Cavaliers, Hornets Potential Salary Cap Trades
And uh I have to actually look because I feel like Cleveland um projections are complex so you have to uh apply a certain deft hand to it. I’m not sure that your projection includes the jump for Evan Mobley who was um he earned defensive player of the year and that raised his salary to 46.4. So I have them projected against the second apron also including some incentives. You have to include a Cororo is unlikely. Hunter is unlikely. I have them all the way up at 223. Wow. Right next to Boston. Yeah. So they’re way and that’s before Tai Jerome. So So Tai’s gone. See that? No, not necessarily. A Cororo could be gone to, you know, in trade to keep Tai, right? Like teams are allowed to make uh more than one move. I think you know when I write a concept, I’ll be like, “Oh, this team gets this player in this fake trade.” and someone will say, “Oh, now they’re going to be terrible.” It’s like, “Well, you know, they still have like four or five other moves they can make, right?” Like, you can’t just define it. So, uh, you know, singularly. So, uh, if you’re Cleveland, the heart of who they are, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Darius Garland, DeAndre Hunter, and then the acquisition of Jared Allen. And then if you assume Max Struce is part of that um core, and then Dean Wade is relatively cheap. So the next guy on that list in terms of making any actual money is Isaac Auroro at 11. So next is Jaylen Tyson at five, sorry, 35. So even if they got out of 35, right? Let’s say they traded Jaylen Tyson for nothing, that only barely moves the needle. And so it’s really just the math says to me either A they have to break up their core in some fashion. B they don’t care and will just stay above and don’t care that they’re this high. They don’t that’s fine. They could stay the team they are. They can keep or not keep Tai Jerome and just pay more tax. They can they would only have minimums to add talent. But like the Suns didn’t have success, but they did add some quality minimums. The Bucks didn’t have success. They added some quality minimums. Uh Gary Trent and Tory Prince were regular rotation guys. So when you look at at the Cavs, A, they have to break up their core. B it doesn’t matter. Or C, they can do a little of both, which is not breaking up their core, but getting out of an Aoro to to to trim it. A Cororo only making 11 probably means they can’t get all the way under that second apron. But you you take step after step and teams don’t mind theoretically living in it for one year above the second apron because the penalties don’t really kick in until it’s multiple years. That’s when you start to get frozen draft picks down the line. Uh your first round pick gets frozen. You can dip into above the second apron for a year, but teams don’t want to be there for any long period of time. So, uh, I’m curious to see what this means for the Cavs longterm, but they don’t have to decide long term today. They can decide how they’re going to approach this year, this year. And it may be any of those pathways. I would guess that Aoro is you. I don’t think he has tremendous value. I don’t think he did a lot. He’s a Doto said repeatedly that the Hornets were like the one team and the Nets were the ones that had interested in sign trading him. So my assumption, right, but that was then, right? Mhm. Did he do enough this year to warrant for them to say, “Oh, this is a guy who we thought he was.” Cuz a team’s projecting most of the time, especially in a a young player, that they’re going to be X. And if you can get them at a price below what you think X is worth, and then develop them to a price above that, right, they’re they’re delivering more than you’re paying. Then you’ve succeeded, right? That’s a very valuable thing in this NBA to get better talent at a lower price. That’s basic economics, right? So, uh, but then when you know the he stays with the Cavs, has an okay year, a good he start was hurt a bit, then he was okay and then in the playoffs he didn’t perform particularly well. Now, the whole team didn’t perform particularly well, but you know, if we’re looking at recency bias, which uh probably isn’t a great way to build your team, but human beings are guilty of, including general managers and front offices, they you might look at Gary Trent and see that, man, look what he did in the in the playoffs. He had two 30 something point games, hitting a zillion threes that were, you know, insane. Maybe we’ll look at that. He had an okay season, a good season, not a great season, but we’ll look at that and be more attracted to to him as a player than maybe we should. With Auroro, maybe the Hornets are looking at him and saying, “Yeah, like in our environment where he really gets a chance to play and have a bigger role, he’ll be more than what he was and that it’s situational why he performed poorly because he’s just not a priority on this team and he the shots he’s getting are not his shots.” Right. That might be a point of view. So Charlotte, you said Brooklyn, these teams could absolutely have interest, but also I can’t over rely on good intel from Scott’s great at getting intel, but I would want current intel from Scatoto. Oh, of course. On it versus like So, but it is important to take those data points because they were existing data points. Mhm. Right. Like we know that from Scott. So, I put that in my, you know, if if I read read that, I’m going to put that in my notes and just say, “Okay, keep that in mind.” And then if it comes up, um, so you the Nets need to get to a certain they need to get to the floor, the minimum team salary this year. Maybe they’re paid to take maybe they take on Jaylen Tyson as a young player with talent just to take a Cororo. So you’re adding a good young player and then they’re helping the Cavs get out of money and then maybe from a point of view they’re also adding a good young still young player for us. Would then the Cavs and just to take uh not to interrupt you but to go off the Cavs I believe have a Kogi who is non-g guaranteed. I mean not the Cavs the Hornets have a Kogi who’s non-g guaranteed. So, if I’m the Cavs, wouldn’t you maybe try to get in a deal with say using like a Tyson as a sweetener if you don’t want to give up draft capital to try to get a guy like a Kogi for a coor so you can just cut a Kogi’s not guaranteed salary and create what a roster spot? other I think you’d rather just trade a Cororo and Tyson to the Nets and get a second round pick back or maybe $110,000 back. Meaning that you just shave an immediate 15ish million dollars off your books, right? So you just cut that completely. Getting a player back like Aoro to cut him. Sure, you could go that round that route as well. But the question is is does Auroro have value to other teams as a player on this contract that they might be more willing to give more to Charlotte then like here he’s a throw in he’s he’s he’s another here the Cavs are getting him to cut him. I guess the question then is is a Kogi’s player value that low for Charlotte that they’re basically trading him to a team that’s just going to cut him because they could just cut him a Yeah. Um yeah. Now, I think a Kogi is probably at 7.8 expiring. Uh, also non-g guaranteed. I would say he’s more valuable than that. Uh, also for the Hornets to make that trade. Uh, right. So, let’s say that, and I’d have to check the math. I’d have to go through it like if you are matching a Kogi for a Cororo which you get my thought process on that though is that you Well, there’s a Yeah, but there’s a bug in that in that for the Hornets to take back a Cororo for a Kogi, they have to guarantee as much salary of a Kogi salary to be able to return a player back. Oh, to get a Kogi for a Cororo, if you’re sending out 7.75 and non-G guaranteed salary, it counts as zero outgoing for the Hornets. Now, that’s not prohibitive because they do have their assuming they’re over the cap, which is my projection, they would have their non- taxpayer mid-level exception. Let me double check where they are against the cap. So it bites them if they do this trade basically cuz they would have to you eat into their exceptions instead of just using cap space or the the salary to match that because it’s non-g guaranteed is what you’re saying, right? Like they they could they could do what you’re describing and I’d have to go through the the math to make sure it works, but let’s say they can guarantee a ki and then get a koro for him. Then that defeats the purpose of what you’re saying for Cleveland if you’re just cutting him. or they could do that but then use their non-t taxpayer mid-level exception to take in a so it doesn’t make sense for either party probably well it might because using your non I wouldn’t say that that’s a no most teams I say most well yeah most teams don’t use their non- tax pyramid level mostly because they don’t have them or there’s apron issues uh but what is new in the new CBA is you can use them as trade exceptions and because you can use them as trade exceptions it was new they started to be used this last year and because they started to get use this last year, it might be teams might look at it as like, oh, let’s not spend our midlevel, let’s save it as a trade exception specifically or our non-t taxpayer mid-level or whatever as a trade exception because it gives us greater flexibility. We’d rather look to make trade this year, especially when you look at the free agent market, which is tech at best. It’s pretty free agent market. So, right. So, if you’re the if you’re the Hornets and you’re saying the best player that we can get is a Cororo, then you can use your mid-level exception to just take in a Cororo. But at that point, you might not even trade a Kogi. You might just use that and keep a Kogi and try to trade him to somewhere else anyway because he might have value to someone else. So, you might be able to you and at that point, I don’t think the Cavs would even want a Coke. They don’t need a Coke. they’re trading him in this cycle just to wave him. So, you know, but again, like if the Nets aren’t interested, then that’s not an option. And so, if Charlotte is the only team, then you have to get into these kind of depths of negotiation of what makes sense for each team. And uh Cleveland’s probably like, “Yeah, we can’t take any salary back.” And the Hornets are like, “Well, we’ll do a Kogi.” And they’re like, “Well, you could you could send a Kogi to a third team, but we can’t take him.” and that that would be under the premise that he’s being guaranteed. So then they have to get a third team or they could say we’ll do it without a Ki via your mid level and the Hornets would say, “Well, we’re saving our mid-level for something else.” Or they’ll say, “Absolutely.” You know what I mean? So, um, just off of the cuff, uh, Jaylen Tyson, you know, I would I love for these conversations. I would love to see like one of these deals actually happen from that, you know, I have seen a couple of these before where I’ve had a conversation and then like a week or so later something very similar happened. Um Jaylen Tyson is at four. So Charlotte could theoretically just take in Aoro and Jaylen Tyson into both of their exceptions because they’ll have the the bianual as well. You have that every other year. So um but they’re we’re talking about them adding about 15 million and just I always do a quick tax check because a team like Charlotte shouldn’t and won’t be paying the tax. That makes sense. Yes, they’re they’re they’re under the they’re under the tax in this theoretical. They’re adding two players. Then the next issue is is that they are at 17 players, including their second round pick from New Orleans, uh their own second round pick. Uh they could certainly put one of those two on a on a two-way, but I I think they’re pretty high picks. So, usually in that high, you’re you’re you’re not doing that. Uh and they have their own first. And so, then it’s like, well, how do you clear a couple roster spaces? Maybe they could get out of uh they would probably keep Diabate. I thought he played well enough for them, but at that point they’re probably either cutting or trading a Kogi somewhere else and maybe getting out of Dcoan Jeff and then seeing if there are any other bigger moves. So it it’s it’s within the realm of reason. These are the kind of like nuances and details I go through to sort of make make sure that a fake trade which I you bleach your love streamate um that that it makes sense and it’s I put the thought into not just like I’m we’re talking about how to save the Cavs money and now we’re talking is like is Diabate or or Dwan who both had great years on minimum deals, right? So like Jeff is at and he’s two years by the way. He’s got and his non-g guaranteed, right? All not right. Very flexible deals. So either they like him or they don’t. He played well enough for them on a terrible team. So I you know we we’d have to you know but they they could look to get out of Grant Williams. they could look at it, get out of Josh Green, John Saloon, who’s terrible or even Melo or Bridges or like you know Grant Williams etc. Like they could completely go in different directions as well. So I I generally don’t make the premise of like oh this team completely changes direction in their star players or you know core players without some level of intel.
The Cavaliers and Hornets could be active in the trade market due to salary cap limitations. Cyro Asseo and Eric Pincus break down potential cap-saving trades.
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