Cleveland Cavaliers Smart to Pursue Anderson Varejao Contract Extension
Smart moves are becoming a staple of the new-look Cleveland Cavaliers.
Free-agent-to-be Anderson Varejao and the team are engaged in contract extensions talks, according to Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski. Though this isn't the Cavaliers signing LeBron James or trading for Kevin Love, it's a savvy attempt to lock up one of the team's most important players.
This, of course, assumes they aren't preparing a four-year max extension or any other offer than can be deemed obviously egregious. But at this point that's like assuming the world won't end tomorrow, or that Philadelphia 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie will cease collecting and bathing in second-round picks.
There's little incentive for the Cavaliers to sign Varejao before free agency if he's not being retained at a discount or reasonable price. That dialogue between the two sides is already open suggests finding some happy middle ground in the near future isn't impossible. And that's great. Not "Love unlocked the secret to rim protection" great, but still great.
Friend of the King
Varejao was recently named the team's starting center by head coach David Blatt, according to ESPN.com's Dave McMenamin, beating out fourth-year big man Tristan Thompson. The move itself comes as no surprise, despite the difference in age.
Varejao has six years of experience playing alongside James and at least two with fellow starters Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters. He provides a bit of familiarity within a starting five and rotation that has endured significant turnover and brought in a lot of new faces.
Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal also cited Varejao as a favorite of James', writing that "part of the reason Varejao survived the roster purging of the last four years is because of his ties to James." Apparently, the Cavaliers believed that if James ever returned, Varejao would be "one of the pieces to lure him back."
Oh, and then there's the hole James-saying-it-himself thing.
"And I can’t wait to reunite with Anderson Varejao," James wrote in his return letter for Sports Illustrated, "one of my favorite teammates."
What's that old saying? Oh, yeah.
LeBron James' will be done.
If James is familiar and happy with playing alongside Varejao, there's no reason to even entertain breaking up the band. James himself can be a free agent next summer or the one after, so it behooves the Cavaliers to please him any way they can.
Hardwood Heart
Beyond his purported ties to James, Varejao is actually productive. This is not to be confused with "always healthy." He's appeared in just 146 regular-season games since 2010-11. Derrick Rose, who basically lost two full seasons to injury, has played in 130 during that same span.
Varejao, 32, is not to be mistaken for an elite defender either. The Cavaliers are conspicuously shallow on the defensive end—specifically rim protection—and he is not part of a cure-all. He can be incredibly active outside the restricted area and hoards defensive rebounds, but he doesn't have the necessary lift or quickness to guard the iron.
Of the 72 players (minimum 25 appearances) who faced at least five shots at the rim per game last season, Varejao ranked 62nd in opponent field-goal percentage. While that means he fared better than both Tristan Thompson (71) and Kevin Love (70), it's hardly a vote of confidence.
Still, it's difficult to ignore the numbers Varejao put up last season when he was healthy. Through 65 appearances, he averaged 8.7 points, 9.4 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.1 steals in just 27.7 minutes. No other NBA player matched those statistical benchmarks while playing in under 28 minutes per game.
Only seven other players went for at least eight points, nine rebounds, two assists and one steal at all. None of them logged fewer than 31.8 minutes.
Little changed during the preseason. Varejao looked comfortable alongside Cleveland's Big Three and put up his usually, per-36-minute friendly numbers, averaging 12.5 points and 9.1 rebounds in 25.5 minutes a contest.
Part of the challenge in rounding out superteams is finding supporting cast members who can produce while playing limited minutes. Varejao is no stranger to playing beside ball-dominant superstars—James, Irving, Ricky Davis—and is one of the few who can record provocative stat lines without demanding a certain number of touches or minutes.
“All I want is to do my job,” Varejao said, per Lloyd. “Basketball is unlimited subs. Every game is going to be different. I just want to be ready and play basketball.”
It's difficult not to fall in love with his effort either. Varejao only knows one speed: Never, ever stop. It's this motor that helps him haul down rebounds and, as Fear The Sword's Trevor Magnotti observed, make up for his deficient rim protection:
"This is what makes Varejao such a fascinating defensive player. Conventionally, we think of the modern defensive center as one that protects the rim, defends the PNR, and covers for mistakes by letting the mistakes come to them and bailing their teammates out by blocking shots at the rim. Varejao accomplishes the same goal through a different means. Varejao doesn't let the mistakes come to him; he attacks the mistakes by flying around the floor like a crazed piranha that's smelled blood in the water. And that might be more useful to the Cavs' overall team defense than someone who can just block shots.
"
A shot-blocker would be nice, since the team actually doesn't have one. But having someone who's willing to run around, hound the ball and force a few turnovers is only a good thing.
“He’s the same Andy,” James said of Varejao, per The News-Herald's Bob Finnan. “If you ask him to run through six walls, he’ll run through seven.
Cleveland needs all the activity it can get if it doesn't want the burden of prevention to fall on Shawn Marion and James alone. For all his warts and injuries, Varejao is a defensive upgrade compared to anyone else—including Love and Thompson—who could jump center.
That's an admittedly hairy situation to be in. Centers don't typically age well, and Varejao is already a walking house of feathers. At some point the Cavaliers will want to get someone younger, healthier and, well, better. There's no telling how much longer Varejao's body can stand up against Blatt's positionless and passing-packed offense, so it's inane to pretend he—extension or not—is Cleveland's center of the future.
But the Cavaliers also cannot pretend to have that center of the future in their sights. They (likely) don't even have him on the roster.
Thompson was and remains a candidate to spend a ton of minutes at the 5, but at 6'8", he's severely undersized. Extension talks between him and the Cavaliers have also stalled, according to ESPN.com's Brian Windhorst. Though it's expected that Thompson remains in Cleveland long term because he's represented by James' agent, Rich Paul, things could change.
And after him, there's...no one.
Financially Fantastic
Big men don't come cheap. Even if they're not All-Stars, they cost big bucks.
An almost-31-year-old Marcin Gortat signed a five-year, $60 million contract with Washington Wizards over the summer. Channing Frye, also 31, received four years and $32 million from the Orlando Magic. Jordan Hill re-signed with the Los Angeles Lakers for two years and $18 million, though the second is a team option.
Trevor "I'm barely averaging 20 minutes per game for my career" Booker is now earning $5 million annually with the Utah Jazz for crying out loud.
Never mind Thompson pricing himself out of Cleveland's range; Varejao could fetch a fat premium on the open market next summer from teams desperate for any kind of interior production. He's slated to earn $9.7 million this season, per ShamSports, and it's not implausible to believe he'll net a similar yearly salary for the life of his next contract.
Signing injury-prone centers—who will be 33 next summer—is rarely a good investment, but there are mitigating circumstances at play. The NBA's new nine-year, $24 billion national television deal with ESPN and Turner Sports (the latter of which owns Bleacher Report) immediately changes things.
The league's salary cap, which currently tops out at just over $63 million, is eventually going to explode. There are a number of ways it can happen, two of which would directly impact Varejao's market value.
Per Grantland's Zach Lowe, the NBA could institute some sort of smoothing-out process that would diminish the projected spike in 2016, when the cap is expected to exceed $80 million without breaking a sweat. In that scenario, player salaries would increase sooner, meaning Varejao would cost more this summer.
There's also the possibility that the NBA just waits for a cap eruption in 2016. If that happens, players are going to position themselves for free agency then. The ones who can't or won't—be it because of age, personal preference or something else—could then demand top dollar this summer, since they'll be promising long-term commitments others are not.
Waiting for Varejao to hit free agency won't necessarily cost the Cavaliers more money, but it could. Extending him before then (likely) wouldn't, further preserving whatever financial flexibility they have moving forward, once the cap actually increases.
That's an element of all this too. The cheaper a contract is now, the cheaper (and friendlier) it will look following the expected salary-cap boom.
"The rising cap makes all present-day contracts look better, but it could also bring opportunities that those contracts could imperil," Lowe wrote. "Cleveland has three max players on its roster, but if the cap rises fast enough, it could actually have some flexibility in the summer of 2016—right in time for the anticipated mega-leap."
Predicting how much spending power the Cavaliers could have is impossible. Not enough is known about the future cap to compute exact—or even ballpark—dollar amounts. Until proved otherwise, though, star-stuffed teams should operate as if they'll have an opportunity to position themselves for another unprecedented splash.
Assuming the cap doesn't explode next summer, and that Love and James both return to Cleveland, the Cavaliers won't be able to afford another noteworthy big man. They will either re-sign Varejao or sift through free agency's dregs. If a lack of spending power and other options pretty much promise they're going to retain him anyway, they might as well sign him as soon as possible so that it's for as cheap as possible.
Expensive or not, Varejao's days in Cleveland don't appear to numbered. Instead of dragging this out and allowing other teams to get involved next summer, the Cavaliers are making the smart play, attempting to hammer out a deal now, trying to remove the possibility, however small, that they'll lose a player they still need.
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