Thompson re-signs with Cavs

[Moranis]

5 years, 82 million

[apc]

5 years, 82 million

Same deal as Draymond Green. Thompson is NOT as valuable to the Cavs as Green to the Warriors.
 

[TA9]

Waste of money at that price. Should have let him go instead of paying a bench player that much

[sofutomygaha]

Good for him. His holdout definitely made him some extra money.

It will be interesting to see how $16M/season looks on Thompson in a couple of years. It obviously feels crazy now-- he's not even a starter.

[Sketch5]

I have a feeling Love will be gone half way threw the season, or at least on draft night. Even with the cap going up, it gives them no bench and as of now they are 18 mil in the hole. Doesn't give much extra to add the the bench in Lebrons final year.

Plus Love seems not to fit in as well being the third string guy. They seem to play better with him not there and Thompson starting. If Irving was healthy, might have had a different out come to the finals.

I could see DA making a call if Love is struggling at the all star break. I could see why he also made the Lee and Amir deal. It gives the Cavs two guys they could choose from that could play back up that would be off the books at the end of the season. Also Jerebko rounds out the numbers pretty nicely with Lee to make it happen and gives Lebron an actual back up SF/PF.

DA knew that helping the Cavs would mean loosing out on Love, maybe this was part of the deal, I help you, and in a year, you help me type of deal, because the Cavs spending that much money on the PF spot is a bit dumb when you have no real good back up SF or PG and an over all weak bench which was something Lebron said was the big issue in Miami. So either something is up, or Lebron didn't learn anything.

Of course there is a slim to none chance of this happening, and Love wouldn't be my first choice, but I think he'd fit in really well in Stevens's style and could bring in an other FA this summer were we should have the cap to do so.

[Moranis]

I have a feeling Love will be gone half way threw the season, or at least on draft night. Even with the cap going up, it gives them no bench and as of now they are 18 mil in the hole. Doesn't give much extra to add the the bench in Lebrons final year.

Plus Love seems not to fit in as well being the third string guy. They seem to play better with him not there and Thompson starting. If Irving was healthy, might have had a different out come to the finals.

I could see DA making a call if Love is struggling at the all star break. I could see why he also made the Lee and Amir deal. It gives the Cavs two guys they could choose from that could play back up that would be off the books at the end of the season. Also Jerebko rounds out the numbers pretty nicely with Lee to make it happen and gives Lebron an actual back up SF/PF.

DA knew that helping the Cavs would mean loosing out on Love, maybe this was part of the deal, I help you, and in a year, you help me type of deal, because the Cavs spending that much money on the PF spot is a bit dumb when you have no real good back up SF or PG and an over all weak bench which was something Lebron said was the big issue in Miami. So either something is up, or Lebron didn't learn anything.

Of course there is a slim to none chance of this happening, and Love wouldn't be my first choice, but I think he'd fit in really well in Stevens's style and could bring in an other FA this summer were we should have the cap to do so.

The Cavs have one of the deepest benches in basketball.  Their bench when everyone is healthy is Varejao, Thompson, Smith, Williams, Delly, Jefferson, Jones, Kaun, and Harris.  That is probably an upper 20's win team, maybe even low 30 win team, alone. 

[Roy H.]

Good for him. His holdout definitely made him some extra money.

Did it? 

The original offer was 5 years, $80 million.  If his agent had come back to the Cavs initially with 5 years, $85 million, my guess is that the Cavs would have accepted that.  Instead, he played hardball and demanded the max.  His negotiating through the media burned some bridges, resulting in Thompson missing training camp and potentially disrupting chemistry.

I think a different agent with a different negotiating technique would have gotten his client more money.

[Roy H.]

The Cavs have one of the deepest benches in basketball.  Their bench when everyone is healthy is Varejao, Thompson, Smith, Williams, Delly, Jefferson, Jones, Kaun, and Harris.  That is probably an upper 20's win team, maybe even low 30 win team, alone.

It's a solid bench.  However, if that was the starting lineup, I think that team would win in the  single digits.  I can't imagine a scenario where a team with J.R. Smith or Tristan Thompson as its best player would win 25+ games.

[ChainSmokingLikeDino]

Waste of money at that price. Should have let him go instead of paying a bench player that much

But, resigning their own players is the only way they can give out a large contract. So, unless a David West style discount falls in their laps (and that would only be short-term anyways), they have to pay $$$ to resign/extend players under contract. They have no cap space to operate within free agency.

[Moranis]

The Cavs have one of the deepest benches in basketball.  Their bench when everyone is healthy is Varejao, Thompson, Smith, Williams, Delly, Jefferson, Jones, Kaun, and Harris.  That is probably an upper 20's win team, maybe even low 30 win team, alone.

It's a solid bench.  However, if that was the starting lineup, I think that team would win in the  single digits.  I can't imagine a scenario where a team with J.R. Smith or Tristan Thompson as its best player would win 25+ games.

I think that would be a pretty well constructed team.  Mo Williams can still ball.  Decent outside shooting, solid rebounding and defense down low.  I probably exaggerated a bit, but I do think if that team was healthy the bench might not actually be the worst team in the league (which is what single digit wins is), of course Shumpert may be the bench guy with Smith starting anyway.  My larger point about Cleveland not having a weak bench holds though.  They have a pretty darn good bench. 

[bdm860]

Good for him. His holdout definitely made him some extra money.

Did it? 

The original offer was 5 years, $80 million.  If his agent had come back to the Cavs initially with 5 years, $85 million, my guess is that the Cavs would have accepted that.  Instead, he played hardball and demanded the max.  His negotiating through the media burned some bridges, resulting in Thompson missing training camp and potentially disrupting chemistry.

I think a different agent with a different negotiating technique would have gotten his client more money.

If anybody needs a new agents it's Delladova.

How did Thompson parlay his playoff performance to $82m/5yr, while Delladova got $1.2m/1yr (qualifying offer, I know).  Think if he had Rich Paul as an agent, what would he have been holding out for?  Rich Paul was asking $94m for a backup PF, so a 3rd string PG must be worth what? $60m?  Or are Delly and LeBron not chummy enough for that to work? 

[PhoSita]

The Cavs have one of the deepest benches in basketball.  Their bench when everyone is healthy is Varejao, Thompson, Smith, Williams, Delly, Jefferson, Jones, Kaun, and Harris.  That is probably an upper 20's win team, maybe even low 30 win team, alone.

The Cavs have a lot of redundancy on that bench, though.  There are only 96 frontcourt minutes and they've got Love, Mozgov, Varejao and Thompson, plus they'll certainly play LeBron at the 4 a good chunk of the time.

Not a lot of size on the wing there with Mo, Delly, J.R., and Shump.  There's no Shane Battier type on this team.  I'm not convinced Richard Jefferson is still really much of an NBA player.  At best he's a bench shooter a la Mike Miller.

[pearljammer10]

I am not a Thompson fan so that is just a crazy overpay in my eyes. But hey, what do I know.

[Moranis]

The Cavs have one of the deepest benches in basketball.  Their bench when everyone is healthy is Varejao, Thompson, Smith, Williams, Delly, Jefferson, Jones, Kaun, and Harris.  That is probably an upper 20's win team, maybe even low 30 win team, alone.

The Cavs have a lot of redundancy on that bench, though.  There are only 96 frontcourt minutes and they've got Love, Mozgov, Varejao and Thompson, plus they'll certainly play LeBron at the 4 a good chunk of the time.

Not a lot of size on the wing there with Mo, Delly, J.R., and Shump.  There's no Shane Battier type on this team.  I'm not convinced Richard Jefferson is still really much of an NBA player.  At best he's a bench shooter a la Mike Miller.

Jefferson played pretty well in Dallas last year and has looked pretty good in the pre-season.  I think Thompson gives you a bit of what Battier does defensively (clearly not offensively).  And they like Harris.  He is probably still a year away from being a meaningful contributor, but will give them minutes during the season.  Obviously Smith or Shump has decent size and one of them is coming off the bench.  Come playoff time when you crunch rotations and minutes, the Cavs will be fine. 

[Csfan1984]

Trade Sully ASAP. Sully can have a better year than Thompson and I don't want any pressure to resign him. Cavs are nuts. This is what got Cavs in trouble the first time trying to build around LeBron, overpaying scrubs.