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burninmylight on 11 July 2014
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VanceIX said:
burninmylight said:
VanceIX said:
burninmylight said:


You can't carry the best player in the game. If he wanted to ride someone else's coattails, there are better teams he could have chosen.

Like who? Cleveland is the only team that can can afford his contract while sporting three all-stars at the same time (Irving is much better than Wade at this point in his career, and Kevin Love is an immediate upgrade over Bosh). If he stayed in Miami, he would at least have had the chance to build his legacy with one team, but history will remember his as the guy who bolted when thigs started to get a little tough. 

Oh, so we're talking about giving him the max (or near max) contract while still fielding two other all stars in this situation? Then outside of Houston, nobody except the team he's leaving. Cleveland ain't got two all stars. Love is a Timberwolf last time I checked, and the T-wolves still have him for another year if they so please. Therefore, they decide where he goes, if he goes this offseason. And like I said in another post, Cleveland can't have Kyrie , LeBron and Love all on max deals.

They can if they trade Wiggins for Love, which they are actually considering, according to some sources. Even if they don't, they have an insane front-court with Irving and Wiggins (assuming they move him to SG), and Lebron in the back. They also have what is essentially an unprotected lottery pick this year from Miami. They are easily the best team in terms of potential, period.

It's not about talent-for-talent trades so much as it is about salary and going over the cap. We really can't have this discussion until we know what LeBron will sign for, but assuming he signs for the max (which he has stated he wants), and Love wants to sign for the max (which he has stated he wants), then Cleveland has a serious game of salary-cap-Tetris in front of it.

Kyrie still has one more year of rookie salary before his huge deal kicks in, so that's what would allow any of this to possibly work. But after next year, assuming Cleveland were to keep Kyrie and land LeBron and Love, it's salary cap would be astronomical for such a small market, superstars or not. We're talking Brooklyn Nets territory, and most owners would never want to foot that bill.

But like I said, we'll know a lot more once contracts start becoming a bit more concrete. The NBA salary cap for next year was just set to be around $62 million a couple of days ago. If two guys are taking up more than half of that, then there's not much else you can do around them.