A pool-side meeting with LeBron James and a 12:01 a.m. phone call on July 1st helped convince Kevin Love to stay in Cleveland, according to Terry Pluto of The Plain Dealer. “We talked everything out,” Love said of the session with James. “A lot of stuff was very honest. We came to a very good place and agreed on a lot of things.” Love added that the early phone call from the organization let him know he was a priority. He agreed to a new five-year, $113MM deal with Cleveland.
There’s more news regarding the Cavs:
- The newly signed James reminded the Cavaliers that they still have offseason work left to do, writes Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com. While filming a movie Friday, James talked about moves the team has made this summer and some that are still left to finish. “We still got to re-sign Tristan Thompson,” he said. “Hopefully we can bring back J.R. Smith as well and see if there’s some other free agents out there that’d love to come here and play if we’re able to do that.”
- Thompson and the Cavs were reportedly close to reaching a five-year, $80MM deal, but talks stalled when he asked for the $85MM that the Warriors’ Draymond Green received, according to Joe Vardon of the Northeast Ohio Media Group. He also notes that Smith, who turned down a $6.4MM option for next season, has found few suitors in free agency. Cleveland is reluctant to give him a large raise or a long-term deal, two things Smith is seeking.
- Turning Brendan Haywood‘s non-guaranteed $10.5MM contract into a trade exception might be the best option for the Cavs, writes Jason Lloyd of The Akron Beacon Journal. Today’s release of Deron Williams by the Nets eases Brooklyn’s financial strain and removes another potential suitor for Haywood, Lloyd writes. One possible alternative is to send Haywood to the Clippers for Jamal Crawford, but L.A. officials have denied they are dealing Crawford, and Cleveland won’t need him if Smith re-signs. Haywood is expected to be dealt before his contract becomes fully guaranteed August 1st.
The Warriors should sneak in and sign J.R. Smith. He’s an upgrade from Leandro Barbosa and since no one seems to want to sign him to a big contract, the desire to be part of a Dynasty seems like a good incentive.
Once again… NO ONE wants to play in Cleveland lol. Kevin Love had to be talked into it after they gave up Andrew Wiggins… Mo Williams said no before another contract feel through… For the same $$$ is a player going to go to Cleveland? Miami? LA? NYC?… so far this off season it’s been Miami.. wonder why that is
You are such a revisionist. Love wanted to come to Cleveland while he was still a Mavs player. He never waivered publicly about NOT returning. He may have issues that needed to be discussed with James but that’s not the same as NOT wanting to play. He could’ve easily gone to 5 other teams.
As for Mo, he said from the start he wanted to return.
Why do you try so hard to hate on Cleveland and LBJ? If you don’t like either of them it would seem simpler to just ignore them.
Also, JR Smith mentioned he wanted to comeback but it seems the Cavs don’t want to overpay.
A) Kevin Love needed an “honest talk” to return… not sure what I am revising?
B) Mo Williams initially said no to Cleveland and was about to sign with Memphis.. only when that fell through did he come back. You can pretend that didn’t happen all you want, facts remain the same though.
C) I have no hate for them.. I just find it hilarious that James left the Heat because he thought they were “done”… since leaving the Heat added Whiteside, Dragic, Gerald Green, and Amare Stoudemire.. and might be a better team than Cleveland right now. Meanwhile the Cavs still cannot attract FA’s to sign with them.. because of their location. There is nothing they will ever be able to do to change that either. Can you name the last major FA the Cavs signed not name Lebron? I 90% sure it was Shawn Kemp
An honest talk can be as simple as “Hey let’s clear the air” as opposed to not wanting to comeback and having to be convinced otherwise. The fact that the meeting was one of chance “him vacationing in LA” as opposed to a scheduled “pitch” meeting is relevant. LBJ aready said he had no intentions on “pitching” to Kevin Love because he should want to comeback for the obvious reasons i.e going to the finals with some success w/o him and, for the most part, Irving.
YOU are painting it as if he had decided to leave and had to be convinced which is not what has been reported.
On this very website on June 19th and 30th Mo was said to have “strong interest” in coming back to Cleveland.
link to hoopsrumors.com
After that, it was reported he was close to signing a 3 or 4 year deal with the Grizzlies..
link to hoopsrumors.com
THEN a report came out he was close to signing with the Griz. Sources quoted denied that to be true.
You can do the same thing I did and research it for yourself…
link to hoopsrumors.com
Now..maybe teams emerged with better deals than what the Cavs offered, maybe he preferred one situation over another..HOWEVER, never did he say he DIDN’T want to come to Cleveland. NEVER did he say anything negative about the Cavs. So where are you getting this from?
And to your last part, and I can’t even think how you can say this…
a) LBJ left Miami KNOWING Miami was the better team. Clearly he didn’t come to Cleveland thinking in year 1 or 2 they would be an instant championship contender, He even said it would take time for things to come together. Thus, he didn’t leave Miami to go to a better WINNING opportunity.
b) With LBJ, Wade and Bosh under contract their simply would be a trade for Dragic because they couldn’t afford him. The idea that they could have all 3 AND big FA is a silly assumption on your part.
c) Name me one FA that the Cavs have been publicly after that they didn’t sign? They may have kicked the tires on some guys but they made it clear they wanted to bring back Love, Thompson, LBJ, Shump and Smith and would have no $$$$ to sign an outside FA.
And in reply to this …. “Can you name the last major FA the Cavs signed not name Lebron? I 90% sure it was Shawn Kemp”.
Ummmm…Kevin Love?
OBVIOUSLY a LBJ-less team has much, much, much less of a chance of bringing in a high profile FA but a..
-So do most of the other NBA teams outside of the major markets.
-This year it appears that major FA are willing to go to smaller, cold weather markets if a) They feel there’s a chance to compete, b) They are getting at or near the max
My Knicks, along with the Brooklyn Nets, Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavs (to an extent) have missed out on a few FA and had some of their own go to smaller market teams (Chandler to Phoenix, Monta Ellis to Indiana, etc).
I just think you go out of your way to paint a picture that isn’t really true as if you have a bias or something against either the Cavs or LBJ.
Waiting for my comment to post.
kevin love played for the mavs?
he meant minny but dont be too harsh.. hes a knicks fan lol
Oops. Obviously I know what team he played for prior to coming to Cleveland.
Delusions. LeBron might be great but nobody wants to play with him for the same reason nobody wants to play with kobe. The cav’s resigning Kevin love is just like kobe convincing Shaq to come to LA, in fact the entire dynamic so far between LeBron and Love is shaq/kobe all over again.
Cleveland is a terrible city, not because of sports but because of life. Bad city + egomaniac = no free agents. LeBron is only there because he was born there.
All players will always leave an open ended answer when asked if they want to come back to play another year. Especially when asked right after a playoff series. You aren’t going to burn a bridge and alienate a fan base unless you’re 100% sure you will be able to play somewhere else that’s desirable.
San Francisco isn’t going to be beaten by Cleveland in any sport, so maybe LeBron should move out west if he wants to win.
Cavs should trade Haywood and jr smith to nets for joe Johnson. Sign jr to 1 year at 9 million to do a sign and trade. Jr gets paid, nets save 15 million and cavs get a starting SG who is a much better player then jr smith.
Something you aren’t considering is the real world price tag of Joe Johnson.. might be 24 mill contract.. but you have to double that with tax issues. Assuming they kept him more than 1 year.. his contract would then have to triple the value in real world dollars. This is why the Heat had to give up Mike Miller 2 years ago.. his $5mill contract would have had a domino effect, costing the heat more than 45 mill in tax.
It seems like Cleveland is determined to get a player for Haywood’s non gauranteed contract. The way they have been throwing money around this off season they might be willing to pay the enormous luxary tax that comes with adding joe to there already enormous pay roll and the tax it comes with. Is joe Johnson worth it? If money isn’t a issue then yes. They could keep him next summer for a fraction of this years salary. He’s made Alot of money and if he won a title with Cleveland I bet he would resign for 3-5 mill to chase back to back titles.
A LOT of assumptions there my friend
I would rather just give the $9 mil to JR than to waste Haywood contract AND pay JJ $24 mil + tax penalties. He’s going to have a reduced role on this team and paying him more than either one of the big 3 seems silly to me.
A trade exception for brendan Haywood would be disappointing. U mean we cant get Kevin Martin-sg,tyreke evans-sg,etc.
Come on David griffin,do better than a trade exception.