Clippers and Cavaliers Wouldn’t Have Today’s Stars Without Long-Forgotten Trade

December 1st, 2016 by Josh Martin Leave a reply »

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Clippers and Cleveland Cavaliers—who face off at Quicken Loans Arena Thursday night—can each trace their rise into the NBA's elite to a single twist of fate.

For the Clippers, it was the moment "basketball reasons" made Chris Paul available in 2011. For the Cavaliers, it was LeBron James' 2014 Ohio homecoming.

But for both teams, the seeds of their current successes were sewn well before those respective Banana Boat buddies came to the rescue. Bleacher Report spoke to sources with knowledge of the deals involved to detail the inside story.

The ball got rolling almost as soon as James invaded South Beach in July 2010. With one fell swoop, the Cavaliers went from perennial Eastern Conference contention to a soup-to-nuts rebuild.

Once those No. 23 jerseys were done smoldering in the streets, the team landed on its first order of business: stockpiling picks at all costs.

If it couldn't keep a proud son of Akron from fleeing northeast Ohio, how could it hope to draw a star to a barren team in free agency? The Cavs' best bet was to try to land one in the dra ...

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