Cleveland Cavaliers: 5 roster moves they must make in the coming offseason

2. Move on from Tristan Thompson

Since signing his five-year, $82 million deal, Tristan Thompson has been disappointing. He was a part of the 2015-16 championship team, playing all 82 games, but he only started 34 of them. He averaged 7.8 points and 9.0 rebounds per game.

In the next four years, Thompson played 231 of a possible 311 games. He has come off the bench for 40 of those games. This is simply not good enough for such a large portion of the salary cap. The final year of his contract is $18.5 million, which is the third-most-expensive contract on the roster.

Since signing his current deal, Thompson has averaged 8.7 points, 9.0 rebounds and 1.2 assists per game. These are not great numbers for a highly paid player on a bottom-ranked team. It would be different if he was a vital piece of a playoff team like Steven Adams of the OKC Thunder.

Adams is on $25.8 million next season and is only averaging 10.9 points, 9.3 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.1 blocks per game. The difference is, Adams is a key piece for the Thunder and is helping them to a level of success, as opposed to Thompson who is not even guaranteed to start.

The other issue is that Thompson’s production has basically been stagnant since signing his current deal. In his first four seasons, Thompson averaged 10.1 points, 8.4 rebounds, 0.8 assists, 0.7 blocks and 0.5 steals per game.

This is just not good enough for a veteran and once of the leaders of the team. They also have Larry Nance Jr. and potentially Drummond to fill his role.