The blockbuster trade between the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers is firmly in limbo, and everything revolves around the health of Isaiah Thomas’ hip. While the deal is headlined by the movement of Kyrie Irving from Cleveland to Boston, the Cavaliers have reportedly considered prompting the Celtics for additional assets in a deal that many believe already favored the defending Eastern Conference champions.
With that as the backdrop, many have opined that the Cavaliers just might have planned the additional maneuvers all along and Chris Haynes of ESPN took that theory a step further by indicating his apparent belief on the record. Haynes visited with CSNNE.com in audio form and dropped what might end up being a bombshell.
“It seems like a lot of this is something that they had, a lock up plan or a design that they had planned for a while,” Haynes said. “I am surprised it’s kind of going this route. I was talking with some people a couple days ago about when was the last time you’ve seen something like this, and other execs were like ‘We haven’t seen this chicken and mouse game going on for a while.’ I will say this: Koby Altman, the Cavaliers new general manager, he’s a very shrewd guy. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the plan of attack all along in how they’re doing this.”
Later in the interview, Haynes went on to double down on his statements, saying that while he doesn’t know exactly what went down, he “wouldn’t put it past” the Cavaliers to try something mischievous because “Everybody pretty much knew that it was going to be a difficult task in trying to pass Isaiah.”
Despite all of this, Haynes doesn’t necessarily believe the Cavaliers will be walking away from the deal, while mentioning that Boston needs “this deal to get done.” In short, Haynes isn’t pulling any punches here.
The Kyrie Irving trade negotiations were the first grand order of business in the Altman era and, while the trade largely drew rave reviews, this type of presumptive tinkering wouldn’t go over well in many circles. It should be noted that Haynes is a former Cleveland insider and, while he is operating on a national level these days, a large portion of that job has included extended (and recent) coverage of the Cavaliers given the presence of LeBron James.
For now, the deal remains up in the air and the Cavaliers just might succeed in extracting more assets from the Celtics. The notion that Cleveland had a master plan of sorts, however, might not be well received by the Celtics or the league at-large.
(Via CSNNE.com)
