Cavs Board

The saying goes “there are two sides to every story”.

Danny Ferry’s saying goes “I can’t comment on that saying due to league rules”.

Those types of bland answers are what have become all too common place in the reign of Ferry as Cavaliers General Manager.

Since June of 2005, following Jim Paxson’s dismissal, Danny Ferry has served as the main facilitator of all the Cavalier personnel decisions and these last two offseasons have seem some fairly unusual dealings for the Cavaliers organization. To recap the “Ferry timeline”, here’s a list of the moves he’s responsible for:

2005
• Signing Larry Hughes (5 years, $70 million) - terrible deal, one of the worst in the NBA
• Signing Donyell Marshall (4 years, $24 million) - didn’t work out, but based on Toronto who knew?
• Signing Damon Jones (4 years, $16 million) - couple game winners, no d… bust
• Resigning Zydrunas Ilgauskas (5 years, $50 million) - i’m ok with this contract, he should retire a Cav
2006
• Extending Lebron James Contract - obvious
• Drafting Shannon Brown and Daniel Gibson - Gibson was a steal, Brown was a bust
• Resigning Drew Gooden (3 years, $23 million) - fair deal for a big
• Trading Luke Jackson for Dwayne Jones - who cares?
• Signing David Wesley - do i need to say more?
2007
• Trading David Wesley for Cedric Simmons - liked it at the time
• Signing Devin Brown (1 year, $1.1 million) - he was worth the million
• Resigning Anderson Varejao (3 years, $17.4 million, player option after year two) - ugly but good terms
• Resigning Sasha Pavlovic (3 years, $14-15 million, team option after year two) - ditto

2008
• Trading Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden, Shannon Brown, and Cedric Simmons for Ben Wallace, Joe Smith, and a 2nd round pick - well you lose Larry’s deal, but had to take Wallace’s… Joe Smith was a pleasant addition
• Trading Donyell Marshall and Ira Newble for Wally Szczerbiak and Delonte West - West was the key, Szczerbiak is trade bait
• Resigning Daniel Gibson (5 years, $20.8 million) - GREAT deal
• Drafted J.J. Hickson - looks good so far

And last, but certainly not least….

2007, 2008

• Pissing off Dan Fegan, Marc Cornstein, and Aaron Goodwin in the process

I could focus on personnel moves, but the one I want to address is the last point.

There’s a growing voice of discontent amongst some in the Cavaliers community, because while national media speculation about an impending Lebron departure increases, so too have the contentious nature of Cavs negotiations to retain their own free agents.

The question is often posed, “If the Cavs can’t keep their role players happy, how are they to keep their most valued asset from bolting in 2010?”

Following an NBA finals appearance in 2007, fans were feeling good, but as the 2008 season began, Sasha Pavlovic and Anderson Varejao, both key contributors, were not with the team. After a short holdout, Sasha Pavlovic eventually resigned, but was largely ineffective in the time that he wasn’t injured.

Varejao, whose holdout dragged all the way into December, ended up signing an offer sheet with the Bobcats which the Cavs promptly matched. With the annual average salary far below the demands he was making of the Cavs, most views the Bobcats offer sheet as a way to “save face” for agent Dan Fegan, getting at least midlevel money, but also allowing Varejao to hit the open market in the summer of 2009.

Fast forward to this summer….

After a relatively easy negotiation with Daniel Gibson, Delonte West is now in a prolonged dispute with the Cavs over his worth. Just as recently as this week, Aaron Goodwin blasted the negotiation tactics of Ferry in the press. His quotes included:

“They (the Cavs) said, ‘Take the deal we’ve offered or we’ll go an alternate route. They won’t negotiate fairly.”

“They made an offer to Delonte for around what they got ‘Boobie’ to sign for,” Goodwin said. “Chris Duhon got $5 million-plus, and he might not even start (for the New York Knicks). All the comparables that we showed them doesn’t matter to Cleveland.”

“They keep saying how much players want to play with LeBron (James). That doesn’t work with Delonte.”

“The ball is in their hands,” Goodwin said. “If they go get someone else, the hand is set. If we sit down and work something out, we’ll get something done. We are not posturing. That’s where he wants to be.”

“Quit telling us these bluffs. Sit down and negotiate a fair deal. They are making offers not far off the qualifying offer.”

And so comes the backlash. Cavs fans are up in arms blasting Ferry for his reluctance to cave to the demands of Fegan, Goodwin, and Cornstein. Quotes like “he’s gonna cost us Lebron”, or “no one will deal with the Cavs” are all over blogs and forums. The “woe is us” mentality is out in full force at anything that even hints at upsetting Lebron.

My response to this is simple. Stop assuming Lebron James is dumb. What in his short career has led you believe that?  The guy led the charge to sign three-year max deals in order to keep teams from “mailing it in”. He’s an endorsement juggernaut.  He’s squeeky clean and loaded with endorsements.  He seems to have a solid grasp of how “the business” of the NBA works.  His moves, his silence, and his occasion praise of the Yankees or Madison Square Garden have kept pressure on the Cavs to build a winner. It’s at least left the fear that he’ll bolt with management and in turn with all Cavs fans. 

My point being….If Lebron is so aware of how to control his future both financially and competitively, what makes anyone think that he’s not equally aware of what Ferry is doing to provide the most options for the Cavaliers?

Does Lebron like Delonte? I’m sure he does. Does Lebron love Gibson?  Yes, he’s made that clear.  But don’t think for a second that Ferry doesn’t communicate the motives behind the Cavs’ various holdups, or free agent offers to Lebron.

In a perfect world, these negotiations would be easy, but look at the ones the Cavs have signed since 2006 and the trend you’ll find is one that was lacking in 2005’s contracts - fair value deals.

Drew Gooden signed a reasonable deal. Sasha Pavlovic signed a reasonable deal. Daniel Gibson signed a great deal. And Anderson Varejao, although through an offer sheet, got a reasonable deal. None of their contracts exceed three years, and all of them will prove, or have proved, to be far more tradeable then the batch of 2005 contracts.

That’s called “learning on the job”. Ferry overspent on the unrestricted market in 2005, but he took something away from his mistakes.  He took away how hard it is to undo them.  For the past three seasons, Danny Ferry has been very frugal, while still getting the ultimate results he was after. All of those players eventually resigned and come 2009-2010, and 2010-2011 when the Cavs need flexibility in order to give Lebron the most incentive to stay, they’ll have it.

So forget what the talking heads say about “Ben Wallace and Wally are a shell of their former selves”, or “this team is old”. That’s not only true, but it’s obvious. Everyone knows that.

What none of the national voices like to acknowledge is that while contentious, drawn out, and ugly…. Danny Ferry’s rigged approaches to contracts have produced results that every Cavs fan could be happy with.

The “young core” of this team that remains after guys like Wallace and Szczerbiak come and go, will be here on fair deals or their money will be available for other players. Contractual albatrosses like Eric Snow or Larry Hughes won’t bog down the Cavs.  That will give the Cavs the most options to acquire a legitimate star talent to play alongside Lebron.

Until an unrestricted free agent spurns the Cavs because of Ferry’s reputation, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. The future (at least financially) looks pretty bright in Cleveland. The next order of business is turning that “flexibility” into an elite team.