Okaro White has a chance to win a roster spot with the Cavaliers, but first he has to overcome the effects of a broken left foot he suffered in November, writes Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com. White’s foot has fully healed, but he is still struggling with the psychological aspects of the injury and admits he’s “babying” it.
“I just gotta get through,” said White, who is part of the Cavaliers’ entry in the Las Vegas Summer League. “I’m old enough, I’m not young anymore, so I gotta get over it [mentally] and try to find a way to showcase my ability.”
White started four games for the Heat before the injury, but it wound up ending his season. He was shipped to the Hawks at the trade deadline, then signed with the Cavs in March, but never took the court for either team. The 25-year-old forward has a non-guaranteed $1,544,951 contract for 2018/19.
There’s more news out of Cleveland:
- The Cavaliers passed on an opportunity to trade up on draft night and snag Luka Doncic, Vardon reports in a separate story. A source tells Vardon that Cleveland had an offer from Atlanta that included the No. 3 pick and Kent Bazemore, who will make more than $18MM next season with a $19.27MM option for 2019/20. However, the Cavs wanted Collin Sexton and were confident they could get him at No. 8.
- With LeBron James gone, the Cavaliers should take a gamble on Jabari Parker, according to Greg Swartz of Bleacher Report. The second player taken in the 2014 draft, Parker could become a dynamic scorer and rebounder if he can fully bounce back from his second ACL surgery. Swartz suggests Cleveland should use its $8.6MM mid-level exception to offer Parker a two-year contract. That would give him $13.3MM more in guaranteed money than if he accepts his $4.3MM qualifying offer with the Bucks, and it would put him back on the open market in 2020 when he’ll only be 25. Swartz recommends a few other moves for the Cavs, including re-signing Rodney Hood, working out an extension with Larry Nance Jr., trying to trade veterans such as J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson and taking on unwanted contracts to stockpile draft picks.
- Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com suggests several trades involving Kevin Love, listing the Trail Blazers, Heat, Lakers, Suns and Jazz as possible destinations.
Man, Love to the Lakers makes no sense. Why would a team preaching about being all about a new kind of formula for beating the Warriors, want a Cavs 2.0? And in the West!
Agree. LeBron is starting a clean slate! Go Laker nation!
Your statement assumes that LBJ + Love can’t win. Obviously the 3rd meet up was when they added Durant. The 4th the Cavs didn’t have Kyrie. Assuming the the Kawhi trade doesn’t happen, the Lakers with…
LBJ + Love + Rondo+Stephenson+Ingrim/Ball/Kouzma/Hart – whatever they send to the Cavs is a pretty athletic and versatile group good enough to keep Love on the floor too. That’s at least a team that has length, can switch and defend the perimeter. Add a shooter and you have a team I think will go deep and might shock the GSW.
Signing Parker and keeping Love makes sense – they’d still be able to compete in the East, meaning still selling seats and not losing too much money.
Taking on unwanted contracts… Then keeping JR and TT makes sense.
Sexton-Hood-Parker-Love-Nance… Nkt a bad starting 5 if you ask me
They will give up 140 points a game.
Sexton, Nance, and Hill (I’d have him start and bring Hood off the bench if he’s brought back) can all be decent defenders. Parker and Love would be liabilities on that end, but I imagine it wouldn’t get any worse than the defense they’ve played the past few years anyway.
Id rather have Cedi at the 3. He plays D, has seemingly unlimited supply of high energy and clearly understands the game that’s been asked of him so far.
I’d love Jabari, maybe a sign an trade but I don’t see a scenario where bucks don’t match at 8 mil dollar deal
That was my thought too. I’d be more than willing to take him at that price, but I’m sure he could get more.
Wow cannot believe Cleveland actually prefered Sexton than Doncic… drafting that bad will take them many years of tanking going nowhere. Man how useless can Altman be. SMH. I mean anyone & all would have taken Doncic over Sexton.
The Cavs wanting Sexton doesn’t mean they preferred him to Doncic. People can want multiple things… The real implication with this blurb is that the Cavs preferred Sexton to Doncic plus a toxic contract.
You’re exactly right…I’m not sure how someone couldn’t understand that
Bingo.
How come Sexton is the top scorer in summer league?
Because it’s the summer league? Lol. Like 80% of these guys aren’t nba players.
I’ll take Sexton over a euro guy that has shown nothing in NCAA or the g- League or the nba summer league.
Altman is not as “useless” as your comment. You really think you know it all. HAHAHAHA
You can’t say they made a mistake not knowing what they would need to give up. What if they wanted future 1st rnd picks? My guess is they felt that
Sexton + future 1st picks > Doncic. Doncic alone isn’t great enough to make the Cavs markedly better, meaning immediate contenders. He’s probably not going to be a LBJ, SHAQ, MJ caliber rookie that’s transformational. However, Sexton plus whoever else we draft in the near future, in the aggregate, might be enough to build a great team.
Regarding tanking and the draft situation next year, with ATL getting the CLE r1 11-30…
This is an incentive for CLE to tank. However, if successful, then the whole thing starts over again, having to tank to get the 1-10 pick in 2020. From there the 2021 r2 is surrendered regardless, and that’s the draft to have second-rounders.
Going for winning and getting the obligation over with may be best. That would make use of current salary and halt what could turn into a bad habit. And if Western teams do not want Love, he might be inclined to stay where he’s a champ.
PS the 2021 draft is the one with the first wave of HS players. And also supposedly, Eastern teams are the most interested in Love.
As for Parker, he would force Love to C. Prefer Alan Williams, Traveon Graham, SbzNapier for that 8.6.
Cavs can also trade off expiring contracts with guys like JR, TT and Hill for a draft pick or two by the trade deadline. Not sure what the rush to get horrible for a lotto chance to get a guy, hopefully, as good as a KLove.
For the most part, I agree with you. Keep KLove. The tricky part is who will end up coaching this crew? Lue? I hope he has a a offense book other than ISO and pick and pop.
Just a question
Is Cle still in Lux Tax range, Will Dan Gilbert actually sign off on paying Lux Tax for a team that is tanking?
Depends on Hood’s popularity. If there’s no bid, CLE is likely under. If over, it won’t be too hard to get back under by the end of the year.
Gilbert said he wants a winning year, we’ll see, he tried that in 2010 & did not work out.
Thanks
This team in 2018-19 is far superior to 2010. There was no one on that team 8 years ago that even slightly resembled KLove. That year had no lotto pick. That year didn’t have the luxury of young players with the calibre of Clarkson, Nance JR., *Hood, Cedi or Zizic.
JJHickson got the James indoctrination and was going to be the next James. Ha. WHO??
I much prefer Osman in that role, even though he is relatively less known at present than Hickson was.
It’s a better group of youth for sure. The overall talent is not necessarily more but the 18/19 group will not give up like they did.
I hope Okaro figures it out. That injury really sucked b/c I dont think the Heat would have gotten rid of him had he been healthy. He can guard multiple positions, protect the rim a bit, plays hard, can shoot. He won almost every conditioning test in Heat training camp last year. A lot to like about him