The Road Forward

Alright so let’s talk offseason moves. Questions by Tom Pestak, answers by me.

If I had to choose between J.R. and Shump I’d go Shump. J.R. is basically a moderately efficient spot-up shooter at this point. With a sprinkling of cross-over stepbacks and 20 point games. But assuming a healthy Irving and Love, spot up 3 point shooting isn’t as critical as stout perimeter D. Nate?

J.R and Shump are fine. Each can play three spots in the Cavs’ system. But Cleveland will still need more wings. J.R. will opt out and command between $6 and $7 million per on a three year deal, with the standard non-fully guaranteed last year. Shump will be the last major guy the Cavs deal with in free agency, unless someone else signs him to an offer sheet, first. I imagine he and J.R. will get around the same sized deals. Shump could get a four year if he wanted, or maybe three year with an opt out.

If the Cavs finally break the curse, will Windhorst have to apologize for his podcast rant last season about how “Gilbert thinks he can buy success?”

Gilbert can buy success this year. The question is, will he? That’s the quarter billion dollar question. If he can get it done for under $200 million, Dan will hold his nose and pay. He’ll also reverse course on the luxury tax system in 2007. Remember, Mr. Gilbert is one of the main guys that wanted this system that, it turns out it, just punishes the competitiveness of small market teams. I bet there’s a lot of ruing going on in the offices of the Q, because the number could be higher than a quarter billion.

I was going to go through and do a lot of cap math, but WFNY’s Jacob Rosen has already done most of it, so why reinvent the wheel? Check out his fantastic Cavs cap rundown, and then come back.

Would any team play a dangerous game of chicken and offer TT a near max contract like what we almost did with Gordon Hayward?

The problem with TT is the Klutch Sports thing. If the Cavs go hardball, then LeBron can threaten, blah blah blah. Plus, Tristan has been incredibly durable, so he may not be worried about an injury as much, and thus the qualifying offer is in play. The one thing the Cavs do have working in their favor is that they have to take care of LeBron and Love first, so they can wait and see the market. But the other problem with TT is that once Love and Bron sign, the Cavs are so far over the cap that they’ll have room to only get their own free agents, minimum guys, and trades. Would someone else offer TT close to the max? LA? The Knicks? They’re so dumb there’s no telling what they’ll do. And make no mistake. Tristan wants as much as he can get.

Tristan is a good player but he doesn’t work on every team. He can’t shoot outside the key, but he can switch on every position, rebound, and check most bigs in the league. He’s a modern day Ben Wallace with a little bit better offense, and not quite as good defense (but he gets better every year). Just pay TT his money. A close to max deal now isn’t going to look that bad in the new CBA. Four years $56-60 million sounds right. Someone may offer him more, but I doubt they want to tie up their cap for three days just to sign Tristan Thompson.

What can the Cavs actually do with Brendan Haywood’s contract? Would other teams be willing to sign-and-trade free agents? Is Mo Williams and the reunification of the KRAKKEN a possibility? Mo Williams as a 3rd guard aint bad.

Brendan’s $10.5 million dollar contract is GOLD. It’s not an exception, which means they can combine it with other assets to trade. In addition, they can take back more salary than they send out, approximately $13.2 million. Also, they can trade it at any time before contracts are guaranteed in January (doubt they wait that long). They can trade it for an existing player*, or they can trade it for a sign-and-trade.

Take a look at guys on teams where they want to clear salary: Channing Frye? Courtney Lee? Greivous Vazquez? Jarrett Jack (the irony)? Roll the Chandlar Parsons microfracture dice? Kevin Martin/Chase Budinger? Marvin Williams? PJ Tucker (yes please)? Avery Bradley? Wilson Chandler? OJ Mayo? What if the Cavs got really crazy and went after Eric Gordon?

There are guys out there who fit the bill, and a few teams that would do a sign and trade for future considerations. In addition, if they traded it to the right team, the Cavs could get a first round pick out of it or move up in the draft. Mo Williams doesn’t really fit the bill unless there is a sign-and-trade, in which case the Cavs have to give up something.

Word out today, according to Brian Windhorst, is that the Cavs are looking to use the Haywood contract and possibly their first round pick to “upgrade the roster.” “On their wish list is a facilitating guard they can bring in to either back up or play alongside Kyrie Irving.” Mo would work, but I’d want more than Mo for a first rounder, and the Cavs would have to eat some salary. That means, Matt Barnes and/or Marvin Williams. Meh.

Windhorst alluded to the idea that the Cavs might not even want to offer K-Love the max. This got me thinking: how much of the talk from “sources” about  Love being “most certainly gone” could be smokescreens to try to pump up his value?

Windhorst’s allusions to the not offering K-Love the max are BS. There’s a handshake agreement in place. Love will have a max or near max offer on the table from day one. What else do you think that meeting was about between the Cavs’ brass, Kevin Love, and his agent last summer? Andrew Wiggins was on the table (an act of stupidity, on the Cavs part) last summer following that meeting. Everything else is just noise. Unless he’s an idiot, Kevin will take the five year deal. He has too much of an injury history to play the “two year contract with opt out” game. That’s too big of a risk just to get the bigger slice of the new cap.

What is Delly honestly worth? I say 2.5 Mil a year. He really did play great D on Curry for much of the series.

I’d put Delly’s value at $2-2.5 million. If he’d had a monster final three games (for him) he’d have priced himself out of the Cavs range. Who pays him crazy money, though? And (see above) the Cavs are already looking for another playmaker. Delly is a backup point guard that can defend both guard spots, and some threes, but it’s been shown, he’s out of his depth if he has to play more than 15-20 minutes a night. If someone offers him more than $2 million, Cleveland might move him or look for a sign-and-trade for another low level guy.

How handcuffed do the Cavs really become with some astronomical payroll assuming they CAN field a roster of LeBron, Love, Irving, and TT, and Moz? I get the suspicion CavsDan is not going to say no to insane luxury taxes.

Again, WFNY Jacob handled this the other day. It’s really insane. So let’s take a look at the absolute worst case scenario from the Jacob Rosen Twitter feed.

Here’s one pretty simple scenario for Cavs that would nearly double Brooklyn’s record $90.6M tax bill… LeBron and Love both opt-out, sign new 2-year max deals with 2016 opt-out, then sign long-term max deals next summer. Tristan gets 4/$67M max offer sheet. Shump gets 4/$42M. JR gets 3/$30M. Delly gets 2/$4M. Haywood traded for equal $10.5M in salaries. Boom. The final result: $125.0M in player salaries … about $43M over the $81.6M tax line … so that’d be $179.8M in taxes. That’s pretty fun.

That’s a “very bad case” scenario. What’s important to note is that the higher a team is over the “tax apron,” the higher percentage it pays. A team over $20 million over the apron pays a whopping $3.75 for every dollar over $20 million it pays in salary. Using the salary guesses I proved above and Jacob’s handy tax rate calculator, I put the Cavs’ payroll at approximately $118 million ($35 million over the apron). This makes their luxury tax payment $124 million. That puts @cavsdan on the hook for almost a quarter of a billion dollars in salary. WHOA. And it could get worse. Those numbers don’t include a mini-midlevel guy or veteran minimums.

The Cavs will be handcuffed. I believe they can offer a taxpayer midlevel $3.376 million, and then only rookies, their own free agents, and minimum salary players can be signed. That’s part of the reason the Haywood contract is so sweet. I do believe they will do everything they can to stack a roster for a championship. But make no mistake. Citizens is going to pay out the nose in luxury tax.

One thing that could happen: “stretch pay” buyouts for Andy and Mike Miller, which would save a lot of money in luxury tax, stretching their contract payments out over seven years for Wild Thing and three years for Miller. This could save about $7 million off the Cavs’ cap, and a whopping $39 million in luxury tax payments. Also, look for the Cavs to backload contracts as much as possible to save on tax payments this coming year. Do Dan a favor and buy a house, will you?

The Cavs should not play anyone more than 30 minutes a game next season other than Shump, TT, and Delly, right?  Wouldn’t we all rather win 50 games and be healthy and fresh than win 65+ and be running on fumes again?

As far as minutes. The Cavs managed everyone’s regular season minutes just fine. The playoffs just killed the guards and wings. Can’t have two wings that can’t/don’t play (Harris and Mike Miller). Cavs need 13 guys who can play next year, not 10 like they had this year. Haywood, Perk, Miller, and Joe Harris were all pine riders. That left 8 guys once Andy, Kyrie, and Kevin got hurt. And that rotation included James Jones (who couldn’t rebound) and Shawn Marion (who couldn’t shoot). Cavs were too vet heavy. A third point guard instead of Perkins would have helped immensely. Cavs need competent bench guards and wings to play in a pinch or because of matchups/injuries. The NBA rule used to be that you can’t have too many bigs. The new rule might be that you can’t have too many 3D wings and combo guards.

Golden state’s depth didn’t let them run the Cavs into the ground, they let them match up however they wanted and then run the Cavs into the ground. The Cavs didn’t have the luxury of swapping an Andrew Bogut for an Andre Iguodala. They had to swap a Kyrie Irving for slices Mike Miller, Timo, James Jones, and Delly. That’s an enormous dropoff. The ability to match up and save LeBron’s body will be key.

As for the draft, is there going to be anyone there who can help the Cavs all that much, or do they package that pick with Haywood to get some bodies?

I see the Cavs doing exactly what Windhorst said today: moving the Haywood contract and a draft pick for more players who can play now. While I’d like to see them maybe draft an upper-classman who can contribute right away, no matter how good a guy is, the odds of doing that with the 23rd pick are low. Heck, the odds of doing that with any pick are low. I’m quite sure Dan Gilbert doesn’t want a rookie who doesn’t play costing him $10 million in tax payments. So the Cavs will scour the earth for Euros they can sign cheaply, NBA veterans who can contribute on minimum salaries, and one or two quality players with the Haywood contract. Next week, I’ll look at some trade scenarios for the Cavs, player wise, but some vet minimum names that come to mind include Will Bynum, Nate Robinson, Sonny Weems, Alonzo Gee, Xavier Henry, and Jimmer Fredette. How’s that for leftover casserole?

I don’t love this plan. I like the thought of developing players, but the Cavs aren’t operating in that space right now. It’s win at all cost and don’t pay unnecessary salary time.

*Correction: as the Cavs are above the tax apron with their current tax holds, they cannot receive any players in a sign and trade scenario. This article originally stated they could. As Jacob Rosen at WFNY explained in his piece on Dwyane Wade scenarios, there are almost no paths for the Cavs to get under the tax apron to be able to complete sign and trade. My apologies on the error. I’ve been under a mistaken assumption for over a week. The CBA is not self evident.