I’m going to advocate for something that will leave some Cavs fans questioning my sanity; trading Jamison and Sessions and taking back “bad” contracts that end in 2013 – 2014 as a return, to some extent for the sake of having the bad contracts. Benefits of owning and trading expiring contracts include:
- When trading these assets, the other team relinquishes a more tangible, “this is going to help us win” related asset, in exchange for taking a “bad” contract off their books.
- Free agency has a pretty poor track record. Unless a team is signing a no brainer max-contract player or signs inexpensive players at solid cost / benefit, a majority of $4 to $12 million annual contracts have been poor value. Trading expirings allows a team to build where they have more control, through trades and the draft.
- Almost all lopsided trades include an expiring, salary balancing contract; Theo Ratliff and Wally Szczerbiak in the Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen trades to the Celtics, Kwame Brown for Paul Gasol to the Lakers, Erick Dampier brought Tyson Chandler to the Mavericks …honestly, this list could be long.
For the Cavs, I think there is almost no downside to taking back deals that expire by 2013 – 2014. Reasons include:
- Kyrie or any other youngsters won’t need extended until after that. There is no reasonable way the Cavs run up against salary cap issues in this timeframe. Cleveland will need to pay someone over the next two years; it’s likely better as a short term commitment through a trade than an overpaid free agent.
- Once the more prohibitive luxury tax kicks in, the NBA could see heavily lopsided trades. Trading for contracts with a couple of years remaining right now has a dual benefit. It gives the Cavs expiring contracts to include in those robberies, and also helps restrict long-term payroll obligations, so they can take on money while staying under the luxury tax themselves.
Finally, other examples of team’s using cap space or trading expiring contracts to their benefit are:
- Dallas built their champion by continually trading expiring contracts to upgrade their roster.
- Oklahoma City used their available cap space to take on Matt Harpring and Mo Petersons contracts. The payoff was that, as a bonus for taking those deals, they acquired Eric Maynor and the 11th pick in the 2010 draft.
On a parting note, I’ll offer a wild trade that requires the Cavs to take on $18 million of salary next year and $12 million through 2013 – 2014.
- Cavs gets Hedo Turkoglu, Luke Walton, first choice of Magic, Lakers or Mavericks (owned by Lakers) 2012 1st round pick, Andrew Goudelock, DeAndre Liggins and Lakers 2017 1st round pick
- Orlando gets Andrew Bynum, Antawn Jamison, Omri Casspi, second choice of Magic, Lakers or Mavericks 2012 1st round picks, Lakers 2013 1st round pick, their own 2014 2nd round pick back from Cleveland, and the Lakers 2015 1st round pick
- LA gets Dwight Howard, Ramon Sessions, third choice of the three 2012 first round selections.
The ESPN trade machine says it works, and it has benefits for all three teams.
For Cleveland
Certainly some Cavs fans are screaming at their computers right now, and I understand that some of you still will be after my explanation. Maybe converts can be won by breaking it down this way:
- Jamison’s expiring contract for Turkoglu and Walton’s near-term expiring contracts. Walton expires next season and Turkoglu in 2013 – 2014. Basically until youngsters start needing extensions, Cleveland has short term filler instead of over-paying a free agent. Ideally Turkoglu’s contract can facilitate grand larceny at the trade deadline in 2014; at a minimum, it can be traded to acquire additional assets. The Cavs keep plenty of salary cap flexibility, with an extension for Gee and 4 eventual first rounders; they have 12 players for $50 million in 2012 – 2013, 9 players for $42 million in 2013 – 2014, and only Varejao & rookie contracts in 2014 – 2015.
- Sessions for a mid-first round pick in 2012.
- Casspi and the 2014 2nd round pick for Goudelock, Liggins & the 2017 Lakers 1st round pick. Basically a known, below average player for a couple of unknown youngsters. Goudelock and Liggins were the 46th and 53rd picks in 2011. The players received combined salaries are lower than Casspi’s, plus the acquisition of a future first round pick. Piling up first round picks from now until forever can’t be a bad thing.
None of the three players that were traded are major parts of the Cavs’ future, this trade won’t result in salary cap concerns, and there are six new assets brought in (includes Walton and Hedo’s expiring deals). This is a trade with little downside that continues building on the Cavs’ future flexibility.
For Orlando
They move a big contract, allowing a match on offers for Ryan Anderson this summer without worrying about the salary cap. In 3 months time, they go from being a franchise severely over the luxury tax, looking at Dwight Howard’s impending departure, to possessing:
- An under-25 front court of Andrew Bynum and Ryan Anderson. One a center fresh off averaging 16 points & 13 rebounds a game; the other a floor stretching, offensive rebounding power forward that lead the NBA in made three pointers.
- Six 1st round picks in the next 4 years.
- A team that’s under the salary cap in 2012 – 2013 and has $15 million worth of expiring contracts after that season.
This seems like the groundwork for a relatively smooth transition out of superstar abandonment.
For LA
The Lakers instantly become serious contenders again, with upgrades at center and point guard while taking on minimal additional salary.
Mallory,
Technically I think Kyrie’s extension wouldn’t be until the summer of 2015. I could be wrong and that is something I neglected to mention in my post.
Debatebly if in 2012 & 2013 the Cavs signed minimal free agents extending beyond 2014, they would only have Varejao’s contract (and it’s a team option) and rookie contracts in the summer of 2014. They could sign two max free agents to pair with Irving and all their accumulated players on rookie contracts, if they were committed to eventually being in the luxury tax once extensions started.
I like the flexibility of keeping short term deals for now. If those short-term deals come through trades that bring in extra draft picks, that’s even better.
” if we can get any remotely big FA to sign with us, that’s a total coup.”
No, it is not. Not unless that FA happens to play a different position than our best draft picks coming up in the next few years, and he signs a reasonable contract. I don’t know who in the upcoming FA is worth giving max money too outside of Dwight, deron, and maybe eric gordon, and sorry mallory, none of them are coming to cleveland. outside of that, we’ll have to overspend since we currently aren’t contenders, and pay dudes like brandon bass giant gobs of money they’ll never earn on the court. If you want, we will at least be able to do the same thing in 2014, even maxing after maxing a contract with irving. whats the rush to hurt our draft position and reduce which positions we can feel good about targeting in the next two drafts, all while throwing away a late first round draft pick just to watch jameson and session walk?
Seriously Mallory, who is it you think we can get this FA this year that we wouldn’t be able to replace in 2014 with a similar if not better contract? I understand not sitting on cap space just to sit on it, but here we are sitting on it in exchange for draft picks with the knowledge that we will be a hotter destination in 2 years than we are now, and with the knowledge that in two years we’ll know a whole lot more about our core than we do now and will thus be able to make more informed decisions in Free agency.
The only counter to this argument is that its possible we bomb on all our draft picks between now and then or kyrie somehow isn’t great, and we lost our promising future, and FA’s will be more hesitant to come here, not less. If we can’t draft decently or kyrie bombs then we won’t be contending regardless of who we could sign this summer anyways, so I don’t see that as a valid argument.
Matt –
At SOME point you have to overspend, unless again, you get lucky and end up with 3 top tier guys (a la OKC) because, as you said, we don’t really have the capability of getting top tier guys to sign with us.
At some point, guys, we’re going to have to start building forward and not laterally, meaning putting together the pieces needed to build a real contender.. I have no real problem with trading Jamison for a longer contract (I’m mostly playing Devil’s advocate here, although I do believe in some of what I’ve said) but continuously pushing off the signing of one major piece is definitely not the best idea. If we can, like I have said repeatedly, get an OJ Mayo or Wilson Chandler, I think we need to do it. Those are GREAT 3rd options. We have a TON of draft picks right now, so adding youth isn’t something we’ve got to do. I think adding a long term vet should be a top priority within the next year.
Also, Matt, if you’re not gunning for the playoffs next year you have the complete wrong mentality going forward. There is no reason not to expect to contend for a playoff spot. This year I will concede is very debatable, but (assuming we don’t make the playoffs this year) with 3 top 10-15 overall picks, we do NOT want to continue losing – see Kevin’s article about the cycle of lottery if you don’t believe that.
I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong here…if you built a highly complex model to predict Cleveland’s chances of winning an NBA championship in 2016, it might be 4% one way and 3.6% the other.
Really the point of this post was to have discussion on trade deadline options as that time nears. Thanks for everyone’s feedback. Hopefully the Cavs choose which ever is the 4% option.
Andrew: I had to laugh when I saw Monta Ellis and Andres Biedrins: one guy no one would take and another guy they’d never trade for Jamison and/or Sessions. Biedrins will end up being an amnesty player, thus denying us a chance to field a center and power forward combo that could fail to shoot 45% from the line, that would be epic.
Matt: Free agents who are probably worth over 8 million this year who the Cavs should consider: Nicholas Batum, Ryan Anderson, Eric Gordon, Brook Lopez, Gerald Wallace (if he opts out — I doubt the Blazers can keep him and Batum in that case), Wilson Chandler (maybe), Roy Hibbert (pipe dream), and… Jeremy Linn (who if his play keeps up moves into the #2 free agent spot behind Howard, and ahead of DWill, if simply for the huge Asian broadcasting rights the team that pays him will have). That’s probably the list. Notice who I said worth over 8 million, and who the Cavs should consider. Lots of guys are going to make that who won’t be worth it, would be a bad fit for the Cavs, or just won’t consider it. As for the Linn deal, it would make sense to sign him in order to use our cap space to trade him to a team without cap space.
Mallory, we will probably make the playoffs next year regardless of what we do in free agency this year, however what I said is we won’t be contenders. Again unless we sign dwight howard, no FA we sign will make us serious threats to miami and OKC or the bulls next year.
“At some point, guys, we’re going to have to start building forward and not laterally” Yes, and adding young high potentail talent is building forward. watching overpaid vets walk for nothing, just to overpay OJ Mayo or Wilson Chandler, Both pretty innefficient low potential players while giving up a draft pick isn’t even moving laterally, its moving backwards. Would we be a better team next year? Yes. Would we be a better team in 3 years? Almost certainly not. I want the cavs to win a championship as soon as possible, not to reach the playoffs as many years as possible. Perhaps you think that makes me less of a fan, your free to that opinion. But when you are in a city as championship starved as cleveland, I don’t want to just get close and watch kyrie go through his prime like lebron did with insufficient overpriced free agents. I want him to have at least one or two bonafide studs to grow with and a deep talented roster.
I most certainly don’t want an overpaid O.J. Mayo, who shoots 43% , as kyrie’s second fiddle on offense. I don’t want to pay chandler, who is decent but nothing specail, 10 million or more a year (we’ll still have that much to spend this offseason with the hurkoglu trade) to be a solid role player while throwing away a draft pick and potential trade asset (hurkoglu’s expiring, true it may not be worth much, but its worth something and could help us get a steal) just so we have a higher seed when we lose in the first round next year, when we can always get a solid role player for 10 million a year in 2014. I also want the flexability of when we are really close to contending, like when all our draft picks coming up and kyrie and TT and gee have some experience, to hand pick a FA to overspend on that will actually complement our core. I also don’t want to pass on the best player available to us in the next two drafts because they play the same position as our overpriced Mayo or Chandler or FA x. Alternatively if we do take such a player regardless of playing the same position as our FA acquisition, I don’t want to have their playing time and thus their value reduced because they have to share time and come off the bench.
At some point we do have to start building forward, but not at every point in time. You have to calculate your best odds. Nothing is gauranteed, and you can always blow draft picks and Free agents, but as a GM its your job to give your team the best chance of winning it all. That means calculating your actions, looking at the odds, and striking at the most opportune time. 2012 is not the most opportune time for the reasons I’ve stated above. You do have to strike, but you should strike at the most oportune time, and that time is 2014 in my opinion.
None of the guys you mentioned who are realistically coming to cleveland are crazy good free agents. Players of that caliber will be available in 2014, and may just come for a more reasonable contract. having the 5th seed instead of the 7th seed the next two years just isn’t worth losing at least one mid twenties 1st round pick this year, lowering our draft position the next 2 years while limiting the positions we want to target, and giving us the ability to hand pick a FA when we know who our young core really is. Under the turkoglu scenario we are so much better set up for when we actually have a chance for contending for championships, I don’t want to give that up just to have a better seed in the next two years, years in which we have no shot at winning the whole thing.
I would add OJ Mayo to that list…Spencer Hawes as well.
Definitely Mayo and Hawes. Actually Hawes could potentially be a sneaky good pickup for the Cavs – he’s a big body who can face up and “jump” shoot pretty nicely. And he’s really young. I like a core of Irving/Hawes/TT/Andy/wing man draft pick X/FA SG X.
Basically I I think it’s time to get our core together – you don’t want Kyrie waiting around too long for some good bodies to play with. We’d still have a little cap left after signing Hawes. I’d be happy with that.
Mallory, I also dont think you want to jump the gun in free agency without knowing who our core is. Impatience in free agency, and the desire to ALWAYS be as good as we possibly could be RIGHT NOW doomed us with lebron. Lets not make the same mistakes, kyrie is not going anywhere for 4 years. He is more likely to sign an extension if we have 2 years as bottom dwelling playoff teams and 1 year of going toe to toe with the best of them and maybe, just maybe winning a ship, than if we have 3 years of being a middling playoff team with little upside and a smaller young core that doesn’t mesh as well with our FA acquisitions.
I have to say, its tough being a Cavs fan at college in Virginia, as I really am disconnected from most things Cleveland. That being said, I LOVED reading all these comments and this awesome debate.
Kevin,
I am now really sold on this idea of possibly acquiring a bad contract, and put ourselves in position to make moves two, three years down the road. At first, I thought you were crazy for suggesting it, but this whole debate has made me see the benefits.
Mallory,
I would agree with you that we should try to go after maybe one or two of those guys on Hoopsdogg’s list, but only those couple of FAs. If we go into the mindset of “we need to acquire X amount of players,” we’ll end up pulling a Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall, Damon Jones situation. I would say zero in on Gordon and possibly Hawes, and that’s it.
Great comment section everyone.
Gordon’s going to get near max money from someone (cough NY cough cough). Hes a great young players but I just don’t know if he’s worth spending our entire free agency on and risk losing out on Antawns and Sessions expiring contracts for nothing. Even if we gave Gordon max, I don’t know if he’d come. Hawes does intrigue me. Again though, these promising players may not want to come to cleveland regardless, to get them we would have to basicaly give up draft picks (trading expiring contracts for draft picks and cap fillers) and draft position for 2 years, we won’t be free agent players when we are looking for the last piece or two of our championship team, we have just as good if not a better shot to get similarly promising 2014, and the only benefit is we’ll be maybe a 4-5 seed instead of a 7-8 seed the next two years, and maybe we’ll win one playoff round before exiting, but exit we will.
To me as a fan, if you don’t have a realistic shot at a championship, your only priority is to set yourself up to have a realistic shot at a championship as soon as possible. No matter what we do, we don’t have a realistic shot at a championship in 2013, and its best to come to grips with that. Hurting a realistic shot at a championship, even a little, to move up a seed or two from 8th, has no value to me. I know others differ, but I want a championship, I want to contend, I don’t care about being able to say “oh look how respectable our season was.”
Gordon’s going to get near max money from someone (cough NY cough cough). Hes a great young players but I just don’t know if he’s worth spending our entire free agency on and risk losing out on Antawns and Sessions expiring contracts for nothing if he decided to go elsewhere. Even if we gave Gordon max, I don’t know if he’d come.
Hawes does intrigue me. Again though, these promising players may not want to come to cleveland regardless.
And to have a chance, just a chance, to get them we would have to basicaly give up
- draft picks (letting expirings walk instead of trading expiring contracts for draft picks and cap fillers)
- draft position for 2 years (only a couple spots, but still a couple spots)
- being free agent players when we are looking for the last piece or two of our championship team, when we have just as good if not a better shot to get similarly promising players in 2014,
The only benefit is we’ll be maybe a 4-5 seed instead of a 7-8 seed the next two years, and maybe we’ll win one playoff round before exiting, but exit we will.