Are the Cavaliers making the RIGHT DECISION by re-signing Sam Merrill instead of Ty Jerome?

Are the Cavaliers making the RIGHT DECISION by re-signing Sam Merrill instead of Ty Jerome?

Let’s get to the other part of the Cavs weekend moves after a reminder that monarch money is the financial friend you didn’t know you needed until right now. It’s your personal CFO giving you full visibility and control over your finances. Monarch money isn’t just a budgeting app. It’s a complete financial command center where you can track all of your accounts and. Investments and spending in one place. So you stop just managing your money and start building wealth. Take control of your finances with Monarch money. Use promo code locked on NFL at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. That is monarchmoney.com. Promo code locked on NFL for 50% off your first year. The other move the Cavs made was resigning Sam Merrill, 4 years, $38 million for Sam Merri. It comes out to $9.5 million per year. He is now the highest paid 60th draft pick ever in the history of the NBA. With this move, it seems unlikely that Ty Jerome will be coming back to the Cavs. The roster spots and the money just don’t seem to add up. So Jason, are you surprised at the contract the Cavs gave Sam Merrill and at the idea that they may have chosen Merrill over Ty Jerome? — A
— little bit I think the I think the focus shifted probably after the playoffs. Uh, there was a point where I think Ty was their top priority. And uh based on how the postseason went and price tags and what Sam cost him, I think Sam came in under what they were projecting Ty was gonna run them and when you factor in the penalties that come with it and everything else and they prioritize Sam’s shooting over Ty’s overall playmaking and uh you know we I think we all sort of agreed that it felt like Ty got exposed maybe a little bit in the playoffs because he was asked to play a role that he wasn’t fit for. That he is best as the 6th man and when you ask him to carry a heavier load, it just wasn’t there. The game just wasn’t there. Sam will fill a specific need of shooting. He’s a 3 point shooter. He he is capable of doing other things, but that’s really what you want him on the floor for if he’s out there, he’s out there to shoot, and he’s a guy that I look at is, man, good on him. You talk about sticking with it and hanging in through adversity and being cut and waved and bouncing around in multiple different organizations and and just sort of paying your dues and now cashing in on this contract, it’s uh it’s a huge win for him. And uh the Cavs know what they’re getting from him and he’ll fill a role going forward as a three point shooter just as he has been, — you
— know what Sam Merrill, shout out to you being part of that championship summer league squad. When I saw, when I saw you, big dog, I said hold on, we got some guys down here. What are you talking about? Sam Merrill pulls up. I like this guy. He has no conscience. I think Sam Merri got paid. I know he could shoot the ball, but Sam Merri played hard defensively. Sam Merrill was not like a, like Sam Merrill would get switched on to somebody and he was not a pushover. I said, OK, Sam, I see what you, now you still can’t dribble. That’s why we still got Alonzo Ball. You, you’re not part of the dribbling squad. But you know what, I’m kinda, I’m kinda torn about Ty Jerome because he had a hell of a regular season. I mean at times Ty Jerome was Was the talk of the town at times Ty Jerome looked like he was a dude that really was like I’m like, is this guy a borderline starter? Um, I mean he was, he came in I think 3rd in the 6th man of the year. He would have got more of those votes if it wasn’t for Hunter who took half the votes from him, but I, I just feel like Ty Jerome. Almost priced himself out of the Cavs mix. You look at the, I think Merrill got what 30 million. I think, I think Ty Jerome gonna mess around and, and because it’s, it’s Slim Pickens out here, it ain’t that many guys, free agents that’s, that’s, that’s out here available that could put up the numbers that he’s putting on. I think he might get 50 some $50.50 something million dollars because somebody gonna pay him. I think he just, he priced itself out of the Cavs thing. I don’t think it has too much to do with. Yeah, he had some bad games in the playoffs and, and I even said, bro, it looked like you unplayable. Like I think he was like 10 when he 10 for 10 like he, he had one game where he was like 8 for 20 something. He, he shot the ball like crazy terrible this this postseason, but I will say it’s I’m kinda torn because I do believe that he’s, he showed himself to be a playmaker. He showed himself to be a guy that can hit big shots. I mean, at times during the regular season when everybody else wasn’t doing that, he was the guy that came in and sparked them and, and put some of them games on ice. So it sucks that, you know, they might not be able to keep him, but I like Sam Merrill. I like the fact that they got a shooter. I like the fact that Um, I could say that they did develop him because he was in the G-League, he went through the process and they found somebody and they signed him, so I like to move. Yeah, I’m with both of you guys on a lot of what you said. Jay, um, I love stories like this. I applaud stories like this. Sam Merrill was a guy that came in and. Didn’t turn anyone’s head, um, was dismissed at every turn. um, he doesn’t have this, he can’t do that. You, you’ve heard all of the arguments, but the one thing he had that I always liked about him was he, he has a work ethic and he has effort and that’s free that you don’t have to be born with that. You can just work harder than you work. You can, you can want to do better than you normally are doing. And I think here’s a guy that did that and he got his payday. And I’m glad it was with the Cavs. I think he’s a good piece. Um, he still has some growing to do and, but because he’s moved off his starting point, I have more confidence. That he’ll continue to move because he’s been that guy. So if he continues to improve, he could be a piece that really helps the Cavaliers. I have a question for you, Mike. Is, is, is Ty Jerome gonna get 50 million? Yeah, — so
— when I first saw that, let me take you through my thought process when I saw that tweet go through. I was like, 09 for 38 for Sam. A good for him. Great dude, earned it. But that feels a lot. And then I saw some of the other contracts for role players. Daveon Mitchell in Miami got 2 for 24. By the way, Daveon Mitchell’s, I don’t have it in front of me. I think he’s on his 3rd team. He’s been solid. He had a good playoff series against the Cavs, but like, that’s kind of it. If he’s getting 12 million. And the non-tax level, non-taxpayer mid-level exception is $14 million which is about the most the Cavs could have paid. And with the second apron, if they paid Ty 14, it would have cost Dan $80 with the tax penalty. Uh, yeah, I think he might get more. I do. Like I think, I think he could be in the 16, um, I think we all kind of agree that he was kind of exposed in the playoffs, and I, I agree with some of that sentence, but I take some of the qualifiers out. Like I would say it this way. I think everyone that watched the playoffs agrees wholeheartedly that he was absolutely exposed in the playoffs, not kind of. He’s a bench player. He’s a and, and so if you’re gonna give a guy like that $50 million. To me, it, it says we want to rack up those regular season wins. We wanna win some regular season games, but how is he serviceable in the postseason? Well, after what we saw in the playoffs this year? He looked slow. He looked very unathletic. He was a liability on the floor, — the
— Pacers made a lot of guards look like that in their, in their defense with the style they now granted. He was terrible that series. He was also incredible against Miami, two very different teams, but he had Miami, one terrible playoff. Miami is the kind of that that’s the kind of team that he’ll. Do you know what you need to thrive against teams like Indiana. Do you know who I think he’s gonna end up going to be a really good fit with? And it’s kind of funny because their relationship was not good last year. I think the Pistons are a really good basketball fit for him and JB did not have a uh. The same kind of relationship he has with Kenny Atkinson. I’ll just leave it that. But from a basketball standpoint, a team that has money and with the whole Malik Beasley may be involved in some gambling issues and that contract appears to be pulled off the board, he would be a good fit. I know that it doesn’t really move the needle here in Cleveland, but that is a massive story that has been, I think, incredibly underplayed by the national media. broke over the weekend. It’ll come out. I know, — but I expected to see way more
— than that. Well, the allegations were not from this past season though. I don’t care. No, no, no, I’m just saying he had this great season this year. Yes. The allegations were from January of 24. Yeah, I don’t, that doesn’t matter to me when it was it was in the gambling era. They clips I’m surprised that we haven’t seen a lot more of this. I think a lot more of this goes on. Did you see the clips? Yes, yes, — I saw the
— clips when they’re down. 8, right, 9, and he sprints down the length of the floor and dunks at the buzzer. And listen, I’m I’m, I’m I’m usually player guy. Ah, come on, there’s something going, I’m usually player guy. I looked at it I said, oh bro, something happened. You might want to lawyer up. This is not looking good. He went coast to coast like a little kid at the YMCA. — But had to get those
— because his dad came in from he finally showed up on a Saturday. Daddy’s here. Let me get my finger roll up. — I’m
— like, Yeah, this is nasty work. It’s a huge story, man. And I don’t know how the league is gonna navigate it. It’s so funny to me. In, in the last 20 years, professional sports have gone from Absolutely stiff arming any mention of gambling or point spreads at ESPN we were not allowed to, to say the words. Bulls are favored over the Cavs. We had to say Detroit is favored over Cleveland. Why? I don’t know. — And they got a sports but
— there were things that we could not talk about. They hated what Al Michaels used to talk about well. That might have been a meaningless field goal on the scoreboard, but trust me, if you know, you know that made a lot of people and cost a lot of people a lot of money. We were discouraged from ever talking about that. And then Adam Silver came out and broke the paradigm and he said, why are we stiff arming the gambling community? Do you realize what that would mean for ratings if we legalize gambling and the other boys looked at him, baseball and football are like. You’re saying the quiet part out loud. You can’t say that. And now — on
— Sunday watch a game. They’re all, they’re all gambling commercials. Sunday morning, the story broke Saturday. Sunday morning I was eating breakfast at SportsCenter on and they talked about the Malik Beasley story and then we’re teasing to break. And it was, and by the way, we have on ESPN bet download the book and we have our par it’s going to compromise the integrity of the game. It’s already touched baseball and he was but it was there. It was nasty. But, remember Buddy Hill, somebody hit him up on the bench. Oh my gosh, right. I need one more. I put me back in. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. You can’t do that, bro. Porter Junior, uh, the, the kid from, uh, Denver, his brother got banned for life. Yeah, that’s right. You’re right, — banned for
— life. I think that’s part of the reason this hasn’t blown up and now it’s the one that’s happened. Porter. Had it been a bigger name, I think I know more. I was stunned at how much under the radar that story went. That did not become a big, I don’t know if he’s a star or not. If you have paid professional athletes that are compromising the integrity of the product, you’ve got, remember when Tim Donaghy, was it Tim Donaghy, was that his name? — He
— ref, he told you. I don’t know what happens if, if because it’s gonna come out where there’s a big scandal where it happens in a playoff series and now you’re determining not just a meaningless regular season game, one team is gonna move forward and one team isn’t. Think about this shoeless Joe Jackson, who was the only member of the White Sox that didn’t tank. Like if you look at what he did in the World Series, he had an incredible World Series. He was punished because there was plenty of evidence that the other guys did tank, and he just now got his good name back where he can go into the Hall of Fame and voted in by the writers or the veterans Committee or whoever’s gonna do it. That’s how serious they used to take gambling on sports. Pete Rose was, if the object in baseball is to get a base hit, by that standard, he was the best player ever. And that man never sniffed the Hall of Fame because he got caught betting on the sport. So I don’t know what’s gonna happen, and I don’t know how it impacts it, but now you can’t kill the golden goose because the NBA, the NFL, and Major League Baseball make tens of millions of dollars, — if not hundreds of millions of dollars off
— the gambling. Now Tyvis, I know you’re upset, but you gotta stop calling these investigators because you’re losing your parlays, bro. — We understand Tys
— is the king of. 1520 and it missed by one half point. You can’t get me an assist. — Only
— one last very last point on the Merrill over Jerome by the Cavs. I’m just assuming Kobe and company believe the combination of Craig Porter Jr, Tyrese Proctor, who fell to them in the draft, and Lonzo Ball can make up for the production and they prioritized the spacing Sam Merri provides — offensively over a little bit of the
— extra they got Merrill for less than they’re payingonzo Ball. Yep, — that’s a good
— point. I real quick, do you predict, do you, you Cavs guys, do you predict any other moves, or or something, I do. You say, oh I think something big is coming. Oh, — so
— you just gonna shake your head like that you know, Jason? You just I know what you got your beard is longer, but your beard is longer, I know you know something. We’ll see.

Free agent guard Sam Merrill intends to sign a four-year, $38 million contract to stay with the Cleveland Cavaliers, sources tell ESPN.

The Cavaliers negotiated the new deal with Kieran Piller and Mark Bartelstein of Priority Sports, a success story for the 60th pick of the 2020 NBA draft.

The deal cements the Cavaliers’ point guard depth chart of Darius Garland, newly acquired Lonzo Ball, Craig Porter Jr. and Merrill — as the expectation is that the franchise will lose 2025 Sixth Man of the Year candidate Ty Jerome in free agency, sources said. | https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/45603688/sources-sam-merrill-sign-4-year-38m-deal-cavaliers

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