Cleveland Cavaliers' owner Dan Gilbert can empathize with the decision made by the Oklahoma City Thunder to trade James Harden before he hit free agency.

Gilbert was relating the Cavaliers' experience with LeBron James to Sam Presti's preemptive trade of Harden to the Rockets. Gilbert expressed reget being unable to trade James to provide a return for the Cavaliers.

”The key thing, whoever you are and wherever you are, you can not wait,” Gilbert said. ”The big lesson was if a player is not willing to extend, no matter who they are, no matter where they are playing, no matter what kind of season you had, you can not risk going into a summer and having them leave in unrestricted free agency and get nothing back for it.”

James was eventually moved to the Miami Heat in a sign-and-trade that gave the Cavaliers a future first round pick.

“I’m sure the player or whoever would have said, ‘Of course I would have stayed. You guys screwed up and ruined the whole franchise.’ You’re in a no-win situation,” said Gilbert.

Kyrie Irving had his wisdom teeth removed on Wednesday, just days before the start of the regular season.

Irving will be reevaluated daily, but it typically takes a few days to recover from this routine surgery.

Klay Thompson was voted by NBA general managers as the player most likely to have a breakout season in 12-13 with 13.3% of the vote.

James Harden was selected last season with 21.4% of the vote.

Kyrie Irving and Kawhi Leonard each received 10.0% of the vote this season, followed by Paul George and Harden again with 6.7% of the vote.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have exercised their team options on the third-year contracts of Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson for the 13-14 NBA season.

Irving and Thompson were lottery picks by the Cavaliers in the 2011 NBA Draft.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have waived guard Kelenna Azubuike.

Azubuike appeared in one preseason game, scoring six points and adding three rebounds in 14 minutes.

The Portland Trail Blazers claimed Justin Holiday off waivers.

Holiday was waived by the Cavaliers on Wednesday.

Holiday is a 6-foot-6 guard/forward who gained the reputation of being a good defender for the Huskies. 

By claiming him off waivers, the Blazers picked up Holiday's Cleveland contract as a training camp invitee. 

Dion Waiters struggled from the outside and finished 4-of-9 shooting in in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ annual Wine and Gold scrimmage Saturday night

Waiters’ role with the Cavaliers will differ significantly from what he grew accustomed to at Syracuse.

“He’s not 110 percent comfortable yet and it’s going to take time,” Scott said. “This is a whole new system for him and a lot of it has to do with him having to work without the ball at times, where he was so used to having the ball in his hands. He’s still going to have the ball at times, but he has to learn to play without the ball.”

Waiters said he feels farther ahead on defense than on offense.

“I’ve got to continue to learn. It’s a lot in a short period of time that I have to learn,” Waiters said. “There’s so much I’m trying to put together in my head in a short period of time, there’s times where I’m going to get lost.”