Cleveland Cavaliers won't overpay to keep Tristan Thompson

The Cleveland Cavaliers added LeBron James in the offseason but they didn’t think about the player he’d be replacing in the starting lineup.

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Tristan Thompson is an afterthought in the LeBron James signing as he was a starter in 2013-14 and will be pushed to the bench in 2014-15. What this could mean is that Thompson is pushed out of Cleveland altogether as he may end up finding is role so diminished that the team paying to keep him around won’t make sense.

According to NBA scribe Chuck Myron, the Cavaliers like Tristan Thompson but not enough to have kept him out of Kevin Love trade talks which means that his days with the team could be numbered.

"Thompson would be nice to have long-term for depth, no doubt, but I don’t think he’ll take the discount necessary for that to happen. You don’t want to overpay a guy who plays behind one of your best players (and remember, LeBron can play power forward, too.)"

Thompson is a starting caliber player and he can fetch a decent return for the Cavaliers. What the team could do is try and move him for backup point guard help and center depth, but that’s a deal that other teams might not make.

Still, Thompson is a great talent and while the Cavaliers are stock piling solid players on their roster, there seems to be little room for Thompson to grow on the roster as it is now.

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Cleveland Cavaliers won’t overpay to keep Tristan Thompson

By Josh Hill | Aug 18, 2014