r/clevelandcavs

[Charania] Free agent guard Lindy Waters III has agreed to a one-year deal with the San Antonio Spurs, agents Shy Saee and Winston Nelson of Klutch Sports tell ESPN. Waters has shot 37% from 3 in his first four NBA seasons in Oklahoma City, Golden State and Detroit.

Source: https://www.espn.com/contributor/shams-charania/63532e7a5aa19

Players like him are hard to come by. Through the ups and the downs, the effort he brought every night was admirable. So many memories he made with us. This one hurts, and we will miss him.

Thank you, Max 🫡

As part of the Peyton Watson deal, the Cleveland Cavaliers are sending Tre Mann, the 2027 second-rounder from the Los Angeles Clippers and cash to the Washington Wizards for Cam Whitmore.

Team ain’t the same without DG and Tristan on the bench😢

Apparently funnelling money through shell companies to players is allowed

EDIT: In case anyone missed the article - https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/49639157/nba-la-clippers-aspiration-investigation-steve-ballmer-kawhi-leonard

After agreeing Friday to trade Schröder to Charlotte, Cleveland remains in active search of a trade to send out Max Strus as Strus enters the final year of his current contract at $16.7 million, league sources say.

Completing the deal that ships out Schröder will shed nearly $7 million in salary for next season, but the Cavaliers are said to covet even more financial flexibility if they can manufacture it either for their pursuit of Nuggets restricted free Peyton Watson or Hawks unrestricted free agent Jonathan Kuminga as well as the eventual re-signing of James Harden.

One source familiar with the process said Harden's new multiyear deal with the Cavaliers should be completed "soon-ish."

As The Stein Line first reported in the below article on July 27, Denver's offers to Watson have been in the $70 million range over four seasons. Watson is believed to be seeking an annual average salary north of what teammate Christian Braun landed from the Nuggets last October in a five-year, $125 million rookie scale extension.

Source: https://marcstein.substack.com/p/more-late-night-nba-intel (paywalled)

Hey yall, I feel like this game gets completely lost in the history of great playoff performances.

On April 30, 2007, in Game 4 of the Cavs/Wizards first round series, Zydrunas Ilgauskas put up:

20 PTS, 19 REB, 1 AST, and 2 BLKs on 9/16 FG (56.3%), 2/2 FT (100%)
59.2% TS, +12 in 40 MIN

This wasn't some empty-stat regular season game either. It was a series clinching playoff game, and Cleveland was playing on the road. Ilgauskas basically dominated the interior for 40 minutes and came one rebound shy of a 20/20 game.

Obviously, 20 points doesn't jump off the page compared to some of the legendary 40 and 50 point closeout performances. However, the combination of 20/19, 2 blocks, 56.3% shooting, perfect free throws, and +12 in a closeout game feels incredibly underappreciated.

Big Z was never going to get the same historical attention as LeBron, Duncan, Shaq, etc., but this was a heck of a playoff performance.