What Does 'NBA 2K' Say About Cleveland Cavaliers Trading for Chris Paul?
The Cleveland Cavaliers' terrific troika of LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving is capable of thumping most opponents throughout the Association.
But even after the firing of head coach David Blatt and Tyronn Lue's subsequent rise to power, this team remains a notch below the two powerhouses of the 2015-16 season—the San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors.
If the Cavaliers hope to draw level with San Antonio and Golden State, further changes are needed.
Painful as it may be to give up Kyrie Irving, doing so in an effort to acquire Chris Paul may well do the trick. Irving's potential seems limitless, but right now, he's still nowhere near as effective as the Los Angeles Clippers' floor general.
As ESPN.com's Kevin Pelton suggested, trading the two All-Star point guards for each other could prove mutually beneficial:
"That deal would give the Cavaliers a better chance of beating the Golden State Warriors or San Antonio Spurs now and allow the Clippers to wait out this period in which those two teams dominate the Western Conference while developing a younger core of stars. If the Cavs and Clippers are feeling desperate about their current situations, a deal might help both of them.
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A Sensible Swap for the Clippers
Making sense of this trade from a Clippers perspective isn't particularly difficult.
Paul is still playing at a remarkably high level, but he'll be 31 before the 2016 NBA champion is determined. Acquiring Irving would force the Clippers to take a step backward in the short term, but the future ceiling of this squad would be nearly limitless.
Irving is only 23 years old. Blake Griffin is still just 26. DeAndre Jordan would be the old man of the newly formed Big Three, and he's 27.
That's enough to endure the Warriors and Spurs running away with the West in the present while maintaining hope for the future. L.A. could build a team around a core, find stronger secondary pieces and bolster a bench that isn't such a glaring liability. And time would be a luxury in its corner.
But it's tougher to analyze the Cavaliers' side of this deal. They have a massive gap to close and only half a season to do so. That's why we're using NBA 2K16 to see what happens.
Turning to the Machine
In order to get the salaries balanced, we're left including a few more players.
The Clippers also get their hands on Anderson Varejao and his expiring contract—not a huge on-court loss for the Cavs, even if he's been a Cleveland mainstay. Meanwhile, the Cavaliers add Pablo Prigioni to their roster as injury insurance.
Neither addition moves the needle.
With the new rosters complete in our simulation, we fast-forwarded to the playoffs—Cleveland and LeBron James' only concern. Our simulations ensured that the Cavaliers remained the Eastern Conference's No. 1 seed in all 20 attempts.
With Irving Still in Cleveland
To set a baseline, we must first establish what happened in the 20 simulations with Irving still running the point.
Only the 12th resulted in a title, with the Cavaliers beating the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7 to hoist the Larry O'Brien Trophy. Getting past the opening rounds wasn't particularly difficult, but the Chicago Bulls sometimes posed a problem in the Eastern Conference Finals.
These overall results won't satisfy Northeast Ohio. Advancing to the Finals is no longer the goal. It's a title-or-bust season, and the Irving-led Cavs are busting far too often during the interconference clash—regardless of who represents the Western Conference.
CP3 Time
These results should be much more pleasant.
Chris Paul's Cavaliers ended the city's championship drought in half of their attempts, facing either the Spurs, Thunder, Warriors or...guess who?
The 18th simulation saw Paul and the Cavaliers knock off Irving and the Clippers during Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
Cleveland won 102-95, while Paul went for only 12 points, three rebounds, five assists and four steals and was outplayed by the point guard he was traded for. But the result is all that matters, and that happened to be the eighth of 10 simulated championships.
No matter how you look at it, the Paul experiment was a rousing virtual success.
The Cavs had a higher winning percentage after the trade in each stage of the playoffs, and the discrepancy only grew larger as the opponents increased in difficulty:
But even more importantly, look at where the run ended in each simulation:
The only black mark for the post-trade Cavs was an extra first-round blemish. They were eliminated in the second simulation by the surging Milwaukee Bucks, and the Detroit Pistons rained on their parade in the ninth.
Other than that, the pie chart with Paul is exactly what Cleveland supporters would like to see.
Will this trade actually happen? It's highly unlikely for an exchange of superstars to take place in the middle of the season, especially when the deal involves a 23-year-old megastar leaving town.
But according to NBA 2K16, it should.
Adam Fromal covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @fromal09.
Unless otherwise indicated, all stats are from Basketball-Reference.com or Adam's own databases and are current heading into games on Jan. 25.
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