Well twenty years after the trade that derailed the "Team of the 90's" and brought Danny Ferry to the Cavaliers, Danny Ferry shakes up the team in a huge way with a three team trade that got a little complicated:
The Cavs sent guards Larry Hughes and Shannon Brown and forwards Drew Gooden and Cedric Simmons to Chicago for center/forward Ben Wallace and forward Joe Smith. The Cavs also received Chicago's second round draft pick in 2009.
The Cavs then acquired guard/forward Wally Szczerbiak and guard Delonte West from Seattle for forwards Ira Newble and Donyell Marshall.
My first thought was "Ben Wallace?? He's got the worst contract in the league." Well, actually, he's got the second, and we got rid of the guy with the first. My initial "borrowed" analaysis echoes what Chris Broussard wrote on ESPN.com:A big key in this deal is that Cleveland didn't lose much. All they really lost was Gooden, but Varejao's emergence this season made Gooden expendable. Varejao was outplaying him, and now they've replaced Gooden with a tougher guy (Ben) and a smarter, more skilled guy (Smith). Two for one.
Hughes was no loss whatsoever. He had no bearing on whether the Cavs won or lost (see the 2006 conference finals vs. Detroit for evidence). And financially, the Cavs got rid of his bad contract without taking on longer contracts.
It's true, Wallace's and Hughes' contracts expire at the same time, so we didn't take on any extra years. And that's important, because given West, Pavlovich, Boobie, and Szczerbiak, you have the shooters you need (and that's ignoring the fact that Hughes' couldn't hit the broad side of a barn most days. I will miss Drew, you don't get a guy that young who contributes a lot that often...but he also fails to contribute a lot. If Ben Wallace can play his role--cleaning up garbage, playing tough against tough big men, and getting out of the way of the scorers--he can be very valuable. Sure, he doesn't have the offensive skill of Gooden, and he's old, but we have other guys to put the ball in the basket. For some reason, the Cavaliers never were sold on Shannon Brown. I still think he might turn out to be a decent player.
And I knew I remembered Delonte West from somewhere...