Cleveland Cavaliers Paying Steep Price for Desperately Needed Rim Protection

Trapped in the middle of the Eastern Conference, plagued by injuries and lacking size, the Cleveland Cavaliers needed to trade for rim protection.

So, they traded for rim protection—at great personal expense.Timofey Mozgov is headed to Cleveland, ESPN.com's Marc Stein and Brian Windhorst first reported. In exchange for the 28-year-old big man, the Cavaliers will send the Denver Nuggets two first-round picks.

One of those selections was acquired recently in a separate deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder and New York Knicks. The Cavaliers sent Dion Waiters to Oklahoma City and Alex Kirk, Lou Amundson and a 2019 second-round pick to New York, netting J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and a top-18 protected first-rounder (via Oklahoma City), according Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski.

Rather than ship any players off to Denver, the Cavaliers will instead absorb Mozgov via a trade exception they created by dealing Keith Bogans, per Wojnarowski. Still, even without the inclusion of tangible talent, the Nuggets are due a king's ransom here.

Two first-rounders are one more than the Boston Celtics received for All-Star point guard Rajon Rondo. No matter how you slice this, the Cavaliers placed a premium on Mozgov's skill set—and there are plenty of ways to slice this."We knew we would morph into something else over time," one Cavaliers player told Bleacher Report's Ethan Skolnick following the Waiters trade. "We're not waiting around. The plan is to win now, in the next two or three years."

Long-term patience went out the window the moment LeBron James agreed to come home. In an instant, the Cavaliers went from rebuilding to championship-chasing. Their latest actions, though steeply priced, are merely extensions of the win-now edict last summer's good fortune tacitly issued.


Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2322586-cleveland-cavaliers-paying-steep-price-for-desperately-needed-rim-protection