No Mo After All… J.R. Deal Close?

No Mo After All… J.R. Deal Close?

2016-09-27 Off By EvilGenius

Yesterday, David Griffin and the Cavaliers had to delay the start of their Media Day press conference by about thirty minutes after they received a call from Raymond Brothers, the agent for Mo Williams. Turns out, Mo had reversed course once again and decided to forego the final year of his contract to officially retire from the NBA.

The announcement comes less than a week after the 14 year veteran told fans via Twitter that he was planning to return for one more year to provide depth at the PG position for the defending champs. Mo’s change of heart likely stemmed from his ongoing struggles with chondromalacia (chronic knee pain) that plagued him last season and caused him to debate his future all summer.

Mo is owed $2.2 million this season, however, once he files his retirement papers that should change…

Griffin declined to answer whether the team would pursue a settlement, but said the team had prepared for this outcome.

“It was in debate what Mo was going to do; he vacillated a little bit,” Griffin said. “So we were planning for this eventuality. We’re comfortable with where we are at the point guard position.”

As has been well documented on this site and others, the Cavs are fairly thin at the traditional PG position, having let Matthew Dellavedova depart in free agency and now with Williams officially calling it a career. They still have promising rookie Kay Felder and have been experimenting with trying both Iman Shumpert and Jordan McRae at the position. Although they have no shortage of ball handlers with both Kyrie Irving and LeBron James doing the majority of the work. The team has also reportedly been reaching out to veteran backup PGs like Mario Chalmers, Norris Cole and Kirk Hinrich.

The other bit of news that Griff dropped in the press conference was an update on the team’s progress in their attempts to re-sign unrestricted free agent J.R. Smith. Without giving too many specifics, Griff did make it seem that there was a new offer on the table…

“We think very highly of J.R., we love him as a member of our team,” Griffin said. “As a member of our locker room, he was essential to our success. For that reason, we’ve made an incredibly competitive and aggressive offer to re-sign him. We hope that gets done in relatively short order. At the same time, we’ve been accustomed to a next-man-up mentality, and we expect this will be no different.”

It remains to be seen if the Cavs can avoid a scenario where J.R. misses part of training camp and the pre-season (as Tristan Thompson did a year ago). Although, according to sources quoted by Terry Pluto of Cleveland.com, as of this morning, the two sides are apparently close on the annual salary and the real question is length of the contract. Hopefully, things will work themselves out soon, since as LeBron himself says, they don’t win the title without Swish…

 

Share