this season. T,he Cleveland cavaliers granted Kyrie Irving’s wish and traded him to the Boston Celtics in Tuesday. All in all it looks like Cleveland got a pretty good deal for Irving. In return for Irving the Celtics sent point guard Isaiah Thomas, forward Jae Crowder, center Ante Zizic and the Brooklyn Nets 2018 1st round pick that the Celtics owned. It’s an unprotected 1st round pick; so the Cavaliers will receive the pick no matter where the Nets finish.
It was back in July when Irving met with Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and said he’d like to be traded. In the meeting Irving mentioned that he’d like to go to a team where he could be the focal point and that he no longer wanted to play along LeBron James.
Irving is 25 years old and this will be his 7th NBA season. Irving has had some injury issues in his career, but he played in 72 games last season and posted his highest scoring average at 25.2 points per game while averaging just over 35 minutes a game.
Thomas is 28 years old, but is also heading into his 7th NBA season. The Celtics had the best record in the Eastern Conference last season at 53-29 as Thomas posted a career high scoring average of 28.9 points per game. Thomas also handed out 5.9 assists per game while playing just shy of 34 minutes a game. Now Thomas did have a hip injury that caused him to miss the final three games of the Eastern Conference finals series against the Cavaliers. Thomas has spent the off season rehabbing the injury as he opted not to have surgery. Interestingly the Cavaliers still acquired Thomas even though they don’t know when he’ll be able to return to the court.
Jae Crowder is 27 years old and is entering his 6th NBA season. Crowder averaged 13.9 points per game, 5.8 rebounds per game, 2.2 assists per game and 1 steal per game for the Celtics last season in 72 games. Crowder has averaged scoring in double digits the last two seasons with Boston.
Ante Zizic was the Celtics 1st round pick in the 2016 draft, He was the 23rd pick in that draft, but he hasn’t played a game in the NBA since being drafted. Zizic played 20 games for Darussafaka in the European League. Zizic averaged 9 points per game and 6.7 rebounds per game. Zizic started 17 of the 20 games he played in and averaged playing just under 22 minutes per game.
As far as salaries go Irving has 3 years left on his deal. He’ll make $18,868,625 next season. It goes up to $20,009,188 in 2018-19 and then in the 2019-20 season he’ll make $21,329,750. Thomas is in the final year of his contract and will make $6,261,395 before becoming a free agent. Crowder has three seasons on his contract. He’ll make $6,796,117 this season. In 2018-19 he’ll make $7,305,825 and then in the final year of his contract his salary will be $7,815,533. Zizic signed a two year deal that totals $3,597,960. Zizic’s contract has two options years for the 2019-20 and 2020-2021 seasons.
This is an interesting deal especially since it was made by the two teams that net in the Eastern Conference finals last season. The Celtics have added Gordon Hayward as a free agent and they used the #3 pick in the draft to take Jayson Tatum all in an effort to get past the Cavaliers and into the NBA Finals. Will the addition of Irving be enough for them to do that? Or do you still have the Cavaliers as the favorite in the Eastern Conference?
If you’re a Cavaliers fan the question you have to be asking is; how does this trade effect LeBron James status. James is in the final year of his contract and most people think he’ll leave the Cavaliers as a free agent after the season. Now getting that Nets 1st round pick that should be a lottery pick, but they’re not going to get someone the caliber of James with that draft pick. Of course James can get more money from the Cavaliers than he can from any other team, but it appears in all likely hood he’ll be moving on after the 2017-18 season. With James the Cavaliers are a threat to win the NBA title, but if he decides to move on where does that leave the Cavaliers?
Professional athletes use social media for quite a few things and it appears that Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le’Von Bell used his Twitter account to imply he’ll return to the Steelers the day after the teams final pre-season game. Bell simply tweeted out 9-1-17 and the a tweet that said you’re welcome.
Bell was given the franchise tag by the Steelers and is scheduled to make $12.1 million this season. Bell skipped training camp and hasn’t signed his franchise tender yet as he tries to get a new contract done with the Steelers. You’d have to expect that when Bell and the Steelers agree to a contract he’ll be the highest paid running back in the NFL. Devonta Freeman of the Atlanta Falcons is currently the highest paid running back in the NFL. Freeman’s new contract pays him an average of $8.25 million per season; so look for a number above that in Bell’s new contract.
The Steelers open the season on the road as they’ll travel to Cleveland to face the Browns on September 10th.
Now this is the third week of pre-season games for NFL teams and that means that the starters will play more than in any other pre-season game.
Now this will give the fans and of course fantasy players a good look at the starters. The first thing that jumped out at me was the fact that the Browns have decided to start rookie DeShone Kizer over Brock Osweiler at quarterback. Now does this mean that Kizer will be the Browns starting quarterback in Week 1; who knows, but remember when Kizer was drafted the Browns mentioned that the plan was to bring him along slowly and they even went so far as to say that he might not play in a 2017 regular season game. Of course this is Cleveland; so you never know what they’re going to do, but it’s something to watch.
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