NBA Trade Rumors: Can the Cavs Keep Dan Gilbert's Promise?

To many Cavs fans, talking about "The Decision" begins like an FDR speech.

"Yesterday, July 8, 2010, a date which will live in infamy, Cleveland Ohio was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the forces of Lebron James."

Not to digress, but what the Miami Heat did was not only wrong, it was just stupid.

There is a reason that players play and management builds the team. The Heat are cap locked for the next six years with only draft picks to rely on and hoping that veterans who want to win championships will come there and play for cheap, except that if the owners have their way the new CBA will eliminate all of the veteran exceptions and the mid-level exception so enjoy your team Heat fans.

I am not comparing Pearl Harbor to James taking his talents to Miami. After all, it was and is any player's right to play wherever he wants to play when in free agency, but Cavs fans felt betrayed, Dan Gilbert felt betrayed and released that horrible letter to the fans. 

I thought the letter itself was ridiculous, but in it he made certain promises to the fans, one of them being that the Cavs would win a championship before James and the Heat.

Is that a promise that can be kept?  With a lot of luck, and some smart drafting and trading, it definitely can be, and here's how.

The first thing the Cavs need is a bit of luck, which comes in the form of a ping pong ball or two. I am talking about the lottery, of course.

As it stands now, the Cavs have two lottery picks, and if the balls fall they way they are supposed to, they would have the second and eighth picks. The possibility exists that they could move up.

When the Chicago Bulls drafted Derrick Rose they moved from ninth to first, the Magic won the lottery from the 13th spot before, the Blazers also won it from eighth, but you can't count on that.

Kyrie Irving seems to be the consensus number one pick, which would mark the first time in NBA draft history that back-to-back No. 1 overall picks were 6'3" or shorter.

So, the Cavs would seem to be missing out on him. That should be a bit more luck for them though as so few Duke players develop into superstars in the NBA (name one actually) and you have to wonder about a guy's ability to stay healthy in the NBA when he couldn't through an entire college season.

My feeling is that too few general managers use common sense when drafting, they all seem to do what the ESPN analysts tell them to (why else would Greg Oden have been drafted ahead of Kevin Durant?) and I almost wonder if the Cavs wouldn't draft Irving, if they had the chance.

To me, Derrick Williams is the best player in this draft, as he should be there at No. 2 pick for the Cavs to draft. This should work out well for the Cavs, even though number two picks have a strange history of not working out for their teams, but I digress again, as Williams can play either the two guard or the small forward position and can shoot from anywhere plus get to the basket.

He also plays pretty solid defense, especially in the post, and can rebound well. At eight, I would take Kemba Walker. I don't think Walker is the type of player that you can build around, but he is a talented young player that can take and make big shots, can shoot from anywhere, and distribute the basketball. He's a complimentary piece, but an important one. Taken with a guy like Williams he helps add to the beginning of an impressive core. It is essential that the Cavs not take a big man with either of these picks. The Cavs are too raw and have too many holes to fill right now, they need a guy they can develop and build around.

The next step will seem like kind of a step back, but it isn't and it is very important. The Cavs need to trade J.J. Hickson. I'm going to let you a little secret that only about half of the GM's in the NBA know.  YOU CAN'T BUILD A TEAM AROUND A BIG MAN. It's just not possible.

In the last 20 years, only two teams have done it: the Rockets around Hakeem Olajuwon and the Spurs around Tim Duncan (except that the Spurs don't really count cause he was the final piece around David Robinson).

Two teams out of the countless teams that have tried over and over again to build their team around that special big man. The reason for that is the NBA had become a guard league, you have to have that guy who can create his own shot and get to the rim.

Oh, you have to have that guy who protects the rim and can get you between 10-15 points per game, but you have to add him last because that guy fills so many columns in the stat sheet that he commands so much of your cap space. If you pay that guy (Minnesota, Orlando, Dallas, Houston) then you rarely have the cap space left to pay to get the rest of what you need, or you end up having to trade your trash to get someone else's, or you eventually end up trading that guy for pennies on the dollar.

Even though you have to have a guy like that, (which is the reason that the Heat aren't winning the championship this season or likely any time soon) you add him last, or you build the team very quickly so that you can add the pieces before he gets paid.

Hickson is going into the final year of his contract, which means that next offseason he will be getting paid. The Cavs are not that close to building a winner, plus they have Anderson Varejo under contract for the next four seasons at about $8 million per season.

What the Cavs need to do is position themselves for the 2013 free agency period, the summer Baron Davis's contract expires. The Cavs need to find a team looking to win now, a team like the Kings who are going to want to turn out a better showing in Anaheim than 23 wins and may be willing to part with DeMarcus Cousins.

Or even the Rockets, who have to know that the window is closing on Luis Scola and might be willing to move Kevin Martin.

The Bulls would be an interesting trade partner, depending on how the new CBA shapes up. If the Bulls are faced with he scenario of not being able to re-sign Derrick Rose, they may be willing to trade Luol Deng, who is certainly no superstar, but is a professional. If Deng's work ethic were to rub off on some of the younger Cavs, that alone would be worth the trade, and most importantly that Charlotte pick that is less and less protected every year until 2016 when it is unprotected.

Hickson may not really appeal to them, though he would allow them to consider moving Taj Gibson to the Cavs which would be another high character pick up for them, but Antawn Jamison's expiring contract would.

They could even use that trade exception they got in the James trade and not have to give Jamison up. Either way, they need to trade Hickson before his big pay day, or they could find themselves hamstrung for years.

There is another scenario, though, that is such a longshot, that I hesitate to bring it up, but I will because it is what I would try to do.

The Cavs should draft Williams instead of Walker at No. 8, and send Williams and Ramon Sessions to the Sacramento Kings for Marcus Thornton.

As I've documented, I think the Kings will have to move either Thornton or Tyreke Evans and they would love the Cavs to overpay them for him.

The Cavs should buy out Baron Davis's 2012/13 salary and tell Hickson that he will get his money, but he has to wait for a week or so, which is illegal, I would think. Then, they should hope like hell that Chris Paul and Dwight Howard do opt out of their contracts.

There are going to be very few teams with the ability to sign both of them together, maybe the Charlotte Bobcats and the Phoenix Suns.

If you approach them both together, with the opportunity to join a young and talented team, being the missing pieces with the chance to do what James could, they might be actually take it.

The stories of Paul going to New York seem like a pipe dream just based on how few players they will have under contract and the amount of money Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire will be making after next season.

The new CBA will be designed to specifically stop what the Heat did this year, and Dwight Howard is not going to the Lakers unless he takes WAY less money.

So the chance will be there. A lineup of Paul, Thornton, Williams, Hickson, and Howard would pretty much be unstoppable.

The Bulls would still be there, but they should be able to sneak in a title or two. Is that enough?

Whether they go for the home run after next season, or try to build it slowly, they have a very good chance of keeping Dan Gilbert's promise as long as they follow the blueprint.

Remember, the Heat did something dynamic. but in the end, it may serve to only hamstring them for the next six years. There exists a strong likelyhood that the Heat have the bulk of their team already in place and won't have the ability to add to it.

Most analysts thought that the Cavs would take years, maybe decades to recover from the devastation of James leaving, but it may only be two years.