OCTOBER 21, 12:32pm: The Cavs are at an impasse with Williams and are trying to attach his contract to McRae in a trade in order to reduce their tax penalties, writes Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. Windhorst also confirms that the Cavs were essentially showcasing McRae during the preseason.
OCTOBER 20, 3:31pm: After waiving Toney Douglas last week, the Cavaliers remain in the market for a veteran point guard to back up Kyrie Irving and complement rookie Kay Felder, reports Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com. According to Vardon, the Cavs have engaged in “advanced discussions” with at least one team and hope to make a deal before the start of the regular season next week.
[RELATED: Wolves, others have inquired on Iman Shumpert]
While Vardon doesn’t offer specifics on the Cavs’ negotiations, he points to a couple players who could be moved in potential deals. Jordan McRae had a strong preseason, but doesn’t have a clear role in the Cavs’ rotation, and could appeal to trade partners. Additionally, Mo Williams intends to retire, but hasn’t formally filed his papers and remains on Cleveland’s books — his contract could be used to help match salaries.
According to Vardon, the Cavs have explored the free agent market for a potential solution at the point, participating in contract discussions with Norris Cole, Mario Chalmers, and Kirk Hinrich. However, Cole signed a deal with a team in China, and Cleveland doesn’t believe Chalmers will be fully health until the new year.
If the Cavaliers do make a trade, they could put one or more of their traded player exceptions to use. Cleveland is one of just four NBA teams to currently hold a TPE, and their biggest exception is worth $9,638,554, which would accommodate a majority of the contracts around the league. Still, as Bobby Marks of The Vertical notes in a piece about waiver claims, the club will have to be careful about adding too much extra salary. Based on their current position in the tax, the Cavs would be penalized $3.25MM for every $1MM they add to their 2016/17 salary total.
CLE gets Tyus Jones, MIN gets Shumpert, Mo Williams and McRae. By waiving someone like Rasual Butler, MIN could fit the incoming salaries with cap room so no need to match salaries. CLE could get their backup PG as well as a nice-sized trade exception.
This proposed trade would be giving the Timberwolves approximately $12 million is salary to the Cavaliers $2.4 million. I wouldn’t trade McRae straight up for Tyus Jones as McRae a lesser version of Kevin Martin or Jamal Crawford is the only shooting guard in reserve that has capabilities of providing quick offense by his assorment in slashing drives to the hoop drawing fouls or scoring with deft shots using the backboard for successful shots. Two positions are weakened by this trade the shooting guard position with backup player now the offensively challenged Deandre Liggins and defensive lapse at backup point guard without Shumpert who would be the backup point guard if not traded as acquiring Felder will prove to be a massive mistake as based upon his set of skills he is way too short to be anything but a defensive liability and routinely gets shots and passes blocked on offense and is nearly 6 ” shorter than the average NBA point guard an insurmountable challenge to the mighty mite.
The better trade is Shumpert for Rubio straight up with salaries nearly equal and acquiring a tall accurate passing playmaker guard who is superior to Shumpert. Plus now McRae can be used as instant offense of the bench for JR Smith. A much better scenario for the Cavaliers than your one sided trade.
can someone explain this to me? williams says hes retiring but hasn’t filed the paperwork. so i’m assuming he’s still getting paid. that sounds insanely greedy and is holding the team back from making moves. how is that legal?
He gets his money either way and (if Cavs don’t move him somehow) he’ll count against CLE’s cap either way. That’s how it went down with KG as well.
If the team really wanted to recoup the cap space and his salary, there are ways to fight it, but it would be a long legal process that could be contentious because Williams seems to believe the team didn’t handle his knee injury properly. In most cases, it’s simply easier for both sides to work out a buyout arrangement of some sort (of course, in cases like Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett, their teams just waived them, allowing them to collect their salaries).
Talk to the Bulls lol.