Tonight in the latest episode of “What If with DownToBuck”, we analyze the ramifications of this scenario: Tristan Thompson and Klay Thompson switching teams for the finals.
In this scenario, Tristan immediately gets relegated to the Warriors’ bench. Draymond Green isn’t going anywhere, and neither is Bogut (at least until he gets injured). He has to ply his trade as a reserve, earning decent minutes because of his hustle, but not the same minutes he currently gets given the Cavs’ lack of center options. What the heck even happened to Mozgov anyway?
Klay, on the other hand, gets inserted right into the Cavs’ lineup, becoming a super-charged J.R. Smith. Looks good for the Cavs, right? Easy path to a championship, right? WRONG. DOUBLE WRONG. Now they don’t have a center besides the apparently awful Mozgov and the most definitely awful Sasha Kaun.
Actually, now that I think about it, maybe that’s not so bad. Kevin Love can play center, I bet, and they can pretend they’re like the Warriors by going with a shooting lineup with Frye at PF. Oh, hell yeah. That sounds pretty good. Irving-Klay-LeBron-Love-Frye. Compare that to Curry-Barbosa????-Barnes-Green-Bogut.
Oh yeah, and the Warriors don’t have a SG anymore. That’s why I put all those question marks next to Barbosa’s name. Because it’s a question. Maybe move Barnes to SG and Green to SF and put Tristan in at PF? Damn. Okay. That might work. That lineup still has Stephen Curry in it, right? So they should be good. Except the Cavs are gonna shoot threes from now until the end of time with the lineup proposed above.
There may be chemistry concerns at play here. I don’t know anything about that though. Maybe LeBron gets all pouty when he can’t play with his best bud Tristan anymore, maybe Curry loses his edge when separated from his splash bro. I guess it would kind of depend on how this player switch came about. Was it, like, the whole season? Or just the Finals, BAM, magically they get switched right before Game One and no one can figure out it happened? I didn’t outline that part yet. It makes a difference.
In conclusion: I say the Cavs win the Finals if you switched Tristan Thompson and Klay Thompson, but who knows really. Thanks for joining me on “What If with DownToBuck”. In the next episode we will ponder the eternal question “What if Tracy McGrady’s eyes weren’t so droopy looking?”