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Originally Posted by Pitt Gorilla
Who was the Heat's "rim protector"? Birdman? You don't think the Cavs could find a similar guy on the scrapheap?
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The Heat used Birdman and Udonis Haslem when they were good. Haslem wasn't much of a factor in 2013-2014 and it showed big time. But to go with your story, if you brought in an excellent Center to replace Bosh, I would bet you the Heat still have a great run.
You keep trying to compare the Cavs to the big 3. It's not the same. Wade, Bosh, Lebron, Haslem took a combined $12M or so in "hometown" discounts to be on that team. So far, it looks like Kyrie, Lebron, and Love will all max out. The Heat with the Big 3 were a very solid defensive team. The new Cavs Big 3 will be very suspect on defense. The Heat had a playoff team before the big 3 joined. The Cavs had one of the worst teams in basketball. And the talent the Heat lost is probably going to be far less valuable than the Cavs are being asked to lose. And Lebron at 29 has a lot more tread on his tires -- I don't think anyone wants him to again be in a scenario where he's playing 40+ minutes a night again. That has to start slowing down.
And again, what I've spoken to is a max contract guy (e.g. Gasol) would help the team more than Love would. But if not max contract, a mid-level contract rim protector would provide huge benefit to the team while giving the Cavs tremendous cap flexibility and opportunity to keep their depth.