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LeBron James hopes to soon end the Tristan Thompson contract 'distraction'

LeBron James hopes to soon end the Tristan Thompson contract 'distraction'

It’s more than obvious that Tristan Thompson may have overplayed his hand in his one-sided standoff with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Thompson, a restricted free agent, declined to accept Cleveland’s qualifying offer of $6.9 million on Thursday evening, he remains a training camp holdout, eager to sign either a three-year, $53 million deal or a maximum five-year, $94 million contract.

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The Cavs are offering five years and $80 million. LeBron James, previously on the mum regarding the impasse, let his agents talk him into hopping on Instagram to send a message on Saturday night, after he and Thompson attended the Miami-area wedding of a mutual friend:

LeBron further elucidated on his role in the back and forth after practice on Sunday. From Dave McMenamin at ESPN.com:

"I'm not here to talk about numbers, things of that nature, because that's for them, for both sides to figure out. The last thing you need is a distraction when you try to make a championship run. And we have that right now. And it's unfortunate for both sides that we're going through it right now as a team. It's not an excuse, we will be ready to go but hopefully something happens in the near future."

Thompson’s representatives, who also happen to be the same as LeBron James’ representatives, already blew this. If they truly felt he would have boffo options in next year’s free agent market they would have convinced Tristan to accept his not-unkind qualifying offer and become an unrestricted free agent next summer. They’ve already attempted to leak his contract wishes (“OK, how about three years and $53 million?”) to suspect members of media, to no avail, and if he continues to hold out the entire season Thompson will merely become a restricted free agent again in 2016.

It’s true that the 2016 NBA free agent class will be rather weak once the stars settle into their previous homes, and plenty of teams will be eager to spend money they don’t need to on players that haven’t earned it (prior to the league and its owners crying poverty in anticipation of opting out of the collective bargaining agreement and possibly locking out their players in 2017). Thompson, ideally, would have leverage on his side in anticipation of heaps of teams looking to add the guy that helped put the Cavs into the 2015 Finals.

The issue is that few teams seem eager to pitch Tristan Thompson as their starting big forward, starting in 2016. He’s a nice enough player, he can slide well on both ends and crash the offensive glass, but if he’s starting for your team you better have quite the offensive and defensive contingent surrounding him. Only a foolish team would peg Thompson as a max player under the post-2016 financial rules, and we’re kind of running out of foolish front offices (sadly, because we miss making fun of people) in this era.

Easy take to offer to your dad? The guy played 27 minutes a game last year, and he wants a max deal.

For the Cavs, the decision to stand pat is understandable. Even the five-year, $80 million deal reportedly offered to Tristan seems a bit much. And if the difference between a five-year, $80 million deal and Thompson’s hoped-for five-year, $94 deal seems silly (once you get into the high millions, what’s another $14 million?), understand that every penny just about means a nickel for the Cavs once the luxury tax figures are accounted for – and there are a lot of pennies in $14 million.

Cleveland’s ownership group is set to pay the highest luxury tax mark in league history over the next few seasons, as Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving hit their extensions alongside Anderson Varejao’s nearly eight-figure contract, and as LeBron James keeps turning in ostensible one-year deals in order to maximize his max contracts. It’ll be a lot of money to pay, even if the Cavs are just about guaranteed to play deep into June.

Then again, the reason we criticized the Brooklyn Nets for their lofty luxury tax bill was because it stopped the team from adding to its already lacking roster. That is to say, basketball reasons. Owner Mikhail Prokhorov could already afford the tax bill, as nobody cared if he was paying astronomical rates because it wasn’t our money. What most basketball critics were wary of was the team’s ability to hire qualified sixth and seventh men to add to the starting lineup because of the restrictions that the tax presents.

Cleveland’s ownership group may not boast the moneyclip that Prokhorov does, but they’re not far off, and they can afford even a record-setting tax bill. The Cavs have more than enough to win it all this year and the next without Tristan Thompson, but a player like Tristan Thompson is exactly who we were thinking about when we chided the Nets for preventing themselves from adding helpers because they went so far over the top with the starters.

The Cavs were very lucky to take in role player replacement-types like J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, and starting center (and 2016 free agent; about to make bank) Timofey Mozgov last winter. The team doesn’t have any more tradeable assets, and no other squad is going to line up to aid in Cleveland’s championship run with a one-sided trade. They may not need Tristan Thompson to win a title, but he sure would help.

It comes down to basketball reasons with the Cavaliers, not financial. They can play hardball all they want, and the modern NBA fan is more than aware of what the tax bill means, but this is all about the Cavaliers’ commitment to the city of Cleveland.

A player like LeBron doesn’t come around all that often. The Cavs already completely blew their first go-round with him. Are they willing to pay to ensure this doesn’t happen again?

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Kelly Dwyer

is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!