JULY 8TH, 9:10am: The sides made a bit of progress Tuesday, sources told Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio, who includes the tidbit at the end of a broader story on Amico Hoops.
JULY 6TH, 1:02pm: Talks between the sides continue, but the dialogue isn’t producing much of substance at this point, Haynes hears. Other teams are keeping a keen watch on the Thompson dialogue, given that LeBron James reportedly won’t talk to the Cavs about re-signing until Thompson’s deal is done, as Haynes details.
1:10pm: The gap isn’t vast, and there’s no animosity between the sides, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group hears (Twitter link).
JULY 2ND, 12:05pm: A gap remains between the sides in spite of the progress they made Wednesday, Windhorst tweets.
JULY 1ST, 2:09pm: The Cavaliers and Tristan Thompson are close to an agreement on a deal that would pay him north of $80MM, report Marc Stein and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com (Twitter link). It appears that would be about the maximum that he could receive in a five-year arrangement. LeBron James made it clear this spring that he wanted his fellow Rich Paul client back with the Cavs, months after Thompson and Cleveland didn’t come to terms on an extension this past fall.
A deal for Thompson would be yet another significant commitment for Cleveland, which will retain Kevin Love, reportedly for the max, and almost certainly will do the same with LeBron. The team has already had internal discussions about a payroll of $100-110MM next season with a tax payment of some $75MM, as Windhorst previously reported.
Thompson turned down a four-year, $52MM extension offer this past fall, betting that he could do better this summer, even though the Cavs had brought in Kevin Love at his position. Thompson came off the bench most of the time, but he excelled as a starter in the playoffs when Love was injured. Still, a max deal is quite a high price to pay for the 24-year-old who averaged only 8.5 points per game this past season, particularly with Love coming back, too.
They go be Cap-ed out with no way too improve that trash team…stupid moves D-Griff…..
If we have…
Irving @ PG
LBJ @ SF
Love @ PF
Tristan @ PF/C
For the next 4-5 years
Mozgov @ C for one more year
then addressing the SG position and the bench are our only real needs and those can be dealt with with some creativity. This team is going all in right now to try and milk as many NBA title opps as they can while LBJ is still at a star level.
Oh yeah…love the “trash team” trolling comment…haha.
ROFLMAO…Tristan Thompson better get on his knees and thank LeBron James for making him almost $40 million more than he probably should have. I liked his game before the past season, so part of the perception is a little changed b/c of this past season. That being said, he pretty much was just an offensive rebounder for them. He is bad defensively (which is not good next to someone like kevin love), but at least he is a decent shot blocker when he wants to be, and you know he is going to play hard for you. The real issue is the lack of space when he is on the floor, especially when on the floor with another big. I’d like to see him use his mid range jumper a little more. He showed before this past season that it’s pretty decent. At the end of the day, I think the real problem for the Cavs is how much they’re committing to their front court. Just makes it difficult to build a team
I don’t see him as a “bad defensive” player. He grabs rebounds and while he’s not a great shot blocker he bodies up and defends the post. What are using to categorize him as a bad defender?
Also, I think having Love on the floor WITH Trist or Moz is going to be exciting. I also think Moz will be a better weapon to use in the post too.
Thompson is a bad pick and roll defender, just as kevin love is. I like mozgov a lot though. It’s also not really fair to assume Thompson can’t improve in that area, now that he is around someone like LeBron
I. Will pay him 50 m that’s it nothing more nothing less