Cavaliers' forward Tristan Thompson has told Cleveland that he will leave the team next summer if he is forced to take his qualifying offer.
The newly raised NBA salary cap is going to make a lot of good, not great, players more money in the 2015-2016 fiscal year.
That salary cap number is expected to jump to around $90 million next year and a whopping $108 million the year after that.
Recently, NBA players have been choosing long term security over increased salaray. For example, if a player is worth a max contract, they can either take a long term deal under the parameters of the current salary cap, or take consecutive one-year deals to have their salary jump along with the salary cap (i.e., LeBron James, Greg Monroe).
One curious case among this summer’s free agents has been Cleveland's Tristan Thompson. Thompson was a key cog in the Cavs’ injury-plagued playoff run, grabbing offensive rebounds like they were his family members falling into a fire pit, and dunking lobs from the likes of Matthew Dellavedova and James.
The Cavaliers were close to signing Thompson to a five-year, $80 million deal, a contract many would never give Thompson prior to the cap bump. There were even reports that the deal was just about done.
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But, the official announcement never came. The Cavs thought their $80 million offer was more than fair, and figured that even if Thompson didn’t take accept, they could still retain him for 2015-2016 with his $6.8 million qualifying offer. Thompson and his agent, Rich Paul, said if Thompson is forced to take the qualifying offer, he will leave the Cavaliers next season. It 's been reported that Thompson’s hometown, the Toronto Raptors, are prepared to offer him a max contract under next year’s salary cap.
Thompson is a good NBA player who had good stretch in the playoffs when his team called upon him to play minutes. But, he is a sixth or seventh man on the Cavaliers. It’s pretty insane to pay a bench player $80 million, right?
Well, both Kevin Love and Anderson Varejao are injury prone, and Thompson is a great motor guy, so the Cavs weighed all that out and decided on $80 million.
Thompson also defends the rim reasonably well, is good in the pick-and-roll, and even showed he can defend perimeter players on pick-and-roll switches. But, he struggles to finish anything more than a dunk, is a poor free throw shooter, and his post game needs work. He is far from a complete big man.
Let’s play a player comparison:
2014-2015 Player A: 26.8 minutes, 8.5 points, 8.0 rebounds, .7 blocks and grabbed 55.9 percent of the rebounds he had a chance at.
2014-2015 Player B: 23.3 minutes, 8.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, 1.2 blocks, grabbed 55.5 percent of the rebounds he had a chance at.
Player A is the man who believes he is worth 90-plus million dollars, Tristan Thompson.
Player B is Ed Davis, who put up just about the same numbers and was also a free agent this summer. How much did Ed Davis sign for? Davis signed with the Portland Trailblazers for 3-years and $20 million.
Now, I’m not saying these players are one and the same. Thompson deserves more than Davis by a pretty significant amount, but not by 70 million dollars. The two produced at very similar levels last year, yet Thompson asked for more money. Thompson is not irreplaceable.
Buyers beware on Tristan Thompson, especially Toronto, because the money could outweigh the impact.
@JAjimbojr
