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Grading The Deal: Williams To Cleveland In Three-Way

Authored by Christopher Reina - 13th August, 2008 - 5:23 pm

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The Cavaliers converted two spare parts, Damon Jones and Joe Smith, into a scoring point guard in Mo Williams on Wednesday.

Williams just barely outperformed the first year of his new contract with a Reina Value of +9%. He is a very good scorer (48.8%) but not an ideal point guard in today's NBA although that is offset by how much LeBron James controls the ball in Cleveland’s offense.

Williams was 6th among point guards in points per game but had a 2.3 assist/turnover ratio, which ranks him behind 35 other point guards in the category.

The most expensive year of Williams’ contract will be the 2010-11 season when he makes $9.5M. This will also be the summer when the Cavaliers will attempt to re-sign James and possibly add another big free agent, and they should still have the cap space to do it.

If the Cavaliers keep making enough deals like this something is bound to stick, and Williams gives them a little more teeth to their scoring attack.

Grade for Cleveland: A-

The Bucks acquired Luke Ridnour, Damon Jones, and Adrian Griffin in the deal.

The trade is a nice salary dump for Milwaukee, but their selection of Joe Alexander just hours after the Richard Jefferson trade becomes more problematic with a hole at the starting point guard spot (they have about four backups) that would have been filled long term by Jerryd Bayless or even D.J. Augustin.

Ridnour has just two years at $6.5M per season on his current deal while Jones and Griffin both have expiring contracts.

The former Oregon point guard was outplayed and lost playing time to Earl Watson and had a per 40 FIC of 10.1, but I could see him thriving in Scott Skiles’ offense, and he isn’t a huge downgrade in talent while, of course, being far more affordable and a shorter-term commitment than Williams.

The Bucks also get to see what they have in Ramon Sessions who finished the season brilliantly.

Jones is nothing more than a spot-up gunner at this point and is in the final year of his deal.

Grade for Milwaukee: B+

Oklahoma City receives Joe Smith and Desmond Mason, who are two heady veterans that will play hard until they trade their expiring deals, or those contracts simply come off the books.

We will see next summer how removing Ridnour’s $6.5M affects what Sam Presti is able to accomplish in free agency, but clearing the veteran point guard allows them to develop Russell Westbrook without creating a minutes controversy among him, Ridnour, and Earl Watson.

Grade for Oklahoma City: A

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