Baskin's Blog: Cleveland Cavaliers out of the big deal to send Dwight Howard to Brooklyn

CLEVELAND - If you live in Rumorville for the Cavs, than the past 24 hours have been great. You are thinking the Cavs are going to get the Nets' Kris Humphries, Sundiata Gaines, get $3 million and the Magic's Quentin Richardson all for Luke Walton and giving us some cap space.

But, as word trickled in the morning that the Charlotte Bobcats might be willing to take the Cavs spot and that Orlando was exploring other options for Dwight Howard other than the Nets, the bubble was burst on the Cavs involvement in this mega deal.

So what went wrong? On paper, it looked like the Cavs would give up very little. In fact, FoxSportsOhio.com 's Sam Amico talked to two general managers who said the Cavs should do the deal.

On 92.3 The Fan Tuesday afternoon the Akron Beacon-Journal's Jason Lloyd told us this all about the Cavs having flexibility . Lloyd was consistent across the board the past few days that the Cavs were never as hot and heavy into this Howard deal as it might have appeared

What will be the lasting impact for the Cavs of the deal? Even if you got through the hard work of getting sign and trade deals across the board, Cavs fans will be left wondering why the team didn't want a trade Walton for a first round pick. Even if the Nets become great and it's a low first round, wouldn't that alone been worth the deal?

I can understand if the Cavs didn't want to be locked into a player they didn't feel was a part of the long-term plans in power forward Kris Humphries. Humphries wants a long-term deal, the Cavs wanted one year. I can buy it if that is the issue that knocked the Cavs out.

But, it was a tweet that Amico put out later that makes me wonder how far up the food chain this deal may have been.

"When asked who nixed potential deal on Cavs' end, agent said: ‘Dan Gilbert.’ When asked if certain, agent said: ‘No. But I bet I'm right.’"  Amico posted on his Twitter account @SamamicoFSO .

While that might just be sour grapes, it was odd to watch ESPN's Ric Bucher adding fuel to the fire by smiling his way through the possibility of the Cavs owner helping build another super team in Brooklyn just to stop Miami and LeBron James from winning another title. He didn't say it was true, but he didn't go out of his way to deny that kind of motivation.

It's was Bucher that also tweeted , "Cavs developing (furthering?) reputation as an annoying trade partner. Hard to pin down, constantly revising terms."

No matter how you look at this deal. The Cavs would have been a better team with a double-double guy, some solid bench pieces and another first round draft pick. But, would it have pushed them into NBA purgatory as a team locked into being mediocre, just making or missing the playoffs? Time will see who was right, and will tell us who made the call to walk away from this deal.