Report: Still without deal, Tristan Thompson won't attend Cavs media day

Assembled local and national media won't have the opportunity to speak with Tristan Thompson on Monday at Cleveland Cavaliers media day.

Still without a contract, Thompson won't attend media day, according to Brian Windhorst of ESPN.

Thompson has until Thursday to sign the one-year, $6.9-million qualifying offer the Cavaliers have tendered. Qualifying offers expire Oct. 1 unless extended by the team, which is rare. Should Thompson decline the offer, he'll remain a restricted free agent but will no longer have the option of signing that offer - he and the Cavs would have to agree on a new framework.

The Cavaliers reportedly offered Thompson a five-year, $80-million contract, while Thompson's camp has been pushing for $94 million over the same time span. Thompson's primary leverage is believed to be signing the qualifying offer, which would make him an unrestricted free agent in 2016, and optimism was reported to be low on both sides as recently as last week.

It was presumed that LeBron James, who shares an agent with Thompson and has expressed fondness for the power forward, would push for a Thompson deal to get done, but more recent reports peg the issue as a "non-discussion" on James' end. Their agent, Rich Paul, played this game last year, waiting until the last minute to get Eric Bledsoe a lucrative payday, dangling the qualifying offer as leverage the entire time.

Neither side considers Thompson's absence from media day a holdout, according to Windhorst. Whether the discourse around the contract stalemate will change once camp opens and Thursday's deadline passes is unclear, as is whether or not the Cavs will bend on salary demands while already facing a potentially historic luxury tax bill.

While the Cavs have some leverage with frontcourt depth, Kevin Love, Timofey Mozgov, and Anderson Varejao are all coming off surgeries. Thompson's camp knows the franchise is going all-in to bring the city its first sports championship in over 50 years, and the team has repeatedly floated that it believes a maximum offer will be made for Thompson if he enters next summer's market as an unrestricted free agent.

The 24-year-old Thompson averaged 8.5 points and eight rebounds last season, shooting 54.7 percent from the floor and taking on a larger role in the playoffs as necessitated by injuries.