The Cleveland Cavaliers needed to make a move. The team fell to the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday night as LeBron James continues to sit with knee soreness. Expectations are high for the Cavaliers and right now the team is failing to meet them as defense becomes a huge issue. As a result, the Cavaliers were forced to get active in the trade market acquiring two players while keeping their eyes on a few more. However, were team struggles the only motivation behind the deal?
The Cavaliers were involved in a three-team trade on Monday that sent Dion Waiters to the Oklahoma City thunder while Cleveland acquired JR Smith and Iman Shumpert from the New York Knicks. A lot has been made about Waiters' tenure with Cleveland. The guard had his option exercised prior to the start of the season as he entered expecting to be a starter. However, Shawn Marion got the nod over Waiters must to the dismay of the guard. There was also the issue of drama between he and Kyrie Irving that some believe was a factor in the trade.
According to Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio, part of the trade was due to the fact that Waiters and Irving were not getting along. Amico writes that head coach David Blatt told the guard he needed to be a spot-up shooter and Waiters disagreed along with claiming that the Cavaliers were simply favoring Irving because he was considered a franchise player. This is not the first report of tension between the two players. There were locker room issues last season that both Irving and Waiters had to go on the defense about. It seemed that Waiters had changed his tune at the start of 2014 telling the media that everything was fine between he and the point guard and they would form the best backcourt in the NBA. That did not happen and Waiters was sent packing.
The trade was not the last move for the Cavaliers. The team was must still address defense issues that have been plaguing them especially with the injury to Anderson Varejao. According to Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski, the Cavaliers are still very interest in Timofey Mozgov from the Denver Nuggets, a player they have been looking at since the start of the year. He was help with the team's size issue and need for shot blockers. The Cavaliers could also grab Samuel Dalembert off the free agent market. The center was just waived by the New York Knicks and would be a cheap acquisition for Cleveland plus fit a need.
