Let's look at the facts/circumstances:

-Signing Tristan to a max contract will put our tax bill over $60M

-Tristan is not worth a max contract based on his play. Normally an opinion, but nobody in their right mind thinks he is.

-To be expected, there will be LBJ tax added to keep him. However, LeBron has put no pressure on the Cavs to cave. The best way to do it would be publicly and even when asked multiple times, he hasn't.

-He's our 3rd big man, not a starter

-We already have 3 guys making the max. It's debatable, at best (even that's kind of pushing it), whether Tristan is even our 4th most important player.

-Tristan's camp made the threat that, if he "had to" play for the QO this season, it would be his last as a Cav.

-We've already offered him 5/80, widely considered to be a very generous offer and reports say we've increased it.

-Gilbert has proven that he's not cheap, that $ is not an issue and that he will dish it out to benefit the team. He even did so in the non-LeBron years, when most owners wouldn't. However, he's also a great business man and won't waste $ if it doesnt benefit his asset (the team)

-The QO deadline has passed, which means, at the very least, Tristan wants to be here beyond this season if Paul's threat was indeed true. And if it wasn't, it means it was an empty threat that had no merit.

-Tristan got literally zero offers from other teams, even teams who still have cap space. True, they probably think thr Cavs would match anyway, but it begs the question: why would we bid against ourselves?

All the "facts/circumstances" leads me to side with the front office, both from a basketball and business side point of view.

I don't think anyone blames Tristan/Paul for trying to get the most $ they can, but it's the threats of leaving and sitting out into the season that has people siding against Tristan even more than they already were and now, getting pissed off at him.