My idea for this week's Rumor Mill came to me when I was thinking about the voting process in the All-Star game. With Kevin Garnett as the leading vote-getter, my attention turned to the second leading vote-getter in the Eastern Conference: LeBron James.
I'm of the group that feels that players who play in major markets tend to get favoritism in the voting process. Kobe leads the Western Conference in voting -- that's not to say he isn't the best player in the West, but I can't help to feel Kobe is the benefit of being in the Los Angeles market. Garnett may be different, he is having the best year of anyone in the NBA and his new team has been the storyline of the NBA this season. But what about smaller market teams, like say, the Cleveland Cavaliers? Do players who play for smaller markets suffer when it comes to "fan" drivin results? What if Kobe played for Milwaukee or if KG was a member of the Jazz? Would the results of the voting be the same?
All of the "what if" questions I thought up while writing this weeks power rankings post got me thinking about the second leading vote-getter in the East. LeBron James could easily win a title and make millions (if not billions) playing for the Cavs. His reputation and his personality will allow him to be a media darling for years to come. If he can stay healthy there are plenty of records and accomplishments that he is going to achieve. With that said what if LeBron James didn't play in the small town market of Cleveland, Ohio. If LeBron James played for a major market team such as the Celtics -- would he be the player with the most votes right now?
Potential Trade:
New York Gets: LeBron James, Larry Hughes and Eric Snow
Cleveland Gets: Zach Randolph, Jamal Crawford, Jared Jeffries, David Lee and Nate Robinson
Before you immediately dismiss the possibility of Cleveland moving James, consider their current team and the chances that they will make it back to the NBA finals. And before you say Cleveland would never give up its two best players for a bunch of the Knicks shlubs -- Hughes is not Cleveland's second best player (Z is) and Randolph, Crawford, Jeffries, Lee and Robinson actually make a pretty decent starting line-up, almost better than the current one the Cavs floor each night.
Let me break it down. In order to trade LeBron James you need to get something unreal in return. A trade for James requires the Cavs to get in return a solid big man, scoring and rebounding to make up for LBJ, a solid point guard along with that each player needs to be young and have a good future ahead of them.
Now, the Knicks might be one of the worst teams in the NBA, but their players are actually talented. Isiah Thomas has spent the most money out of any team in the NBA so New York should have some expendable potential talent.
Also, in order to trade LeBron James, Cleveland is going to need to return a lot of talent and therefore a lot of salary cap money. For a LeBron trade to go down the Cavs would have to send along money in order to compensate for the talent being transferred -- this is where Larry Hughes comes in. Hughes has been a big disappointment for everyone associated with the Cavaliers organization. Since coming over from Washington, Hughes has failed to live up expectations and this would be a good way for Cleveland to cut ties with him.
So how is this trade fair? Well it might not be. No trade for LeBron might ever be considered "fair". But like I've said before, it's not like the Timberwolves really wanted to trade Garnett, but these things happen.
Nate Robinson and David Lee are two very talented up and coming players. They should not be seen as throw-ins to this trade by any means. These guys alone are worth more than Larry Hughes and Eric Snow combined. Jared Jeffries is starting to come into his own in the NBA and would make a solid forward to come in off the bench in place of Lee or who they currently have now, Drew Gooden. Zach Randolph would fill in the missing piece that the Cavaliers really need and would be a very nice compliment to Zydrunas Ilgauskas. In order to make up for LeBron's scoring output, Jamal Crawford would take the lost shots.
The Knicks would obviously take a pretty big hit losing basically five NBA-starters in one trade, but having James would again make them relevant in the East. Eddy Curry's role would increase significantly while Randolph Morris and Jerome James would need to step up their roles as well. The Knicks line-up would be Morris, Curry, James, Hughes and Marbury with Fred Jones, Wilson Chandler and Renaldo Balkman coming off the bench first. The Cavs would remain in the Eastern Conference playoff race with Ilgauskas, Randolph, Gooden, Crawford and Daniel Gibson with Nate Robinson, David Lee, Shannon Brown, Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic making the Cavs bench very deep.
This trade might not put the Knicks into the playoffs this year, but it will at least give them a strong, bright, LeBron James-led future. Just think of the rivalry between Boston (KG) and New York (LeBron) for the next couple years. And then think of the New York vs Los Angeles (Kobe) rivalry that we would have the luxury of witnessing. But if anything, maybe LeBron would be able to compete with KG for top vote-getter in the All-Star game if James found himself playing in one of the largest market in the world.
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