Understanding why the Memphis Grizzlies just dumped players and a draft pick on the Cleveland Cavaliers
By Kelly Dwyer | Ball Don't Lie – 2 hours 55 minutes ago


A number of respected NBA sources came through on Tuesday morning to announce the first major deal of the NBA’s trading season, and the first transaction made by the Memphis Grizzlies since a new ownership and front office team took over in December. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst first reported that a deal sending Memphis forward Marreese Speights, guard Josh Selby and a draft pick to Cleveland for Jon Leuer was in the works. Yahoo! Sports’ Marc J. Spears then reported that the deal was finished, and that Wayne Ellington would also be heading to the Cavaliers. Memphis-area radio host and Grizzlies hound Chris Vernon then reported that the pick heading to Cleveland was a 2015 first rounder, protected to the top five of the draft.

Vernon then reported what we knew had to happen. The Grizzlies, under the roster minimum for players, would be considering signing a gaggle of offense-first types on minimum salaries: Bill Walker, Delonte West, and (eventually, he’s currently playing overseas) Sasha Vujacic.

The immediate fallout was the correct assessment that this was a salary cap move, and little else, for the Grizzlies. It’s a manageable one, though, especially considering the potential new additions the Grizzlies will be taking in.

Memphis entered the day $4 million over the luxury tax mark, with rumors swirling that the team would move a high salaried forward in Rudy Gay that doesn’t mesh with the new front office’s administration’s ideals regarding production. With no obvious answers in the trade market available, and facing a luxury tax bill that wouldn’t work in Memphis’ small market, the team then worked around the fringes to lose over $6.2 million in 2012-13 salary. Because Cleveland is below the salary cap, they could take in the higher salaried Speights and Ellington (Selby and Leuer’s contracts are a wash) along the way.

Now under the tax limit, the Grizzlies have added a player in Leuer and reportedly are about to acquire three players in West, Walker and (again, eventually) Vujacic that reek of pay for play perfection. None are stars, but Leuer’s per minute stats in Milwaukee last year were very good, he’s a rotation player, while the three potential free agent signings can help rescue a Grizzlies offense that has been amongst the worst in the NBA since the beginning of December.

Amongst the worst in the NBA despite the presence of scorers in Gay and Zach Randolph, mind you. It wasn’t working, and you don’t pay the luxury tax for something that isn’t working. Unless you’re the Los Angeles Lakers, of course.

Speights and Ellington are passable players. Speights may run like a bull in the china shop sometimes but he was once a favorite of Grizzlies Vice President of Basketball Operations John Hollinger. Still, his terrible marks from the floor (just under 43 percent, working mostly as a center) weren’t enough to make up for his good-enough rebounding. Ellington – and we don’t mean this as a mean joke – actually developed an NBA-level skill this year as he hit for over 42 percent of his three pointers, but he does such little else that it’s hard to justify both paying the luxury tax and missing out on luxury tax payments from other teams just because he’ll sometimes drop a 3-6 night from long range. Quincy Pondexter’s return to action will help in regards to the perimeter.

Rudy Gay stays in Memphis, for now (Getty Images)If Grizzlies fans and Memphis coach Lionel Hollins badly wanted to finish the year with Rudy Gay on board, they likely got their wish. This doesn’t preclude a trade involving Gay, not with a month to go before the Feb. 21 trade deadline, but this is a reaction to the paucity of options and trading partners out there. We’re sure the rest of the NBA overrates Rudy and wouldn’t mind dealing for him, but not with two years and over $36 million left on his deal after this season.

Which means the Grizzlies are likely delaying the inevitable. Even with Speights, Selby and Ellington off of next year’s books, Memphis will be just a few million under the luxury tax in 2013-14. And that’s without signing the irreplaceable Tony Allen, retaining Jerryd Bayless (who is sure to opt out of his contract), or filling out a roster that only has seven guaranteed contracts on it. Don’t look for cheap help in the draft, either, as Memphis traded away its first round pick for the rights to a few months of Shane Battier in 2011.

Which means Rudy, or possibly Randolph, will be on the blocks all over again. And by then, with the roster trimmed to the team’s four big money making players and little else, there won’t be a Marreese Speights deal to save them.

Of course, this could be exactly what the new front office – with a chance for one last go with the old crew and coaching staff, and no midseason fixes on the table – are after. We can’t blame them.

Please grade this translation attempt made by an NBA amateur:

in 2015 the Cavs get to use the Memphis 1st round draft if the draft choice is not among the first 5 nor among the final 15?

That sounds kind of strange, isn't it?

Office Should Feel Bad!
By Jhugar On January 22, 2013

Like many of you, I watched yesterday’s devastating loss to the Indiana Pacers. It was one more disappointing moment in a stretch that’s been full of them. The Grizzlies are in a slump right now, and their one big win against the Bulls on Saturday still involved them blowing a 17-point lead late in the game. As dark as recent times have been, there was one bright spot in yesterday’s game: the excellent play of Wayne Ellington. He hit threes, and displayed a great ability to get the basket. You could totally see this guy playing a huge part in a Grizzlies’ playoff-

Wait, what? they traded him? Well, that’s a bummer. But hey, it’s just one guy, the core of the bench is still intact, and they still have a great set of big men coming off the ben-

They traded Speights too?! OH YOU’VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!

Wait, wait, I’m probably getting upset over nothing. they wouldn’t trade two huge parts of their bench unless they were getting something valuabel in return, right? In fact, I bet the Grizzlies are going to be even bett-

What’s a Jon Leuer?

Okay, so let’s summarize. the Grizzlies traded Ellington, and Speights, two of their most valuable second unit players, and Josh Selby, who has loads of potential, and might do really well if he just got some playing time, and all they got in return was a player who is averaging 2 points a game, and can’t crack the rotation on one of the worst teams in the league. That’s what they did.

But they didn’t stop there. In order to fill the new holes in their lineup, the Grizzlies brought in Bill Walker and Delonte West. Or to put it another way, two guys who haven’t played this season. It has to say something that no one wanted these guys, right? I mean, look at how thin the Blazers bench is. They’re a potential playoff team, who will likely be on the outside looking in because of their lack of depth, and at no point did they decide that bringing in Delonte West and Bill Walker would rectify the situation. The Grizzlies disagreed apparently.

This trade really doesn’t make any sense to me. The explanation we’ve been given is that it’s a way of avoiding the luxury tax. Look, I get that owners are concerned about money above all else, but in a season where we’re supposed to believe the Grizzlies have a legitimate shot of winning a title, it’s hurts to see them do something like this. If this was the only way to keep them from trading Rudy or Z-Bo, then I could see a bit of a silver lining from that perspective, but what I can’t look past is that the Grizzlies undeniably made themselves worse today.

Seeing Speights go hurts the most. I liked Ellington, but he was inconsistent, and he was only here for half a season, so the fans never developed a major connection with him (we’ll always the Heat game, though). Speights, though, he was a big part of the Grizzlies run last season. The team could’ve collapsed without Z-Bo, but Speights did a fine job filling in for him, and often looked like a legitimate NBA starter. Some will say that having Darrell Arthur around again made him redundant, but I disagree; the two of them playing together gave both depth and toughness to the second unit. It would not surprise me at all if Speights caught on in a big way in Cleveland, especially with Varejao out for the year.

What I really fear is that this move is a surrendering of sorts. Maybe the ownership looked at how the Grizzlies had been floundering lately, and decided that trying for a title just wasn’t worth it. How else can you explain slaughtering the second unit just to save some money? The bench has no depth now. It wasn’t that deep to begin with, and this trade made it worse. I’m trying to talk myself into these guys, but I just don’t see it. Yes, Delonte West saw minutes on a lot of good teams, but he was ever a huge part of any of those teams? The Cavs and Celtics teams he was on would’ve been just fine without him. Also, as a shooting guard who can kind of play point guard, isn’t he just a worse of Jerryd Bayless? As for Bill Walker, I mean, all the guy ever really does is shoot threes. I guess the Grizzlies need a guy who can do that, but they already had a better one with Ellington. Also, is Leuer going to get Speights’s minutes now? No, I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.

I was really hoping the Grizzlies wouldn’t make any serious moves; that would they just let this team stay as it is now, and see what they can do in the playoffs. I’ll admit, I like this better than trading one of the starters, but doing a blatant salary dump like this in the middle of the best season in franchise history sends a clear message to the fans: we don’t think we can win a title, and we don’t want to spend the money to try.
Author
Jhugar

Residing in Buffalo but a fan of the Grizzlies since their Vancouver days when he was 5 years old, John has followed the Grizzlies south to Memphis and is now a writer on staff of 3 Shades of Blue.

Grizzlies sent Cavs is protected from 1-5 & 15-30.

Does that mean we get their pick only if it's number 6-14? That sounds strange, what does it really mean?

It means that Memphis did not want to give up a top 5 pick and the Cavaliers wanted something higher than the number 15 pick. So, for the first two years (2015 and 2016) that Memphis was able to trade a first-round pick, the pick will be Cleveland's if Memphis would have picked 6-14 in the first round of that draft.

If that does not happen, in 2017 or 2018, Cleveland will get Memphis's first-round pick if its higher than the 5th overall pick. For those years, if Memphis remains a good-to-top team, Cleveland will have to take a late first-round pick.

If Memphis is really bad in 2017 and 2018 and gets top-five picks, Cleveland waits until 2019, at which point it gets whatever first round pick Memphis ends up with that year - good or bad.

Cleveland already has lots of picks lined up for the next two drafts (2013 & 2014), and there are really only so many rookies that can be added to a team near each other (especially given how many really young players Cleveland already has now). So, Cleveland is probably better served waiting a bit longer for the chance of getting a pick nearer the front end of the draft than getting another a late first rounder in the next several years.

Moreover, any additional first rounders in any future year can help Cleveland with efforts to package first rounders in up-coming drafts and/or trades to move up for earlier first-rounders that fit a team need in the next few years.

Jason Lloyd @JasonLloydABJ

#Cavs trade official. Pick is protected 1-5 & 15-30 for 2015 and 2016. Top 5 protected 2017 & 2018 and unprotected in 2019.


5:44 PM - 22 Jan 13

Assessing the Trade: Jon Leuer to Memphis
Written by Demetri Inembolidis

Chris Grant made his first big trade of the season on Tuesday with the Memphis Grizzlies. The Cavs are set to send out Jon Leuer for Marresse Speights, Wayne Ellington, Josh Selby and a top 5 protected first round pick in 2015. Needless to say, this is quite the haul for a guy that the Cavs picked up off of waivers in July.

When the Cavs got Leuer, I wrote the following:

"When Chris Grant claimed Leuer off of waivers in July, it was an understated personnel move that could potentially be beneficial for the Cavs. Leuer can also amount to a player who isn't very good. Acquiring Jon Leuer is a prudent transaction because it is the sort of low risk and possible high reward decision that rebuilding teams should make."

Little did I know that Leuer would become a valuable piece for the Cavs not for his reported ability to stretch the floor, but because John Hollinger and the Memphis Grizzlies faced an important decision: Break up the core or give up bench pieces for nothing to avoid the luxury tax. By shedding this salary to below the luxury tax threshold, the Grizzlies will save a lot of money. They not only owe a luxury tax, but they become a team that is going to receive money from tax paying teams. With the Grizzlies reportedly signing Bill Walker and Delonte West, they managed to potentially improve their team and save money. From Cleveland's perspective, they bolster the bench and get a first round draft pick in 2015

Marresse Speights is a fifth year 6'10" big man out of Florida. The obvious conclusion is that Speights was brought in as a stop-gap to help the Cavs front court in wake of the news that Anderson Varejao will miss the season with a blood clot in his lung. He averaged 6.5 points and 4.7 rebounds for Memphis in 14 minutes of playing time. Speights' best season was when he averaged 8.8 points and 6.2 rebounds with the Grizzlies in 2011-2012. An intriguing aspect of the trade is that Speights is better at stretching the floor than any current Cavalier big man. He is shooting 46% from 16-23 feet and has never shot worse than 40% from that area. The obvious conclusion to draw is that he may fit quite well with Tristan Thompson, who gets the vast majority of his points in the paint.

Regardless of how Marresse Speights fits with the team in the short or long term, the real prize of this trade was the first round pick. The protection is quite liberal. According to reports, it is protected 1-5 and 15-30 in 2015 and 2016, 1-5 protected in 2017 and 2018 and unprotected in 2019. Odds are that the Cavs will get the pick in 2017, but crazier things have happened. In addition, Rudy Gay and Zach Randolph have the option of opting out of their contracts prior to that year. Considering their age, it is unlikely that they will. But they may decide that it is prudent to opt out and sign a long term deal at the expense of losing money in the final year of their contract. Even if they do not opt out, a first round pick is always a good asset to have. Considering that the only thing the Cavs had to give up was Jon Leuer, this is a savvy trade that may have a big payoff in the near future.

The other pieces of the trade are Josh Selby and Wayne Ellington. Selby is probably going to be the more valuable piece. He is better at creating offense than Ellington (who is more of a spot-up shooter). In addition, Selby is a decent rebounder for his size and position.

This trade puts the Cavs roster at 16, which means that the NBA is either going to allow the team to sign an extra player due to injuries or that somebody is going to be cut. At this point, it appears as if that player is going to be Jeremy Pargo.

This is a great traded considering that the Cavs went from a general manager like Jim Paxson who had a habit of trading away first round picks to Chris Grant who hoards them. In addition, this almost guarantees that Luke Walton's playing time at power forward is soon to be a thing of the past. We will not know how good of a trade this is until at least 2015, but it is looking to be quite the haul for a player who only logged 91 minutes on the season.

The trade is smart because it brings in assets for the long-term, doesn't hurt the chances of getting another top pick this season and will preserve cap space in 2014. It is difficult to argue that Chris Grant didn't make a smart trade today.

Thanks Peter. The first post I read didn't talk about all the other years when we could exercise the pick. I think I understand it now.

I don't normally post in this folder, but thought I'd chime in with this article:

The Grizzlies and Cavs Huddle Up for a Mutually Beneficial Deal
By Zach Lowe on January 22, 2013 4:12 PM ET

A few quick notes on the Grizzlies trading Marreese Speights, Wayne Ellington, Josh Selby, and a future first-round pick to Cleveland for Jon Leuer in a deal that is almost completely about Memphis going from $4.3 million over the luxury tax, to around $2 million under it:

• I was as guilty as anyone this morning in burying the lede on Twitter, in part because it makes sense to focus on the fringe title contender instead of the sad lottery team. So here’s the lede: This is a pretty great deal for Cleveland, and the greatness is in the details of the future first-round pick Memphis is sending. The Cavaliers had about $10.35 million in cap space before this trade, and they stood as one of just three teams (Phoenix and Houston being the others) with enough cap space to take on significant Memphis salary. Cleveland, of course, has to pay a prorated portion of those salaries, and that kind of spending has a price: the draft pick.

And per Chris Herrington of the Memphis Flyer and Ken Berger of CBS Sports, here’s how the draft pick works:

The Cavaliers get it in 2015 if it falls between picks no. 6-14. In other words: Memphis keeps the pick if it’s either very good (top five) or not so good (bottom half of the first round). Cleveland gets it if it’s a mid-lottery pick.
If Memphis keeps the pick in 2015, the rules work the same way in 2016.
If Cleveland still hasn’t gotten the pick in 2017, they get it if it falls anywhere outside the top five. Both teams assume some risk here. Cleveland assumes the risk of getting a very low first-round pick if Memphis is still quite good in 2017. The Grizzlies assume the risk of losing a first-round pick no matter where it falls, though the top-five protection — mirroring part of the 2015/2016 structure of the deal — cushions the blow.
If Cleveland still hasn’t gotten the pick in 2018, it works the same way as in 2017 — top-five protected.
If Cleveland still hasn’t gotten the pick by 2019, they get it that season regardless of where it falls.

Basically: Memphis is betting on its ability to stay a playoff team over the next half-decade-plus. Cleveland is betting on Memphis falling into the lottery at some point in that span, and that’s not a terrible bet. Of Memphis’s current core, only Mike Conley is under contract beyond 2014-15. And though this trade relieves Memphis’s tax concerns for this season, it does nothing to relieve those same concerns for next season and 2014-15. Today’s deal means Rudy Gay will stay put for this season, barring Memphis getting an offer it cannot refuse; Zach Randolph was already effectively off the trade block before today, and Memphis can sign two or three minimum-salaried players and still duck the tax.

But they’re still looking at mammoth payrolls in each of the next two seasons, and today’s salary dump makes it clear the new ownership group would prefer to avoid the tax. That means Memphis will continue to explore cost-cutting deals, probably revolving around Gay, starting this summer and going forward. Such a deal, combined with Randolph’s age (he’ll turn 32 in July) and the lack of talent coming via the draft, makes it easy to see a scenario in which Memphis falls off more than expected in 2015 or 2016.

It’s not a can’t-miss bet, obviously. The pick Cleveland got here is actually a lesser version of the one Toronto sent to Houston in the Kyle Lowry deal, a pick that now belongs to Oklahoma City. That pick also has protections on either end to ensure the Rockets (now Thunder) get a very good first-round pick, but those protections are more favorable to the Thunder than the ones that apply to Cleveland’s new pick. The Thunder can get Toronto’s pick if it’s no. 4 this season, no. 3 the next two seasons season, and all the way to no. 2 after that.

(The Rockets actually would have made sense as Memphis’s partner in this exact Speights-centric deal, since they have enough cap room to act as Cleveland did here. Perhaps Houston pushed for a pick on the Lowry level, or was simply afraid Speights would pick up his $4.5 million player option for next season — mucking up Houston’s max-level cap space. The Cavs are more concerned with subsequent summers, when LeBron James, Kevin Love, and others hit free agency, and they have very little record of attracting free agents regardless).

But this is a bet worth making for Cleveland, especially after missing out on similar opportunities to rent its cap space last summer. Cleveland drove a very hard bargain on such deals, sometimes demanding multiple first-round picks from teams, including the Wolves, searching for a salary dump, according to several league sources. They’ve softened here, and they’ve gotten a nice asset.

• Cleveland now has four extra first-round picks set to arrive sometime in the next few years, plus the right to swap picks with the Lakers this June — a nice little benefit that will vanish if the Lakers miss the playoffs, in which case L.A. sends its pick to Phoenix. The Cavs also have all their own picks, at least one of which (this year’s) will be a very high lottery pick. They’ve made themselves a more interesting potential trade partner today. That Lowry pick was the key swing factor in Houston nabbing James Harden, and while today’s pick isn’t quite on that level, it’s still much better than the bottom-rung picks Cleveland has coming from Miami (via the LeBron sign-and-trade) and the more heavily protected pick they’ll get at some point from the Kings.

• If anything, this hurts Cleveland's tanking chances. The Cavs are 10-32, ahead of only the 9-30 Wiz in the "race" for the most ping-pong balls. Sacramento, Phoenix, and New Orleans stand a few games above Cleveland, and both the Hornets and Wizards have been playing very solid ball over the last two weeks (and longer in the Hornets' case). Charlotte (10-31) might be the odds-on favorite in this "race," but Cleveland, lacking depth at basically every position — but especially the front line — has/had a real chance. Speights will step in as the second-best big man on the active roster, behind only Tristan Thompson. Speights had the right to veto any deal, and it's possible the huge opening for playing time in Cleveland — as opposed to the heavier competition in Houston or Phoenix, or any other team looking for a pick — was the deciding factor in Speights' agreeing to the deal.

• A lot of first-round picks that change hands work so that the team sending the pick doesn’t have to actually send it if it’s high in the draft (lottery protected, or top-10 protected), with another rule that if the pick isn’t sent after a few years, the team can just send a second-rounder instead. Cleveland got a much better pick than that today.

• As for the Grizz, we have to see how they fill those minimum-salaried slots; there are already reports (via Chris Vernon in Memphis) that they are pursuing various perimeter types both here and in Europe, including Sasha Vujacic; Chris Johnson of Dayton; Joe Ingles, a wing with handles from Australia; Bill Walker; and, most intriguing of all, Delonte West.

Let’s not mince words: Memphis needs outside shooting. Ellington was far from a game-changing long-range ace; he’s hit 41 3-pointers this season, but 13 of those came in two games combined. But he’s at least a player defenses need to respect on the perimeter, and Memphis needs that sort of player, even if he lacks a Ray Allen–type quick release or any ability to launch off the bounce. Shane Battier and O.J. Mayo weren’t exactly Ray Allen and Ryan Anderson for the 2010-11 Grizzlies, but Memphis’s offense could breathe a bit when they had two off-ball shooters out there at the same time — two guys who could catch-and-shoot, and were active (especially in Mayo’s case) moving around the floor.

Ellington could at least do that. The Grizzlies have tried recently to replicate the Ellington effect, plus add a dash of ball handling, by playing Jerryd Bayless and Mike Conley together. But Bayless is shooting 37 percent and has been a below-average 3-point shooter his entire career, with the exception of one season (last year) that looks more and more like an outlier. He’s also turning over the ball at alarming rates. And the Bayless-Conley duo will bring defensive challenges against bigger teams.

Quincy Pondexter will help when he comes back from a sprained knee ligament, but his return date and ability to rediscover his peak form are uncertain. Pondexter has worked his tail off to develop a very nice corner 3 (47.8 percent from the corners this season, per NBA.com), and he has played heavy minutes at shooting guard in place of Tony Allen with the rest of Memphis’s starters. Quick opposing 2-guards can give Pondexter issues when Memphis is on defense, but the Grizzlies should be good enough to cover for him.

Still: They could use some shooting depth, and each of these guys would help. Finding someone with a handle — West or Ingles — could also give them some “Bayless poops the bed” insurance.

• Look for the Grizz to sign another big man. Speights played his role well in Memphis, but he was losing minutes to Darrell Arthur and had sunk to no. 4 on the Grizz big-man depth chart. Hamed Haddadi rises to that spot now, and let’s just say the Grizz aren’t comfortable with Haddadi there. It’s true that most elite playoff teams lean on a big-man rotation of only three players, but Arthur has just barely gotten healthy again, he’s nowhere near Speights’s level as a rebounder, he barely gets to the line, and foul trouble and/or injuries will pop up for any team wishing to play four playoffs series in the spring. The Grizz need another body.

• Ultimately, this hurts for the Grizz, but if they absolutely had to duck the tax — and it certainly looks that way — they could have done worse than forfeiting an uncertain first-round pick and finding equivalent perimeter talent via open roster spots. But if that pick turns Cleveland’s way, the price will have been heavy.

Let me see if I have this right:

2013 Cavs get there pick and the option of taking the Miami pick, low first round (asssume Lakers miss playoffs and Sacramento is in lottery) and there's and Orlando 2nd round picks. Prediction: Pass on the Miami pick, Cavs get a top 5 pick.

2014 Cavs get there pick and the option of taking Miami's low first round pick (assume Sacramento/Seattle pick in top 12 so no pick to Cavs) plus 3 second round picks (Cleveland, Orlando and Memphis) Prediction: pass on Miami's low round pick.

2015 Cavs get their pick and Miami's unprotected first round pick (Miami will collapse when LeBron leaves for somewhere), Seattle's pick if not in top 10, Memphis pick if 6 - 14 (possible). Prediction: Cavs get 2 lottery picks and their own low first round pick.

2016 Cavs pick plus Memphis pick if 6 - 14 (used in 2015) option on Miami if not in top 10, Seattle pick if not in top 10. Prediction: Cavs get there pick and Seattle pick.

2017 Cavs pick, memphis pick if not in top 5 (used in 2015), seattle pick top 10 protected if unused and Miami's unprotected pick if not used in 2016. Prediction: Cavs get Miami's lottery pick and their pick.

If I'm right and the Cavs can push off their Miami first round picks at their option until the unprotected years of 2015 and 2017 and with the lux tax really changing the game in the NBA and distributing top talent more evenly AND getting lottery picks from both Memphis and Seattle (maybe) this franchise is very close to a dominate run. Just need the big fella back in the summer of 2014 and I think there is a real chance LeBron comes back. For sure Gilbert is set up to offer Irving and another piece max contacts and then surround them with solid pieces through all these high draft pick for year to come.

Check my math folks, but it looks like Grant is a STUD!!!

2013 first round draft pick from Miami
Miami's own 2013 1st round draft pick to Cleveland (top-10 protected in the 2013 Draft, top-10 protected in 2014, and unprotected in the 2015 Draft.) [Cleveland - Miami, 7/9/2010]

2015 first round draft pick from Miami
Miami's own 1st round draft pick to Cleveland in the "First Allowable Draft" (top 10 protected until the 2017 draft at which it will be unprotected in the 2017 draft). The First Allowable draft shall be the draft that occurs two years following the year in which Miami satisfies its first obligation to convey a future first round draft pick to the Cleveland Cavaliers. [Cleveland - Miami, 7/9/2010]

So the only option the Cavs have on the Miami picks are if they fall into the top 10 of the draft. Otherwise no option.

Sheridan: Cavs robbed Grizzlies in Tuesday’s trade
2 Comments
By Chris Sheridan
January 22, 2013 at 1:04 PM
On the plus side for Memphis Grizzlies fans, they don’t have to worry about new owner Robert Pera having to reach deep into his wallet to pay the punitive repeater luxury tax in the years ahead.

As if Grizz fans care about Pera’s wallet.

The verdict here is that the Cleveland Cavaliers pulled off a heist Tuesday in making their 3-for-1 trade with the Grizzlies, acquiring Marreese Speights, Wayne Ellington and Josh Selby and a first-round pick in exchange for Jon Leuer.


Adios to the only 3-point shooting threat the Grizzlies had on their bench.

Ellington was by no means a lights-out shooter, but he was 3-for-3 in Monday’s matinee loss to the Indiana Pacers, and he had games earlier this season in which he knocked down 7 treys (against Miami) and six 3-pointers (against Sacramento).

To look at it another way, of the Grizzlies’ 188 3-pointers (tied with Chicago for fewest in the NBA), Ellington has accounted for 41 of them — about 20 percent of the team’s total, and this despite playing an average of less than 17 minutes per game.

Leuer?

The second-year pro is still looking for his first career 3.

But he is not going to be shooting from outside for Memphis. Instead, he will be asked to come off the bench in the frontcourt and provide what Speights had been providing — quality minutes from a backup big on a team whose front-line talent is was among the best in the West.

Granted, Speights was only playing about 15 minutes per game. But Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol both play a ton of minutes for the fourth-best team in the West, which will now be relying even more on Darrell Arthur to shoulder that burden.

Stay healthy, D.

Selby is probably the least important of the three Grizzlies who are departing, but he was the star of the Las Vegas summer league last year and was a nice insurance policy — especially as a 3-point threat — if needed.

Now?

The Grizzlies will need to hope Jarryd Bayless stays healthy as the backup to Mike Conley, because there ain’t a whole lot else in the backcourt. It remains to be seen what they’ll get out of Bill Walker, Delonte West and/or Sasha Vujacic, all of whom are reportedly going to sign with Memphis in the coming days.

IF LBJ comes back, we actually might be able to give him the best team he has been on. No, we dont have 2 studs like Wade and Bosh, but we will have 1 in Kyree and maybe another in this year's darft. We will also be younger than any team he has been on.

Even if he spurns us again, the influx of talent should convince Kyree and the others to stay put...LBJ would just put us over the top...

Ok thanks rusty. Looks like the 2015 (or '16 or '17) miami pick could get very interesting if the Heat collapse......

Cavs Unveil 'Manti Te'o Kiss Cam'


http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-hea ... o-kiss-cam