SH Blog: Tristan Thompson rejected a four-year, $52 million deal with Cavaliers, Josh Smith opens up about his reputation as a player

Much has been made about all the drama going on in Cleveland recently with the way it has struggled over the past couple of weeks.

Kevin Love, who has not been himself this year, has now been benched a couple of times for the entire fourth quarter with mixed results, while Kyrie Irving doesn’t seem to grasp what it means to run a team as the point guard. These are obviously troubling things, but there have also been some positives with the team acquiring Timofey Mozgov, Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith to help bolster their depleted lineup.

The biggest issue of all, though, remains LeBron James. He is supposed to be the ultimate leader and has always been looked upon in that manner, but the superstar has seemingly been aloof for much of this season – the words “chill mode” come to mind – and even took two weeks off due to a sore knee. Yes, he undoubtedly has wear and tear from years of playing, but we’re talking about a guy who has never missed more than seven games in his entire career, and a lot of those missed games were simply to rest and prepare for the playoffs more than due to any kind of injury. He has already missed a total of eight games this year – a career high. Again, sitting out to rest or rehab a sore knee was his decision: he openly admitted he could have been playing if it were the playoffs. To be fair, he did look rather fantastic upon his return against the Phoenix Suns, but the level of effort was also clearly different (at least when it really mattered). 

You have to wonder if sitting out was one of the strategies to help ship David Blatt out of town at this point, because the Cavaliers struggling without James was inevitable, given their struggles with him in the lineup. After all, we did see Michael Malone get fired despite having done a tremendous job with the Sacramento Kings essentially because he lost his best player – DeMarcus Cousins – for a couple of weeks due to meningitis. The accusation has to be made because there has been enough evidence and reports to suggest that James has been uncooperative with Blatt.

First, there have been some footage of James showing clear disinterest during timeouts and huddles and we’ve all seen “the shove” despite James referring to it as “protecting my coach”. Then, there’s this report by Brian Windhorst of ESPN:

They see players appearing to run different plays than the bench calls, see assistant coach Tyronn Lue calling timeouts literally behind Blatt’s back during games, and hear Cavs players openly talking about coaching issues with opposing players and personnel. Not once, not twice, but frequently over the past several months.

For weeks now, the small talk when league personnel run into each other at college games, airports or pregame meals has frequently started with: “What the hell is going on in Cleveland?”

There is a common perception that James is the de facto general manager of the team. His role in getting Love traded to the Cavs in July and talking Mike Miller, among others, into signing in Cleveland only bolstered that.

But over the past few months, the Cavs didn’t come to terms on a contract extension with Tristan Thompson, who is close to James and represented by the same agent, and then issued a strong public backing of Blatt despite what has been an obvious disconnect with veteran players, including James.

It was no doubt meant to take some media pressure off the struggling first-year coach, but also was a message to the players that any passive-aggressive coups in progress would be fruitless and needed to cease. It was also a pretty strong message that, no, James may run the plays he wants and play the position he wants, but he isn’t running the franchise.

So it appears as though James may not be the only one undermining the process for Blatt based on some of these crazy reports (crazy in the sense that they are actually happening), like assistant Tyronn Lue calling timeouts behind Blatt’s back and the players going rogue on the floor rather than sticking with the plan. Still, it’s clear that James has been a part of this mistreat-the-coach thing.

There have also been rumors throughout the season that Mark Jackson would step in as the head coach of the team should Blatt lose his job, despite the fact that the Cavaliers had no interest in the former Golden State Warriors coach prior to James’ arrival. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports has more on that:

Whatever James’ agenda on the coaching front, there were those who believed they had it pegged back in the summer. It was no accident Mark Jackson left one of the most powerful agents in basketball to become a client of Paul’s. Paul had no coaching clients, but immense leverage within the Cavaliers. To hear Jackson overpraising James and the team’s talent on television – even defending James on giving Blatt a tepid public endorsement – delivers light in itself to this alliance.

Before James signed as a free agent, the Cavaliers management wanted nothing to do with Jackson as a coach. They did their research and had their answers. Now, they understand the reality: If James won’t play for the coach, what choice do they have there? James wouldn’t be left to pay the buyout on Blatt’s contract, nor the luxury tax on Thompson’s extension. It’ll simply be Klutch Sports gathering the commissions on Jackson’s and Thompson’s deals.

As for James’ desire for power and what he’s trying to create within the organization, check out this wild story about how Tristan Thompson – widely considered an average NBA power forward who is probably barely worth starting – rejected a four-year, $52 million deal with the Cavaliers because, well, he’s apparently expecting to get more thanks to the relationship he has with Rich Paul – owner of Klutch Sports and a friend/agent of James. More from Woj:

James is the biggest reason Klutch Sports exists, and he’s an active recruiter of high school, college and current NBA players to join the agency. Of course, plenty of players help their agents recruit. So when James committed as a free agent in July, everyone understood there was a tax – spoken or unspoken – that would come with James’ return, that would manifest itself in an above-market deal for Thompson.

Thompson’s a rebounder, a defender, an energy guy. He isn’t a starter on a playoff team, but he has a good attitude, a good motor and could be a role player anywhere in the NBA. Paul isn’t the first agent to leverage a more prominent client’s extension against another, nor the last.

Even so, at what price? Within the NBA, officials expected maybe $10 million a year, perhaps $12 million if Klutch wanted to push it. Well, they kept pushing it. Thompson turned down a $13 million-a-year extension offer – four-years, $52 million, league sources told Yahoo Sports.

Time will tell how the story will unfold for James and Blatt. If Blatt does get fired (sadly, he may not be the right coach for this team anyway) and Jackson ends up being the team’s eventual replacement coach, we’re all going to know what really happened here.

OTHER NEWS AND ITEMS FROM AROUND THE LEAGUE: 

• Brian Shaw says the Denver Nuggets are not actively shopping Arron Afflalo or Wilson Chandler, but Chandler doesn’t necessarily feel secure about his situation. Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post has the story: “I just have to try to do a good job of assuring them that I’m not, and we’re not, actively shopping them and putting them out there,” Shaw said. “Obviously calls come in, and we field calls. But we’re not saying, ‘Hey, we’re trying to get rid of Arron, we’re trying to get rid of Wilson.’ That’s not the case at all. That’s all we can really tell them.” In fact, Chandler said he has been told he will not be traded. He takes that knowledge with a grain of salt. “If a deal comes along that’s a pretty good deal, you’ve got to make it of course,” Chandler said. “And some guys say they’re not going to trade you, and then they trade you. I’m not saying that (Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly) is that guy, but you never know. You can never feel too safe about anything.”

• The 76ers continue to look absolutely awful, and while a lot of that is by design and unfortunate injuries to some of their key recent picks, it really does start with their starting point guard Michael Carter-Williams, who has been just awful in terms of efficiency (38 percent FG, 23.7% from 3-point line, 63.1% from stripe, 4.4 turnovers). For that reason (most likely), there are still rumors floating that he is available for trade, from Chad Ford of ESPN: “I’ve heard a lot of rumblings from GMs that Carter-Williams is available. There are some in ownership and in the front office, though not all, that don’t see him as a long-term piece of the puzzle. There was a lot of chatter that direction before the draft and in the past few weeks I know several teams have had exploratory discussions with the Sixers. I think the challenge right now is that the Sixers will want a lot in return and MCW’s play, to date this season, hasn’t warranted multiple first round picks for him. That makes him tough to deal.”

• Apparently, the Miami Heat have strong interest in Brook Lopez, who is being shopped by the Brooklyn Nets.

• Kobe Bryant is a shut-down candidate this season with his team going nowhere. The question is, does Byron Scott understand the latter part of that sentence? Look what he told the media on Wednesday, from Mike Bresnahan of Los Angeles Times: “Chances of Kobe shut down this season? Byron: “If we’re nowhere near playoff contention in March…then we might discuss that.” The Lakers are currently the second worst team in the West and 10 games behind the Phoenix Suns for the eighth seed. If that doesn’t scream “we are done”, especially with Bryant continuing to struggle from the floor (he’s shooting a ridiculous 36.9 percent from the field) and taking random nights off to rest, I don’t know what does. 

• Speaking of Bryant, he believes he is adjusting well to his new role but also provides his take on what it means for the fans when he’s forced to miss time due to age, from Kevin Ding of Bleacher Report: “I’m comfortable with how I’m playing,” Bryant said late Sunday night. “I see how to pick my spots. The game will look a lot different. I’m comfortable with where I am… Asked about balancing the pressure to avoid disappointing fans who pay hard-earned money for tickets to see him with the clear need to give his body ample rest, Bryant said, “It’s a no-win situation. It’s really just trying to pick the lesser of two evils.”

• Despite somewhat being a butt of the joke these days, Josh Smith says he is truly happy for the Detroit Pistons’ turnaround and opened up about his reputation and what it meant to be traded, from Michael Lee of Washington Post: “I’m excited for them,” Smith said, recently, when asked about the Pistons’ success without him. “We could’ve turned it around, I’m kind of thinking that. I text those guys every day and let them know  – the ones I was really close to – of how proud I am of them and to keep up the good work… “I don’t really put my ears and eyes to negative publicity. I know that every player is critiqued in this league, especially by ones that don’t know the individual players, so I really can’t get mad. I mean, it’s something to talk about. If they had nothing to talk about on ESPN and other shows, no one would watch… “I have no hard feelings,” Smith said. “I think I was signed under Joe Dumars and then coming into a new group, a new situation, I knew [Van Gundy] probably wanted his guys in there and it was a lot of young guys that needed to be groomed. They was more so in a rebuilding phase and he didn’t want to string me along for the process because he’s understanding that this is my 11th year and, you know, I should have an opportunity to play for something.”

• Amare Stoudemire is apparently struggling with the idea of moving on from the New York Knicks. It is something he is pondering, though, from Mark Woods of ESPN: ““It’s a very difficult situation at this point,” Stoudemire told reporters following practice at London’s Imperial College. “It’s a hard decision for me to make. My loyalty has always been with New York and the Knicks. “So it will be tough right now to make a decision as far as going somewhere else at this point. It’s something I have to think about. I’m sure over time I’ll sit and think about the best scenario for myself. “For now, I know I’ve been through injuries throughout my career. I have to make sure I’m able to be strong enough and prepared to play for a team contending for a championship. New York is trying to rebuild. Hopefully that will be sooner than later.”

• Check out P.J. Hairson’s criminally hilarious flop against the San Antonio Spurs. He’ll hear from the league for this one.
• Someone on youtube decided to have some strange fun with a bunch of Shaquille O’Neal commercial clips, via SBNation:

Jim Park is a blogger and editor of Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on twitter @SheridanBlog.