NBA Rumors: Cavaliers To Trade For Roy Hibbert?

The Cleveland Cavaliers have gone from regular season pretenders to Eastern Conference contenders, seemingly in one night. In every effort to fulfill their roster and snatch the eastern conference throne, the Cavaliers are making every attempt to upgrade their roster by any means necessary.

Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com talked about Cleveland’s desire to acquire Hibbert on 850 AM/WNKR, but noted that any discussions would be preliminary at best. Evan Massey of InkOnIndy.com also noted that the Cavaliers and Indiana Pacers are now talking about a trade for Pacers big man Roy Hibbert.

Roy Hibbert is set to make $14,898,938 this year with a player option of $15,514,031 for the 2015-16 season.

Indiana will certainly want some young guns in return. Although they’ll seek to acquire Tristan Thompson, his $5,138,430 salary doesn’t make for a good addition when trying to create a package that will satisfy CBA rules to match Hibbert’s $14 million. It’s most likely the Cavaliers would offer a package centering around Anderson Verajo’s expiring deal ($9,704,545) and Dion Waiters ($4,062,000) with a few other moving parts from both squads.

Don’t think for a second Kyrie Irving will be upset to see Waiters go, that rumored beef between the two was real, and in the interest of solidifying chemistry and upgrading down low on the block this trade could easily kill two birds with one stone for the Cavs. With Cleveland’s addition of James and Kevin Love, Waiters won’t see half of the touches he’s grown accustomed to in his two-year career. His career high average of 15.9 points last season will easily be made up by Love and James and with David Blatt searching for balance between shots taken between both stars and Irving, having a ball-hungry shooting guard in the mix isn’t ideal.

The deal makes sense for Cleveland who only needs their center to rebound and defend the rim, both of which Hibbert’s pretty adept at. Drafted by the Toronto Raptors as the 17th pick in the 2008 NBA draft, Hibbert has career averages of 11.2 points, 1.9 blocks and 6.7 rebounds. A pretty uneven stat line when considering giving up Waiters and Anderson Varejao, but any loss in production will be made up triple-fold by LeBron and Love. It’s not as big of a loss as it seems.

From a hardwood perspective, adding Roy Hibbert to the middle makes for one crowded paint when James and Irving decide to drive the lane. Fans will grow weary of slick passes from the Cavs stars only to see the subsequent fumble and embarrassed stink face made by Hibbert. If Hibbert can have one of his best rebounding years on both ends of the floor, that opens up Cleveland’s transition game and increases second chance points/attempts.

This trade also makes sense for the Pacers who will want to stay afloat until superstar Paul George‘s return to the small-forward position. They’re still owners of the NBA summer dunce cap after allowing triple double machine Lance Stephen to walk over to the Charlotte Bobcats weeks before losing George to a season ending injury during a Team USA exhibition in Las Vegas. Adding Waiters to the Pacers could provide a scoring lift good enough to hold the fort down until George makes it back into a Pacers uniform for the 2015-15 season. In the Eastern Conference, that’s enough to slide in anywhere from the sixth to eighth seed.

It’s a good look for the Pacers to solve one of their biggest issues of the 2014 post season — chemistry. Should Dion Waiters fit in to what was referred to as a tight knit group before chaos hit the Pacers locker room, they’ll elect to exercise the team option on his $5,138,430 for the 2015-16 season. That’s a low risk and high reward move for the Pacers who have seen enough of Roy Hibbert to know they’ll be ok moving in another direction. Best-case scenario, Waiters elevates his game to a 20 points a night scorer and matched with George, both become a formidable offensive duo. Worst-case scenario, Waiters emulates Evan Turner and they let him go next summer.

This rumor definitely has legs. It serves both teams well in multiple departments. With so many moving assets the likelihood of it being completed before training camp is low, but there’s definitely a possibility of this trigger being pulled sooner than later.