Dear lord, the trade that sent the Cavs’ 2007 1st-round pick to the Celtics in exchange for Jiri Welsch was awful. Horrifying, inexcusable, inexplicable, and awful.
The Theory:
On February 23rd, 2005, the Cavs were doing pretty well. They were 31-21, appeared to be well on their way to the playoffs, and LeBron James had improved so dramatically since his rookie of the year campaign that Sports Illustrated’s cover declared him “The best 20-year old ever.”
On February 24th, 2005, Jim Paxson traded the Cavaliers’ 1st-round pick for Jiri Welsch. At the time, Welsch was averaging 7.5 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game on 42.8%/32.3%/77.3% shooting in 20.5 minutes per game for the Celtics. In other words, he was a replacement-level basketball player in every possible sense. To be fair to Paxson, Welsch shot 38% from deep during the 03-04 season, and was a white non-American player, so in theory he could’ve been a good shooter.
That’s who Paxson traded, in effect, two first-round picks for. That’s right, two. To ensure the trade went through, Paxson removed the lottery protection on the Cavs’ 2005 draft pick, meaning that the Cavs wouldn’t get to keep their pick if they missed the playoffs.
There are two possible explanations for this move:
-Jim Paxson was absolutely sure the Cavaliers would make the 2005 playoffs.
-Jim Paxson didn’t think he’d still be the team’s general manager at the time of the 2007 draft
For his part, Jiri Welsch was absolutely terrible, averaging 2.9 points on 23.5% shooting during his time with the Cavs.
The Cavs would have had the #13 overall pick, but because Paxson removed the pick’s lottery protection, the pick went to the Bobcats
.
