May 25, 2013

Re-Sign or Release: Anderson Varejao

June 20, 2008 by 17 Comments

Anderson Varejao 

With the NBA season in the rear view mirror, we now turn to a summer full of front office decision-making. As fans, we all have our feelings on what needs to be done to improve our Cavaliers team. Rock has laid the figurative cards on the table, but this is where we turn to you – the readers of WFNY.

The premise is simple. Assume all players are restricted free agents and that they’ll likely need at least a small raise from last year’s salary. Do you re-sign? Or do you release? Of course, we’ll leave LeBron James out of this scenario.  And also, a little supporting argument always helps.  Do Enjoy.

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I’m getting the sense that you guys simply do not appreciate any player on this Cavaliers team.  We started off strong in this exercise, saying that we’d love to bring back Delonte West and Daniel Gibson.  Since then, the “Tribe” has given the axe to Devin Brown, Sasha Pavlovic and Damon Jones.  Someone has to play here, right?

So, we’re going to mix it up a bit.  Straying from the backcourt, we’ll take on a guy that everyone seems to love – at least judged by fan reaction upon entering the court – yet a guy that everyone is willing to deal this off-season.  Anderson Varejao, you’re on the WFNY hot seat.

2007-08 Salary: $5,356,000

2007-08 Statistics:
48 G; 27.5 Min; 6.7 Pts; 1.1 Ast; 8.3 Reb; 0.8 Stl; 46.1 FG%; 59.8 FT%

Similar to Pavlovic, Varejao lost some fan support after a hold out during the earlygoings of last season.  Also similar to Pavlovic, AV failed to live up to his mostly agent-driven hype. 

While the taste of Varejao’s running 360 layup off of the front iron during the 2007 Finals still leaves some to be desired, what he has brought to the table has been hustle and solid defense.  Yes, he may not have the most polished offensive game, but if you recall during the Celtics series, he did step up pretty big – at least during one game. 

But was that enough to bring him back for another season?  Due to the premise, you have to remember that this isn’t a “contract year,” this would be his first year of a new contract.  We’re in desperate need of some front court help given the age of Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Joe Smith and Ben Wallace.  But it Varejao the answer? 

Per 36 minutes, Andy averages nine points, 11 boards, with a steal and a block.  But he’s also a liability at times, and would provide some risk to be left on the floor for that amount of time.  Will he ever be a 30 minutes per game guy?  Does the new flopping rule impact said decision? That’s for you to decide.

Let’s hear it…

Re-Sign or Release: Delonte West (90 percent say Re-Sign)
Re-Sign or Release: Daniel Gibson (75 percent say Re-Sign)
Re-Sign or Release: Devin Brown (54 percent say Release)
Re-Sign or Release: Sasha Pavlovic (86 percent say Release)
Re-Sign or Release: Damon Jones (56 percent say Release)

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  • http://loudvillain.com/ Loudvillain

    Trade. Unless Andy is willing to say no to his agent the Cavs pretty much don’t have a choice. He’s just not going to get the kind of minutes he will need next season to earn the kind of money he’s looking for.

  • http://www.waitingfornextyear.com Scott

    LV – I don’t see “trade” in the poll :)

  • http://loudvillain.com/ Loudvillain

    I realized that right after I hit submit. I didn’t read the instructions. :(

    In a perfect hypothetical situation in which Andy isn’t constantly playing for a contract, you have to keep the guy. Before he got injured he was averaging 8 points and 9 rebounds, and was playing the entire fourth quarter along with LeBron, Gibson, Damon Jones, and Devin Brown, and it was the best stretch the Cavs have had in recent memory.

  • http://www.waitingfornextyear.com RockKing

    It still breaks my heart that we voted to release DJ.

  • http://www.waitingfornextyear.com Scott

    Rock, only one or two comments were against keeping him. There’s a lot of voting without support for that one…

  • http://www.waitingfornextyear.com/ Rick

    I’m still trying to figure out what went wrong with Devin Brown…

  • http://loudvillain.com/ Loudvillain

    Devin had an argument with Mike Brown in practice before the Washinton series that saw him benched for the duration of the playoffs. Which is a shame, because he’s the reason the Cavs had home court advantage in that series to begin with.

  • http://justrubsomesugaronit.blogspot.com I’m Ron Burgundy?

    Voted release, even though pre-2007 Finals I thought he was great. Gave him the benefit of the doubt going in to last year, and then the holdout really soured him in my mind.

    In all reality, trading him is the option that really seems viable. Hopefully we can get something for him, even if it means trading up for Rush in the draft, which I think would be great.

  • Drew

    Don’t forget the new floping rule that comes in effect this NBA year. I can guarentee that he will get into some type of trouble with that one. So if the Cavs can get another young forward in a trade, then I would be all for it.

  • http://loudvillain.com/ Loudvillain

    I can pretty much promise you the teams will be paying the players’ fines for those.

    And besides, Varejao does a terrific job of getting into position and putting himself in harm’s way. I’m not saying he doesn’t flop, but his hair certainly makes it look about a million times worse.

  • http://www.icanlevitate.com Jeremy

    Where’s the button for “Sign&Trade”?

  • Ricky

    In a perfect world, I would like Andy on this team for the long term. So I voted for resign. He is our only young big man and he still has potential to improve. But its not a perfect world, and Andy will probably refuse to resign with us unless we offer him a lot more than anyone else. So if we trade him and get useful parts in return, I am all for that, but if we could keep him long term, I would really like that. I suppose though that he is one of the only players on this team with actual trade value for his ability and not just an expiring contract

  • Ricky

    Here is a neat little article from realgm.com, it is a list of every player who has had a workout with a team and what teams they have worked out for. Heres a quick summary, go look for a player that you think is good and would like Cleveland to draft, like Brandon Rush, and then notice how they did not workout in Cleveland. Then you will look for a player that sucks, like Marreese Speights or DeVon Hardin, and notice that they did work out for Cleveland. I know teams draft players who didn’t workout for them all the time, but still. I’m more convinced than ever that they are going to draft Roy Hibbert

    http://realgm.com/src_feature_article/173/20080620/2008_nba_player_workout_list/

  • Ricky

    also saw a rumor that said the cavs were interested in Al Harrington. I like that the Cavs are looking at Warriors players, they play the type of offense we need to play, except we would do it with defense behind it.

  • Tim

    I wonder if AV is coachable, because wouldn’t someone have told him to stop making “moves” to the basket?
    Having watched my beloved Marquette lose to Stanford in the NCAAs this season, I got a taste of what it’s like to lose to a mop-haired cry baby. It’s brutal. I’d like to think Cavs opponents and their fans are equally annoyed by Andy, so I voted to resign.

  • Hoy

    For being as tall as he is AV has this bad habit of grabbing a board and then trying to lay it in instead of just going up strong and dunking, mostly because it seems he can’t dunk which at his size is stupid. People complain about Pavlovic being a weak finisher but Andy is worse by far in my opinion.

    Both of these guys showed to be selfish ‘show me the money’ players instead of being committed to helping the Cavs build a team, but at least Sasha has potential, Andy will never have an offensive game and he lacks big minute endurance so I say drop him and draft a big man for the future.

  • Adam

    I was going to say something very similar to Hoy.

    When Andy started trying to play offense his effort on the defensive end (and getting offensive rebounds) dwindled. If we could resign him as a 20 min guy off the bench I would be on the fence, but he clearly thinks he’s worth starter money (thanks agent, although probably related to DJs, Marshal’s and Hughes contracts).

    Ultimately comes to WWLJD, and based off the playoff reactions I don’t think he cares if Andy stays around, so release.