Shaq headed to eat Cleveland...

The big news on the eve of the NBA Draft is the Cleveland Cavaliers trading for Shaquille O'Neal with the Phoenix Suns. The Suns got in return a retiring Ben Wallace, a useless Sasha Pavlovic, cash, and the 2nd round pick in tonight's draft. This is a terrible trade for both teams, the only reason the Suns made the trade was so they can free up salary and starting rebuilding for the next few years. The reason the Cavs made the trade was to make it look like they are trying to keep Lebron beyond next year but on paper the trade does not make sense, if the Cavs were really serious about keeping James they would open the checkbook and sign some free agents. Here are the negatives and positives of this trade for the Cleveland Cavaliers:

The Big Lazy will camp out in the key which will make it more difficult for King James to score his points since he doesn't have a good jump shot. Also how will Shaq help the Cavs make open shots or help other guys create shots since that has been their main problem over the last few years? The Cavs traded for him to contend with Dwight Howard but at this point in Shaq's career he is a defensive liability because he won't be able to keep up with Howard or the other younger guys. Cleveland's main defensive problem was that they weren't able to defend the perimeter, they gave up 26 3-pointers to the Magic in one game, how does Shaq solve that problem? While with the Suns he had to get in where he could fit in with a wide open offense and he had the best distributor in the game in Steve Nash, how will he handle another open, fast paced offense in Cleveland? Shaq only seems to respond to coaches who have rings, like Phil Jackson and Pat Riley, when he had a lesser known coach he did whatever he wanted to and even caused some problems in Miami before Riley took over, so how will he handle Mike Brown who isn't really that good of a coach anyway? How is his body going to respond to the cold weather of Cleveland after Shaq has spent his entire career in sunny Florida, California, and Arizona? There are a lot of questions the Cavs have to answer but only time will tell.

The East is always wide open on who will win it and with Shaq the Cavs have an advantage over most teams due to the leadership he brings to the table. Another positive out of this trade is that Shaq should be super motivated with Kobe winning his 4th title and he hopefully realizes this is his best chance to win another title. Also this helps Zydrunas Ilgauskas because he is just as old and broken down as Shaq is, but the 2 should be able to split minutes and keep each other healthy. Shaq might help on the defensive side because guys won't have to worry as much about whats going on in the key and they can be more aggressive around the perimeter.
I guess as long as they get more production out of him then they did from Wallace and Pavlovic the trade will end up being worth it in the end. The jury is still out on this trade but the Cavs still have work to do this off season like getting more athletic on both ends of the floor and they need someone who can hit a clutch shot.