I think he would be a great vet big for us. 3 years with a team option in year 3. He makes 8.4 this year. I wonder if the Cavs would take a future 1st for him, then turn around and replace him with Scola? What are your thoughts?
I am a big varejao fan. He is a hard hat defender and rebounder. You can't have too many of those. Plus he gets under players skin too.
The future first is tricky, because of owing one to Charlotte, but I'd be all for adding him. We have little else we can realistically offer. Unless they had interest in Elliot Williams or Luke Babbitt, and the space of losing him.
I think so? He's probably the most capable of that bunch at playing the 5, if only because he's got the most experience as a rebounder/defender, whereas Hickson is almost exclusively an offensive-minded 4 and counting on Freeland to play the five might be a stretch (not to mention Leonard who is pretty goddamned raw and probably shouldn't play much more than spot minutes).
My thoughts are expressed here. Varejao is a game-changer on defense, at 4 or (more importantly) 5. But last season he put up borderline all-star numbers, so the Cavs would want plenty in return. (The Cavs seemed playoff-bound before he went down, and then they entered a death-spiral. But that brings up my next point...) And he does seem to be always injured. But if we got him without giving up too much, I would be ecstatic.
He's a far better defender than either, and more suited to playing the 5, at which we are very thin, unless we plan to play Aldridge there, which I would be okay with, but he wouldn't.
I get that. I just think that if you were going to do this I have to scratch my head about signing both Freeland and Hickson. I guess you can't have too much depth of bigs?
Great vet? Why? What's your expectation for this roster? I don't see us winning more than 30 games. Don't need a mediocre, complementary player who will hurt our draft position.
Again, I think it all depends on the price of acquiring him, but Lillard/vet?/Smith Wes/Elliot/Barton Nic/Claver/Babbitt Aldridge/Hickson/Freeland Varejao/Leonard/Thomas With likely barton, Leonard seeing most of their time in the DLeague
I now see where you're getting this, MM: Stein is tweeting about the Cavs wanting Scola bad and suggesting that Varejao might be movable. Presumably, though, the only reason they'd move him is to lower their salary commitments to be able to make a bid, so it would have to be (as you said) a pick or picks. And it would also have to be RIGHT NOW, before Batum is signed. It would be hard to believe that we could offer a better package of picks than any number of other teams, though.
Could we acquire Scola and then trade him for Varejao later? He's certainly an "asset", to use Olshey's term.
