Cavaliers’ GM David Griffin must be a magician. There isn’t any other explanation for the moves he makes to improve his basketball team.
Over the summer, when the Chicago Bulls signed Dwyane Wade as a free agent, Griffin slid in and took Mike Dunleavy off their hands to add to the wine and gold’s array of shooters.
Dunleavy, now 36 years old, saw his three point shooting numbers (the main reason the Cavs wanted him) decline from around 40% over the last five years, to 35% this year.
Tyronn Lue lost confidence in the veteran and over the last couple of weeks, he barely saw any time on the court, partially because he was battling an ankle injury.
Add in JR Smith being lost to the team until March with a broken thumb, and you needed to add another outside shooter to back up point guard and a serviceable big man to the list of needs for the defending champions.
So, what does Griffin do? He deals for one of the best three point shooters in history in Kyle Korver, and moves Dunleavy in the deal along with Mo Williams, who isn’t even playing right now.
He swapped his first round pick in 2017 to Portland to get back the Cavs’ first rounder in ’18 to get around the rule you can’t trade first rounders in consecutive years, so he could deal his first pick in 2019 to the Hawks as part of the deal.
The Cavs payroll and luxury tax bill actually goes down with this trade, and it allow Cleveland to add a player, probably a point guard, because they now have an open roster spot.
Talk about a win-win scenario.
As for Korver, yes he has declined since he was an all-star in 2015, when he averaged 12.1 points per night and shot a league high 49.2% from behind the arc. He’s averaging 9.5 points and shooting 41% from three point range this year.
But remember this. When the Cavs played Atlanta in the playoffs each of the last two seasons, David Blatt and Lue made it a priority to keep Korver under control. They felt he was the Hawks’ game changer.
And now he plays for the Cavaliers.
Korver will turn 36 in March, thus joining the veteran bench club with Richard Jefferson and Channing Frye, and he was averaging 28 minutes per night with Atlanta.
We would expect those minutes will be reduced here, and perhaps with less of a workload, Korver’s shooting efficiency will return to the levels he attained from 2011-12 through 2014-15, when the lowest he shot from distance was 43.5%.
He is hitting almost 50% of his shots from 16 feet to the three point line, and knocking down 52% of his threes from the corner.
The guy can flat out shoot the rock. And with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving’s ability to breakdown defenses and get to the hole, well, we all saw the results last May and June.
With the open roster spot, we would anticipate a complimentary move from Griffin to add a veteran back up point guard soon.
Kay Felder has shown flashes, but we will repeat, when you a competing for a title, you can’t expect a rookie to be a major contributor. Felder looks like he can play, and will see more time next year and years to come, but Lue doesn’t want to have to rely on him in a playoff situation.
The Cavs are sailing right now at 27-8, the top record in the Eastern Conference. But David Griffin sees the bigger picture. He saw a way to improve this team and went out and got it done.
That’s what the great GMs in sports do. They are proactive, not reactive. Because if you are the latter, when you make a move, it might be too late.
JK
Cleveland Sports Perspective 