season. They had to let go of Nance to do so, but he wasn't make or break here. IT4, if he ever gets healthy, is by far the best player in this deal. Lakers now have options for next year including a try-out with IT4.
Sacramento did an incredible job getting out of that HORRIBLE George Hill contract ($37M owed after this season) and only took on Iman Shumpert (just $11M owed next season) to do it. Shumpert is a decent player when healthy. I consider this a huge win for SAC.
For years, we talked about how great of a contract Jae Crowder had. Well, Utah, a small market team, was able to turn an expiring Rodney Hood into two additional years of a two-way player they coveted during the Hayward negotiations. They weren't going to re-sign Hood so I think they did a great job here.
Miami and Wade had mutual interest in coming back together. I was pleasantly surprised by this deal since I don't like Wade and I especially don't like Wade and Lebron together. A protected 2nd won't be missed here.
So let's not be fooled by how 'amazing' Cleveland is now. They essentially turned Kyrie Irving into Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance, Rodney Hood, Ante Zizic, and the BKN 1st. Yikes! They may be feeling good now and that could carry through to the playoffs, but they gave up a 1st and took on a lot of long-term money just to re-shuffle the deck chairs a bit.
tl;dr - I can totally see why these other teams made these deals. For the most part, they greatly benefited from them!