It’s pretty obvious to say that the 2014-15 season for the Cleveland Cavaliers has been far from a resounding success, at least so far.
After an offseason which netted them Kevin Love in a trade and hometown hero LeBron James via free agency, along with some lesser complementary pieces, the Cavs were expected to immediately become one of the NBA’s top teams again. With a less-than-thrilling 19-17 record through 36 games, they have not fulfilled that lofty expectation just yet.
So, as LeBron James sits out for around two weeks due to various nagging injuries he said he has been suffering from, Cleveland general manager David Griffin decided to make a pair of big moves to bring in some names he thought could possibly help the Cavaliers get out of the rut they’re in.
First, as part of a three-team trade, he sent guard Dion Waiters to the Thunder and rarely-used reserves Louis Amundson and Alex Kirk, along with a future second-round pick, to the Knicks for Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith. Oklahoma City also sent Lance Thomas to New York and a protected first-rounder to Cleveland. Shumpert is a talented forward who has been injured often this season while Smith is the prototypical streaky shooter who can provide instant offense off the bench.
A day later, Griffin was able to acquire center Timofey Mozgov from the Nuggets for a pair of protected first-rounders in the hopes of making up for the injured Anderson Varejao, who tore his Achilles and is out for the rest of the season.
With those two trades, the Cavaliers lost a decent player who had his ups and downs in Cleveland in Waiters but added three more that could all potentially be useful as this season goes on and possibly into the next one as well. However, the two first round picks given up for Mozgov represent a significant investment in the deal and definitely constitute a partial mortgage.
Clearly, the Cavaliers see the writing on the wall. They realize that LeBron’s body may be breaking down a bit and that they need to win right now and can’t afford to wait three, four, or even five years to do so. The roster experiment they made this summer hasn’t worked so far and these trades show a bit of a desperate intent for it to finally work.
Who knows how LeBron will respond in the second half of this season or how, and if, he, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love can mesh together as a group of superstars. But picking up scoring (Smith), defense (Shumpert) and size (Mozgov) is a great start and there’s enough time left in the season to give the Cavaliers’ large talent pool a chance to turn this ship in the right direction.
If it doesn’t work, then this team will be viewed as one of the biggest disasters in the era of free agency in the NBA. You can be sure David Griffin doesn’t want to be known as the guy who engineered that calamity, which is why he’s pushing all of his chips into the pot right now and hoping the rest of the hand turns out in his favor.
