Cavs land Ben Wallace, according to sources

Hmmm ... wonder if Joe D. thinks he needs to make a deal now. Cavs got a lot in this deal. Big Ben experiment over in the Windy City apparently.


ESPN - Sources: Cavs get Wallace from Bulls, Szczerbiak from Sonics - NBA


This thread was posted before buddhafan's. Delete his! LOL.

I'm glad Gooden's gone. Considering that they're already an excellent defensive team, someone who can finish inside is a major upgrade over Ben Wallace.

Wally could be trouble. For the Cavs or for their opponents, I don't know.

At the point guard position, the rich get richer- yet another guy to outplay Chauncey.

I don't really know what to think about this.

It seems like it makes Cleveland and the Bulls both marginally better at the expense of Seattle. But Seattle gets the financial relief.

More 3 point shooting for the Cavs

Big Ben, Wally World, Delonte, and Piston killer Joe Smith....

This sucks.

Delonte West is a keeper and is very good on defense.

Wally is a threat beyond the arc and with LBJ taking up all the attention can pose problems.

Smith is beyond his prime but is a solid player and seems to create problems for the Pistons.

Big Ben is IMO not a better player than Gooden at this stage.

Cavs lose their 2nd scoring option in Hughes, not very good.

Integrating 4 players into a rotation will be very tough. Not sure if the trade is a plus for the Cavs.

Oh. I take back what I said about Gooden, then.

The good thing is that Mike Brown's coaching philosophy and Ben's ego, along with Varejão's presence, might be enough to keep Smith in more limited minutes.

Whoa! I sure didn't see this one coming.

But I'm not sure it makes the Cavs more of a threat right away. A deal involving that many players both coming and going makes it very hard to re-do the chemistry and the teamwork that you need to build up for a serious playoff run. The ideal way to improve yourself right away is bringing one star player on board in exchange for not much (e.g. Pistons getting Sheed in '04, or the Lakers getting Gasol this season). Getting one star in exchange for a lot, giving up either several good players (Dallas trading several rotation players for Kidd) or one key starter (Suns trading Marion for Shaq), is also doable, depending on how your new star fits in.

But with Cleveland shipping out six guys and bringing in four, man, that's a LOT of turnover in mid-season. I'm not necessarily saying it's a bad deal for them; maybe it'll work out, and maybe doing at this point in the season was the way for them to get the best deal out there. But for a team that made the Finals last year to overhaul by this much in mid-season is pretty much unprecedented, as far as I can remember. Of course, Miami made big moves in the '05 offseason and had it pay off with a title, but they had the entire season to integrate all those new guys (and even that was a really big gamble). Doing a similar overhaul at the trade deadline might make it too hard to get it all together for another deep playoff run right away.

do not forget that wally isn't premier wally anymore, and bulls got logjam at PG,PF, only sonics got what they wanted: a cap relief.

ESPN - Conversations: Sources: Cavs get Wallace from Bulls, Szczerbiak from Sonics, from this thread:

Chicago trades away their crap to Cleveland and Seattle. In return, they get crap.
Cleveland trades away their crap to Chicago and Seattle. In return, they get crap.
Seattle trades away their crap to Chicago and Cleveland. In return, they get crap.

The current situation was not working that well in Cleveland. I applaud them for going in another direction. There's nothing wrong with looking at your team and saying, "We don't have the team to win it all" and then trying something. If I'm a Cavs fan, I say good riddance to Larry Hughes, $12 mil per and averaging 12 points a game.

We will see an energized Ben Wallace. I cringe at the thought. I thought Donyell was a good player. I thought the same about the bearded light bulb. check the ews though. We hve a coach campaigning for the head coaches position. Guess who?

Looks like Boston is a better matchup for Pistons. Why did the Cavs receive Delonte West? Seattle gave away prospect?I don't get it. They sent only Gooden plus one expiring contrat and received 4 valuable players.

"Cleveland In the strange world of NBA trades, apparently only one team out of these three seems was really motivated by the idea of importing better players than they currently have." - I totally agree with that sentence.
ESPN - The Big Ben Wallace Trade - TrueHoop

Very good move by the Cavs...

Larry Hughes' crappy contract was dealt, too.

Ben's been energized in Chicago at times, but that doesn't help him - his body just wears down after 20 to 25 minutes of action. He's old.

Why not? He isn't better than Watson or Ridnour and their ownership is trying to cut costs to move to flyover country. He's a throwin to the Sonics, but could be valuable to Cleveland.

Was it any worse than Ben's? Or (shudder) Wally's?

Verejao and Ben could be a tough combo.

There is going to be a lot of hair and energy in the paint.

:dizzy2:

I meant the only valuable assets sent by Cavs.

I love how the Shaq trade seems to be a failure. I think the jason kidd trade will also back fire. With the Cav getting ben, though, it frightens me a bit. Is h going to be playng back up to Big Z or will he be playing the 4? What is it with the pasr pistons players being the pistons Kryptonite??

I agree that sending West somewhere is not a bad move. Even without West it would look like a steal for Cavs. Seattle could have traded him for example to Denver for 2nd round pick. Cavs would have agreed for trade without Delonte - that's why i don't get it.

Nope, they're all crappy contracts. But I think Ben is a better fit for Cleveland than Hughes. Gibson is already good. Probably don't need Hughes anymore. On the rebounding front, the Cavs now have Z, V and big B.