Ex-Cavs big man celebrates milestone with Donald Trump’s family

Former Cleveland Cavaliers big man Tristan Thompson is a staunch advocate of cryptocurrency, and he recently celebrated the inclusion of a new bitcoin mining company called American Bitcoin into the Nasdaq with members of President Donald Trump’s family.

Trump’s son Eric is the co-founder and chief strategy officer at American Bitcoin. On Instagram, Thompson shared pictures of himself with the younger Trump and the younger Trump’s wife Lara.

Before Donald Trump began his second term, Thompson implored people to invest in crypto. He told folks not to wait and buy it now in preparation for the “new American wave” ahead of the presidential inauguration.

Maybe Thompson has become so involved in the world of crypto of late because he’s not the basketball player he once was and is preparing for life after the sport. It’s been a while since Thompson has functioned as a starting-caliber player at the highest level, and he might have already played his last game in the NBA.

After he spent much of the 2024-25 season warming the bench for the Cavaliers, Thompson is still an unsigned free agent on the open market with the coming campaign not far off. His scoring production has fallen off a cliff in recent years. The little playing time he did receive with the Cavs last season (8.2 minutes per game in 40 appearances) might’ve come because of his rebounding chops and value as a veteran presence.

Thompson has had a gift for pulling down rebounds ever since he stepped foot in the NBA, and that’s maybe his defining trait. Impressively, he averaged 3.4 rebounds per game in his limited playing time with Cleveland last season. That equates to a whopping 14.7 boards per 36 minutes.

Whether Thompson will get another shot to play in the best basketball league in the world is unclear, but it would be poetic if he were to spend one more season with the Cavaliers and ride off into the sunset with a title in 2026.