NBA News & Rumors: Cleveland Cavaliers All Set for Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love Return; LeBron James Snub Tristan Thompson Drama

By Mitch de Leon
Lebron James and Kevin Love
Cleveland Cavs' Lebron James and Kevin Love. Photo: AP

The Cleveland Cavaliers have been quite occupied throughout the NBA offseason due to the ongoing concern on the status of Canadian basketball star Tristan Thompson. Ever since the Cleveland Cavaliers began to rely heavily on Tristan Thompson as the second in command to LeBron James, the substitute of Kevin Love has managed to gain clout in the NBA team.

Apart from stepping in where Kevin Love left off in the previous NBA season, the basketball community stood dumbfounded by the easy chemistry between LeBron James and Tristan Thompson throughout the games - a pairing that could have seen the Cleveland Cavaliers emerge as champs instead of Stephen Curry's Golden State Warriors.

As the contract of Tristan Thompson remains a dangling issue in the Cleveland Cavaliers locker room, the other members of the NBA team appear to be moving on from the drama. In fact, the voluntary training invite sent out by LeBron James to his teammates brought in a number of Cleveland Cavaliers stars to Miami - a move that saw the NBA team united and working together to hopefully repeat the defeat they served the Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks last season as well as to potentially dethrone the Golden State Warriors this time around.

According to the Northeast Ohio Media Group, the voluntary training camp initiated by LeBron James saw Cleveland Cavaliers stars JR Smith, Iman Shumpert, Kyrie Irving, Sasha Kaun, Kevin Love and Timofey Mozgov all set to polish their chops and prepare for yet another impressive run this upcoming NBA season. Meanwhile, the official start of training camp will be on September 29. With Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving, Anderson Varejao and Timofey Mozgov coming back from injuries, it would be interesting to see how the Cleveland Cavaliers front office will react when they evaluate the performance of the four NBA stars in relation to the demand of Tristan Thompson.

If reports are to be believed though, the return of Kevin Love might further bolster the stance of the Cleveland Cavaliers with respect the team's conviction on not giving in to Tristan Thompson's max contract demand. As for Kyrie Irving, the NBA star is said to have been given the green light to participate in practices with no limitations. Kyrie Irving suffered from a fractured knee cap in the previous NBA season.

The amount standing between Tristan Thompson and the Cleveland Cavaliers remains at $14 million. The NBA team insist on only being able to offer $80 million to the Canadian basketball star - a deal that shows a substantial discrepancy to the $94 million max contract deal required by Tristan Thompson. "The Cavs' position has been that they are offering a fair-market contract," noted Brian Windhorst of ESPN. The sports analyst added, "The $16 million per year offer to Thompson, 24, would be in line with deals recently given to Draymond Green ($16.4 million annually) and Jonas Valanciunas ($16 million). It would be less than the $17.5 million per year that Enes Kanter, picked one spot ahead of Thompson in the 2011 draft, got from the Oklahoma City Thunder after he signed an offer sheet with the Portland Trail Blazers."

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