Cleveland Cavaliers: A Desire For Timofey Mozgov

It’s the rumor that just won’t go away, and for good reason.  Timofey Mozgov would immediately fulfill a significant need for the Cleveland Cavaliers and is a logical trade pursuit for them.

The interest on the side of Cleveland makes perfect sense.

In his four years in the NBA, Mozgov has proven to be a valuable and improving young center.  But it wasn’t until last year that he established himself as a future starter.

In just 21.6 minutes per game, Mozgov had averages of 9.4 points and 6.4 rebounds, all while shooting .523 from the floor and .754 from the free throw line.

The numbers become even more impressive when viewed from a per 36 minute average:

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/1/2014.

If given the opportunity, Mozgov has shown the promise of becoming a potential double-double NBA center, which is exactly what the Cavaliers could use.  He would immediately become a heavy minute backup for the historically injured Anderson Varejao, while also getting the occasionally opportunity to start alongside Kyrie Irving, LeBron James and Kevin Love.

Despite what Mozgov can provide on the court, the main reason why the Cavaliers are pursuing him is for off-court reasons.  The mere fact that Mozgov is owed just $4.65 million next season is a huge reason for the appeal of bring him to Cleveland.

This minimal salary owed to him makes it exceptionally easy for Cleveland to match salaries if a trade were to be agreed upon.  With much of their money tied up in Kyrie, LeBron and Love, Cleveland is limited to the players that they would be willing/able to trade.

John Lucas III, Erik Murphy and Malcolm Thomas give the Cavaliers a total of $3,364,645 of fully non-guaranteed contracts.  This total alone gives Cleveland enough salary to match the contract of Mozgov, and would give Utah the ability to gain immediate salary savings.

This plan isn’t without it’s problems though.  First of all, the above three mentioned players cannot be traded together as of today.

When Lucas, Murphy and Thomas were acquired from the Utah Jazz earlier this summer, the Cavaliers moved above the salary cap.  Any player who is acquired by a team who is over the salary cap cannot be moved in conjunction with other players for a minimum of two months.

Malcolm Thomas is the sticking point in this regard as it was his contract that took Cleveland above the salary cap, and the therefore cannot be traded along with other players until Sept. 22.

But that problem can be solved by simply waiting.  At the very most it is just a minor issue of timing.

The larger issue for Cleveland is finding a deal that would satisfy the desires and needs of the Denver Nuggets.

The Nuggets owe Javale McGee more than $23 million over the next two years.  For this reason alone McGee is entrenched as the starter assuming he is healthy (he played just five games in 2013-14).

Denver also drafted Jusuf Nurkic this spring, leaving Mozgov’s future with the franchise uncertain to say the least … but that is speaking of the future.

In the immediate future though, Mozgov is expected to have a significant role this season in Denver.  Unless the Nuggets believe Nurkic is ready for heavy minutes as a rookie, any trade that sends Mozgov away would require the return of someone capable of playing some minutes at center.

For Cleveland, this could only mean the involvement of Tristan Thompson, which would leave the Cavaliers dangerously thin at power forward behind Kevin Love (outside of playing Shawn Marion or LeBron James there in small-ball lineups, or unproven rookie Dwight Powell).

If the Cavaliers cannot convince Denver to take draft picks and non-guaranteed contracts in exchange for Mozgov, it doesn’t appear that any trade is possible at this time.

But nothing that has happened for the Cavaliers this summer has seemed possible before it happened, and Sept. 22 is the key date to keep in mind in any potential trade.