THE LATEST KENYAN NEWS: The Cavaliers risk violating rule No. 1: Don't piss off LeBron James

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

The Cavaliers risk violating rule No. 1: Don't piss off LeBron James

By Tom Ziller  @teamziller on Aug 11, 2015, 9:44a 1

Tristan Thompson's camp has the ultimate leverage in their contract standoff with the Cavaliers: the threat of an angry LeBron James.

On Monday, the Tristan Thompsonstand-off in Cleveland got a bit more threatening. As we stagger ever closer to training camp with the Canadian big man still unsigned, the two sides are looking toward resolution one way or the other. Thompson's camp wants theCavaliers to up their offer to the max. Cleveland wants Thompson to take a far more team-friendly, but still lucrative deal. ESPN's Brian Windhorst breaks down the financial implications well.

There are loads of incentives for each side to dig in their heels and believe they have leverage. The Cavaliers are paying gobs of luxury tax already and would prefer not to make Kevin Love's back-up the fourth max player on the roster. Thompson knows that 10 teams out there next summer would line up to offer him an even more lucrative max contract. Cleveland is right to presume that Thompson taking the qualifying offer -- as threatened on Monday by his agent -- is a last resort.

Thompson is right to presume that the Cavaliers can give him the max if they really want to and won't be able to replace him if he leaves in a year. In a vacuum, given the circumstances, there's little reason for either side to budge. But we're not in a vacuum, and there's one key factor that the Cavaliers really can't ignore: the LeBron Jamesfactor.

LeBron and Thompson share an agent. LeBron has buttered Thompson up an inordinate amount, often creating questions about his belief in Love. (For what it's worth, those questions now seem completely overblown given that Love re-signed with Cleveland.) LeBron relied on Thompson during an injury-riddled Finals run.

There's an argument to be made that against the elite teams of the NBA -- theWarriors, the Spurs, the Rockets, theClippers -- Thompson, who is mobile and agile, will be the most important big man on Cleveland's roster. Love is a devastatingly sharp offensive weapon and Timofey Mozgov is a top-flight brute around the rim, but it's Thompson who raises the Cavaliers' defense to a higher level. It's Thompson who has thrived in the pick-and-roll with LeBron and Kyrie Irving. It's Thompson who helped give Cleveland an identity that led us to believe for a few minutes that the Warriors could be stopped.

LeBron's faith in Thompson is well-placed. Thompson was there with King James when the test was toughest, and no other Cavalier embraced the challenge and fought the fight like Thompson did. Given that, plus the Rich Paul connection, one can rightfully presume that LeBron would be mighty peeved if Cleveland were to lose Thompson.

This is the one inviolable rule for the Cavaliers: do not make LeBron angry. No matter what the Cavaliers do, no matter the cost, they just simply cannot make LeBron angry. It is franchise suicide. David Griffin is a top-notch general manager, and he's navigated rough waters beautifully over the past year and change. Now is not the time to take a stand.

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This is a situation Cleveland can't win unless Rich Paul, the agent and close friend of the greatest player on the planet, caves. What are the odds Rich Paul is going to cave here? What are the odds the Cavaliers will be able to recruit LeBron to convince two friends -- Thompson and Paul -- to take haircuts for the benefit of Dan Gilbert? What are the odds that Griffin and Gilbert can convince LeBron they did the right thing by letting Thompson walk in 2016 over some money? What are the odds LeBron takes that in stride while his rivals in the West continue to pile up assets?

The odds that LeBron would leave in 2016 or 2017 as a result of a Thompson exit seem remote. You still do not ever want to test those odds.

We think King James has switched teams for the last time. We think he'll stay in Cleveland no matter what. But trying to get in LeBron's head has proven to be a Sisyphean task in the past. Testing LeBron's commitment after what happened to Cleveland in 2010 and what happened to Miami in 2014 is a dice roll you want to avoid. We don'tthink the Thompson crisis would ever cost Cleveland LeBron. That belief cannot possibly be solid enough to risk it all.

Let's not pretend that conceding to Thompson would set any sort of precedent, either. Rich Paul's player roster is relatively short, and there aren't any other Cavaliers on it. This is some unique leverage Paul and thus Thompson have, and because of Love's ill-timed injury and Thompson's excellent finals performance, it's fortified leverage. It's not replicable. So while caving to Thompson's rather eye-popping demands would look like a total cave-in, it's not as if anyone else will be able to take advantage of it. The situation is unique.

Dan Gilbert is worth $5 billion. He can afford to keep Thompson at the price Thompson has set and, thus, keep LeBron happy. He has seen what a LeBron scorned does. Does Gilbert really want to revisit that period of Cleveland history? If there's any remote chance of that happening based on a decision to dig in against Thompson, they can't risk it.

LeBron is the ultimate NBA trump card, and Rich Paul and Tristan Thompson are holding it. The Cavaliers probably ought to the swallow their pride and fold.