Jamison Stuck with Cavs
The toughest stuff, if Antawn Jamison were prone to confessions, would surely be the growing likelihood that he'll have to spend the rest of the season with the Cavs. NBA front office sources say that few teams have been as active the Cleveland in recent weeks in trying to swing a trade or two before the Feb. 24 deadline -- with Jamison high on its list of movable assets. But increasing apprehension about how restrictive the next labor agreement will be has prompted several teams to back off on dealmaking.
Sources say New Orleans, for example, has a level of interest in Jamison but also express skepticism that a suitable deal can be assembled before the deadline to send the 35-year-old anywhere. It's true that Jamison has only one year left on his contract after this season, but that one season is valued at a meaty $15.1 million, which means Cleveland would almost certainly have to take back multiple players to make the salary-cap math work.
The Cavs' apparent preference, like many teams out there unsure about what the future holds for the NBA's financial landscape, is preserving flexibility and accumulating young assets to take into the league's new frontier, unless a trade delivers a certain talent upgrade. Cleveland also still possesses a $14.5 million trade exception created in the sign-and-trade transaction that officially dispatched LeBron to South Beach, but importing more pricey vets like the Cavs did so often in vain during the LeBron era -- in hopes of convincing King James to stay in Cleveland -- doesn't sound too appealing now.
With word reaching us this week that the Cavs also see little benefit to buying out Jamison (one of their few coveted assets) if no trade materializes in the next two-plus weeks, odds start to increase that Jamison will be brought back with Cavs coach Byron Scott for the new season -- whenever that might be post-lockout -- given how admirably those two have been coping with what's happened since Cleveland's forgotten 7-9 start. Cavs owner Dan Gilbert might never be a sympathetic figure after the way he reacted to LeBron's departure, but it's hard not to root for the likes of Jamison and Scott, who are suffering in their own way like the long-tortured Clevelanders that James left behind.
