Well, so much for happy thoughts. Apparently Varejao has a fractured wrist and is out indefinitely.
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sucks.. feel bad for andy. is there no argument to be made for a silver lining though? 1. we’ll get a chance to give our young guys more minutes -> better young guys next year. 2. we’ll be much worse so we’ll be able to pick up a higher lottery spot. 3. andy will be back next year as good as ever, plus our new high lotto pick plus our more polished young guys. beats overachieving this year, getting swept in the first round, and drafting out of the lottery no?
Yeah, definitely disappointing because he was having such a good season. But in the big picture, it could result in the cavs getting another high pick, which they really do need. This season will not be as much fun, but the next could be much better.
In other news, Semih Erden is starting tonight…
Year 4 out of 7 Andy misses significant time. We should definitely get caught up in the moment of his career year and NOT trade him for potential young talent, though
Varejao sat out the first 21 games of 2007 – 2008 in a holdout. Aside from those games, from 2006 – 2007 through 2009 – 2010′ he played in 344 of 365 games. Basically he got hurt last year; Until yesterday he hasn’t had a trend of recent major injuries (I.e. injury prone).
Even accounting for last season, varejao had played in 85 percent of possible games from 2006 – 2007 through yesterday (excluding the 21 game holdout).
He got slapped by Gooden, it was kind of fluky really.
I see people on the net calling Varejao “injury prone.” Someone smashed his wrist. I’d like to smash your wrist and then tell you it’s not happenstance or cause and effect, but your life force sucking.
Exactly. “Injury-prone,” to me, describes Greg Oden, or Baron Davis – someone who misses games because their body is constantly breaking down. What happened to Varejao yesterday was just a freakish thing that could have happened to any player, and shouldn’t affect the Cavs’ long-term evaluation of whether he’s a building block or a trade asset.
Yeah this was a fluke injury. He’ll come back 100%. We are about to watch the Cavs fall off a cliff – it will make Varejao’s impact readily apparent.
This really stinks!!! I had a feeling it was broke when he didn’t return to play. This guy is so tough, a sprain would not have mattered to him. He would have played through. We were really starting to see some progress with the Kyrie, Varejao. Lebron was right they really our are 1, 2 punch of the team.
I never said “injury-prone.” Here are the facts, without being selective and leaving info out that doesn’t validate my point:
Time missed:
04-05: 27 gms
05-06: 32 gms
06-07: none
07-08: 13
08-09: none
09-10: 6
10-11: 51
11-12: 2 – 41 (say 20 if you avg how long most think he will be out)
So, 4 out of 8 seasons w/significant time missed. Not including 07-08 injury which account for 15% of the season. Just because he got hurt on a fluke play doesn’t mean he’s not more at risk to get hurt than other players due to his style of play. Just another reason I wish fans/management would be more on the bandwagon to trade him than not, which has been my opinion since last year.
John, from what I was able to find online, Andy was inactive due to injury for 17 games his rookie year, due to knee tendinitis and (at a different time) a high ankle sprain. I’m guessing the other games he missed were because Paul Silas wasn’t into playing rookies not named Lebron. His second year, he missed significant time with a dislocated shoulder. After that, he went 4 straight years without a significant injury, despite his style of play. Last year he had plantar fasciitis and eventually a torn tendon in the ankle which cost him 30 games. This year he was injured when Drew Gooden hacked him – that could happen to any basketball player that plays inside or drives to the rim, at any time.
Only 17 of those 27 his rookie year were injury game misses, the other 10 were DNP-CD’s.
All you can conclude is that in an 8-year career, he’s only had 3 significant injuries.. which is actually below average.
So while I don’t disagree that Andy throws his body around a lot, which would seem to put him at higher risk of injury than most players, it has not played out that way over the course of his career. His injury history doesn’t appear out of the ordinary to me.
So while I don’t disagree that Andy throws his body around a lot, which would seem to put him at higher risk of injury than most players, it has not played out that way over the course of his career.
The way Anderson Varejao was able to comeback this season has been impressive. He was more active than ever, pulling down 4.4 offensive rebounds a game, the highest average in the league and his 109 offensive rebounds are tied with Greg Monroe for second overall.
17 his rookie season due to injury, you’re right. I saw that but mistakingly took the 27 from ESPN game log which is wrong.
I still don’t know what facts make that “below average,” but seems like this whole debate is just a matter of opinion.
Agree to disagree that the smartest move has been and is to keep him as our starting C going forward
John, my point of view on trading him comes down to this question: when do we expect this team to be seriously competitive again? Before the draft lottery last year, when we didn’t know if the Cavs would get the #1 pick, let alone how good Kyrie would be – many said it could take 5 years or longer. With that premise, I’d agree trading Varejao is probably best if it brought an unprotected high lottery pick in the return package. But now we know: (a) the Cavs got Kyrie; and (b) he’s an absolute stud. This changes things. With enough supporting pieces, this team could be seriously good again in 3 or 4 years. So why trade a 29-year old who will still be near his prime by Kyrie’s 4th year, who has demonstrated that he makes the team significantly more likely to win, and who has a contract that is dirt-cheap compared to most quality NBA bigs, for a lottery pick that, at best, has a 50-50 shot to be only “as good as” Varejao is now i(let alone “better”) n terms of impact on winning?
Trading Anderson would be just stupid. Every team needs a glue/hustle/annoying guy. We have the best one in the league. Unless someone offers us a top 25 player (which Anderson is) or a young up-and-comer along with a unprotected lottery pick (not happening because lottery teams don’t need Anderson), we should not trade him.
Brian,
Great summary on the state of the Cavs rebuild as it relates to AV’s contract. The most important thing about a rebuild plan is that it has to be a flexible. A team has to be ready to make the right moves at the time that things start coming together. Kyrie has exceeded expectations and may have moved the schedule ahead a little. That may have made players like Andy and possibly even Sessions more valuable to the team’s rebuild, than as trade assets. Grant has collected enough assets, with future draft picks, CAP space and roster flexibility to allow the Cavs to tailor their rebuild to whatever the future brings. Fans should be optimistic about what’s happening until proven otherwise.
John,
personally I didn’t think that ignoring Andy’s first two seasons was being selective; it seemed reasonably far enough in the past that looking at the last six years was defensible.
Regardless, I’m in the camp that thinks the Cavs should only trade Varejao for a proven young player. Trading him for marginal young players and late 1st round draft picks isn’t sufficient return, no matter what we think of his likelihood of I injury. The Cavs should obviously take calls on just about anyone, but it should take a really good offer to trade Varejao.
This injury stinks. Even if the Cavs had been looking to trade Andy, it wouldn’t have happened by Friday, so really the injury is kind of irrelevant as it relates to the trading him discussions, other than pretty much ending the debate until the off-season.
One footnote to the discussion of Anderson’s propensity for good or bad health is that he has played in all 71 Cavs playoff games since he’s been on the team.
Yeah you really can’t put this into the “injury prone” bin. Could have happened to anyone, his ‘style’ had nothing to do with the injury. This could be a blessing in disguise. This team is going to get hammered, but they will have confidence that they can play with the best teams at full strength. This is going to improve the Cavs lottery chances, give B Scott a chance to see what he has with young guys, and might make C Grant more willing to part with Sessions if he gets a good offer since the Cavs will not be making the playoffs without Varejao. He’s going to come back stronger and more motivated than ever.
My theory is a young, rebuilding team can afford and should take some risk in moving an asset that is at peak value. You get 75 cents on the dollar for him now, make your team worse in the short and hopefully better in the long term.
Assuming Andy stays healthy, and assuming he is still a solid C at 32/33 when we project to contend, and assuming he will re-sign with the Cavs for an affordable price at that time and not leave for nothing just seems like a lot to be hopeful for…for a guy who was drafted later than what I would think he could net in return pick-wise, not including other pieces.
Only time will tell I guess, but for now I’ll stand in the minority.
Andy getting injured is a blessing in disguise. Nay, its not even disguised, just a flat-out blessing. Now the Cavs will be able to keep him while plummeting down the standings toward another top-5 pick.
This is the best news of the season.
John, I’ll try to not beat a dead horse any further into the ground, but I’ll add this – I remember watching the late 80s/early 90s Cavs repeatedly underachieve precisely because they lacked a player like Varejao. At the time, it was pretty clear that one PF who dominated the boards and played tenacious defense (like the Bulls’ Horace Grant at the time, and Varejao now) could have put that team over the top. But they could never find that player. And then after Daugherty’s and Nance’s retirement, they spent a decade trying to find even one talented C/PF of any skill set (apart from Shawn Kemp’s 1st season before the binge eating). You have to be really careful about parting with proven Cs, because they are always to replace no matter how many draft picks you’ve got. I certainly wouldn’t do it for 75 cents on the dollar.
always [difficult] to replace
Colin,
I disagree. A blessing in disguise is when we realize that the Cavs drafted another stud to go with Irving, because of the Varejao injury. All this is right now is extra ping pong balls and hoping that the 4th pick turns out to be worlds better than the 10th pick. Today, I’d rather see Andy in his prime, working towards another all-defensive team.
A losing team needs to start winning some time…this year was looking great up until now. I don’t want Anderson injured…I want him out there playing for us.
One of the most important things when rebuilding in a small market, DON’T MAKE MISTAKES in the front office. Risk is certainly a part of trades / the draft. Teams like the Cavs don’t have the luxury of messing it up…
See Hughes, Larry…or Boozer, Carlos. Bad deals / trades / signings hurt you so much more than the big markets.
I don’t buy that line of thinking at all. Why limit the team in the draft just to see Varejao win some meaningless individual award. We know how good he is. Who cares if others don’t recognize it?
This team has 1 long-term piece (maybe 2 or 3 depending on how you view Thompson and Gee… I like em both), they need talent. Ping pong balls are our friend.
Colin,
I guess we just disagree on this. To explain my vantage point, here are two scenarios: one real life, the other a parallel universe.
Real Life: In their first season without Lebron, the Cavs struggle to an 8 – 27 start, including having won only one of their last 19 games. Anderson Varejao goes down to injury and the losing continues until a late season trade for Baron Davis breathes some life back into the franchise. The Cavs end the season with the league’s 2nd worst record and with the 4th pick in the draft, they select Tristan Thompson.
Parallel Universe: In their first season without Lebron, the Cavs struggle to a 13 – 44 start until a late season trade for Baron Davis breathes some life back into the franchise. The Cavs end the season with the league’s 5th worst record and with the 7th pick in the draft, they select Tristan Thompson.
The difference; a few more wins last year. Obviously there’s no telling how last season plays out if Andy stays healthy, just like there’s no knowing whether his injury this year results in a significantly better player being drafted. If the Cavs get a really high pick, and draft another star; that’s a blessing in disguise. If they get the 3rd pick and draft the equivalent of OJ Mayo (2008′s 3rd pick), I definitely won’t be looking back and saying “good thing Andy got hurt during his best season.”
Only time will tell what this injury means for the franchise, but right now, it’s no good. That’s my opinion.
If the Cavs plummet and draft a player that’s a lot better than whoever they would have drafted 5 spots later, then I’ll talk about blessings in disguise.
John, what exactly do you think the cavs can get for Andy right now? If we can get a top 5 draft pick, sure trade him. If we can get a young solid player and a top 10-15 then I’d think about it. But no one is offering that. Teams with high draft picks don’t need Andy, and teams that need andy are going to give picks in the 20′s for him, which usually result in players that don’t start too many NBA games. Andy will still be a solid starter when he’s 32-33, its not a big assumption to make. Its certainly more likely that Andy is a starting piece in 4 years than whoever gets drafted at 25 next year. Do you realize how much of a crapshoot the draft it? I would venture to say Anderson will be better when he’s 32 (last year of current contract) than Thompson, the #4 pick, will ever be.
Its a lot more to assume that drafting in the 20′s will result in a reliable starter than to assume a borderline allstar who works his ass off, doesn’t have an ego, and does whatever the team need him to do to win, won’t be a valueable big minute player when he’s 32, just 3 years from now. And its also unreasonable to assume that it would be harder to sign such an egoless player, who’s said he feels like he’s from here, to a reasonable contract than random rookie X (who you are assuming is worth resigning) who’s contract would be up at the most 1 year later.
Simmons suggested a trade to Boston that would net us a young player and 2 first rounders. Which = flexibility, to either move up or out and take a chance at next year’s lottery. Just cause you have a pick doesn’t mean you have to use it. Alas, with the recent Varejao injury that would never happen. But my point is that we should be more OPEN to moving him, and have a backup plan for moving forward without him.
He wanted out of Cleveland in ’07. Not until he got the best offer he could from another team that we matched did he want to stay. You think him and his agent aren’t going to want to be compensated for outplaying his current contract? Enough of the good guy treatment. We need to be smarter than we were w/Boozer & LeBron.
The 11th best Center (PF, really) in the league going forward (in my opinion) is nothing to bet the house on. Dwight Howard and any other offensively dominant C would wax the floor w/AV in a 7 game playoff series.
Agree w/your Tristan Thompson statement. Wanted Jonas.
Also included in that fantasy-deal was Jermaine O’Neal’s expiring contract, which would have freed up space for us this summer
Bill Simmons’ opinion is flattering, but we have no reason to assume the Celtics were actually going to make such an offer before Andy got hurt. If they had, I’m sure the Cavs would have thought long and hard about it.
Not sure what “10″ centers you’re counting ahead of Varejao. I see 5 that are having an objectively better season “this” year: Howard, Bargnani (before he got hurt), Bynum, Marc Gasol and Greg Monroe. A couple others are comparable but not clearly better (Hibbert and Joakim Noah). I see 6 that I’d gladly trade Varejao straight up for, taking into account age, contract status, salary level, current and projected level of performance and injury history: Bargnani, M. Gasol, Hibbert, DeAndre Jordan, Greg Monroe, and Joakim Noah. Howard doesn’t make the list because he’d leave at season’s end to sign with a mega-market team; Bynum is a free agent in 2013, and makes 16.5 million next year. So any way you look at it, Varejao is very valuable to the Cavs, relative to most centers in the league, for at least the 3 years after this season.
Finally, you can say Andy’s a “PF,” but he’s 6’11, 260, and has been starting at center for a long time (first part time, now full time), and he’s done it quite well in recent years. And Howard certainly didn’t dominate the matchup when they played this year.
I’m not saying Verajoa will take a dirt cheap contract in his next signing, but I don’t think he’ll get significantly overpaid either, and you have no hard or easy the assets we get back for andy will be to resing, Andy, under different circumstances, already has resigned in cleveland for a very reasonable rate (maybe it wasn’t dirt cheap at the time, but I and most fans I knew certainly weren’t complaining then). I think that that fact, along with kyrie’s development and whatever pieces we add suggesting we should be at least be a decent playoff team in 3 years (with andy), would mean it would be more likely for him to resign than random young player X who has anywhere close to the value andy has, assuming we could even get such a player.
And having one of the top 20 big man in the league, whichever position you want to put him in, is a pretty bad crap shoot to replace with late round draft picks. Yes, we need to keep our options open, but the trade you are referencing is 33 yo Jermain Oneal and two late first round picks (clioppers would get 26th if the season ended now, boston is sitting around 18, but that would probably be worse as theu would upgrade from oneal to verajo). Now Oneal has no value to the Cavs long term, he will be barely hanging on to a rotation spot on a bad team in 3 years if he’s lucky.
So pretty much andy for two guys in the 18-27 range. Lets look at guys from the 2006 to 2009 draft, so we can see what kind of players were likely to be getting who right now have about the same amount of experience as they would have when verajoa’s contract might be up.
just randomly picking those metrics without first looking at the drafts to filter the metric for my arguement, (you’ll have to trust me on that one I guess, but you know where I got the numbers 18-27 at least) we have Rondo, Kyle Lowry, Javale Mcgee, Ryan Anderson, Serge Ibaka, and Aaron afflolo,r as the only above average players. Thats 6 out of 30 players drafted in that range, from 3 to 6 years ago. And only Serge and Mcgee are with the franchises that drafted them! The rest of the list is about 40% guys I’ve never heard of, 30% bench warmers, and 30% average starters. So there is much less than a 50% chance, even with two picks, that we get a player as good as Andy. we get about a 2*13% = 26% chance of hitting on a good player, about a 13%^2 = <2% chance of getting two good players, and overall we still only have about a 55% chance to just get an average player.
( I don't want to hear about the talent of our GM, its a crapshoot, if you don't think so why did no one draft lin, and why didn't we steal one impact player in the late picks during the lebron years? Hickson sucks, so don't mention him)
I agree, having multiple picks and no andy contract gives us flexibility, but flexibility is not worth most likely giving up real talent when you already have cap and pick flexibility.
Oh ya, not to mention with all these late round picks the cavs have accumulated, a lot of them are never going to be able to get one of the very limited roster spots. This is not football.
O’Neal is an expiring contract. Would allow the Cavs max player money to spend. Which, um, I think is important nowadays? There are a # of better C’s available this summer, and if not, a few next…in addition to whatever position (SG/SF) we don’t draft.
Not every draft pick makes the roster, and the Cavs are due to have plenty of space:
http://hoopshype.com/salaries/cleveland.htm
Anyways if you multiply the % of time that Andy spends on the injured list (30%) by the number of years it has taken him to become all of a sudden relevant (7) and then divide that by the control the Cavs have on what other teams will offer a 2015 “impact Center” (0%), compounded by the probability that either of us convince each other of the other’s opinion (1 in 1000), you are left with quite a bit of time and space wasted.
Andy took “seven years” to become relevant, John? He was already a critical playoff performer 5 years ago, when he was able to shut down Rasheed Wallace back when Sheed was still “Sheed.” And was an excellent pick-and-roll partner for Lebron long before the Decision and Kyrie’s arrival.
Bottom line, the Cavsalready will have cap flexibility; they already have an asset they can likely flip for a 1st rounder (Sessions); they already have extra low 1st & 2d rd picks coming their way over the next few years, and now it looks like the Cavs’ own pick is destined for top-5 territory, and certainly higher than any pick likely to be offered in a trade. There’s simply no compelling reason to create yet another big hole to fill on their 2012-2015 roster by trading away Varejao. And I think it would be a “big” hole, though you evidently disagree.
Brian,
The Simmons deal is just an example. The sense I get from most Cavs fans is Varejao is near-untouchable, so the trade proposed was just one that “worked.” Offer and acceptance is another story.
As far as top 10 guys, Howard, Jefferson (the only one I wouldn’t pay for), McGee, and Cousins I thought should make the list. Most of the borderline guys that are at or near Varejao’s level are 3-5 years younger and already producing. I made the 7 game playoff series comment hoping no one would reference this year’s meaningless regular season game vs. the Magic. As Cavs fans know, weaknesses are highly exposed in a playoff series and the history of AV guarding Howard certainly lends more weight to it being a problem than not.
I’m not sure how as a 6th/7th man allowing a 32 year old veteran on the decline (Sheed) to average more points and shoot a better fg % than he did during the season qualifies as “shutting down.”
My overall belief stems from the opinion that a PG and a defensively dominant C are the 2 most crucial parts of a team, and i just don’t think Andy has proven that he is capable of being that guy for us in the future.
We’ll have to revisit this discussion when draft order is known. Too much speculation and opinion right now.
John,
Yes, Cousins would make my list of current Cs that would be more valuable to the Cavs than Varejao taking all considerations into account. So that’s 7. Howard would not, for the reason I mentioned; because there’s zero chance he’d sign an extension here. “Maybe” Jefferson; he puts up numbers, but he’s a slow, plodding player that may not fit well with Byron Scott’s style of play. Plus, as you allude to, he’s making $15 million next year and then he’s a free agent, and presumably wouldn’t be interested in a significant pay cut. My impression of McGee from following the Wizards over the years is that he’s following in the footsteps of Andray Blatche; that is, regardless of his physical tools – and the numbers he’s putting up for a team that makes the Cavs look like the 96 Bulls by comparison – he’s not someone you want on your team if you’re hoping to actually win games.
Enough speculating, I agree.