Tristan Thompson and the Vices of Aging

Well, maybe part of it was a bit too good to be true. With the Cleveland Cavaliers on their hottest stretch of the season, blowing out good teams with hot shooting, star efforts from Donovan Mitchell and Jarrett Allen, and career scoring highs from Sam Merrill and Georges Niang recently, the team has been riding high and is currently on an 8 game win streak. Factor in the on-court practice Darius Garland and Evan Mobley have been putting in on their paths to return from injury, there was reason to believe the Cavs could potentially be climbing even higher than their current 4th place standing in the East..Then the other shoe dropped on Tuesday ((Though it was a somewhat soft shoe.)) when the NBA suspended Tristan Thompson for violating the anti-drug policy in using a growth hormone and a muscle enhancer. Thompson’s 25 game suspension becomes the longest league-mandated suspension in Cavs history. Obviously this is a bigger issue in the MLB and NFL, but this is the sixth time an NBA player has been suspended 25 games for using a performance-enhancing drug.While Thompson was never a huge factor in the box score for the Cavs, averaging just under 4 points and 4 rebounds per game in 12 minutes per game, he was important in filling a role as backup big man, especially with injuries to Allen and Mobley. While Damian Jones had been acquired to do more than warm the bench, he had been fully outplayed by Thompson, who looked resurgent in his small role after declining play for most of his time after leaving Cleveland in 2020. It’s hard not to see this positive PED test as an explanation for some of that rejuvenation. It’s easy to jump to the conclusion of this being an aging player desperately trying to hold on to whatever threads of a playing career he has left. We don’t have an explanation past a short team memo released after the news broke. Where Tristan goes from here is up to him and the team after his suspension is finished. Brought in to be a veteran leader who teaches the Cavs’ young players toughness, physicality, and championship experience, it will be interesting to see what, if anything, changes in the locker room during his absence. The Guardians had a couple examples from their recent past to inform two paths Thompson may take. On one hand, maybe this goes like Jason Giambi, who admitted to past steroid and HGH use to a federal grand jury in 2007, but stayed an active player until 2014, playing his final season as veteran leader and pinch hitter for Cleveland. Giambi turned himself into a teacher on the field for young teams in 2013 and 2014, showing he was worth more than his past drug-enhanced statistics. Maybe Tristan uses his suspension in a similar way, opening up about the trials of being an older NBA player trying to hold on to a career and how valuable the chance to play really is. Or maybe he goes a different route, like Marlon Byrd, who was playing as a starting outfielder for Cleveland in 2016 ((What a weird, long season baseball can be.)) when he was hit with a 162 game suspension from Major League Baseball for his second failed PED test. Instead of being suspended without pay and attempting to return in 2017, Byrd chose to simply walk away from the game at age 38. Thompson is still just 32 and probably has more game left in him than Byrd did at the time, but it’s possible this could be an end for him.John Sabol reported that Thompson would still be allowed to practice and travel with the team during his suspension, so we should have some answers to his immediate role soon. His playing role is more up in the air, especially with the NBA trade deadline coming up on February 8th and him not being eligible to play until March 16th. A lot can happen between now and then to change Thompson’s chances at a role, starting with Pete Nance potentially getting some real run, along with Damian Jones. After just getting his number 13 back and looking at home on the court with the Cavs, I hope this isn’t the last we have seen of Tristan Thompson. The Cleveland part of his story deserves a better ending than this.

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Competitive Cavs, Year 2, The Bench: From DEEP, in the ROCK