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Cavs Sign Koby Altman To Long-Term Extension

November 1st, 2019 at 12:14pm CST by Luke Adams

12:14pm: The Cavaliers have made their new deal with Altman official, issuing a press release to announce his contract extension.

“Koby has been a culture-driver and an innovator who has built a fresh, new foundation and environment for our front office and team that inspires everyone involved,” Gilbert said in a statement. “He is a passionate leader who is executing a very dynamic, strategic plan for the future of the team and our vision for growth and success.”

10:13am: The Cavaliers have reached an agreement on a long-term contract extension for general manager Koby Altman, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

It’s not yet clear how long Altman’s new contract will run, but Wojnarowski notes that Cleveland’s GM initially signed a three-year deal when he took over for David Griffin as the Cavaliers’ head of basketball operations in 2017. That means his contract would have expired in 2020 if not for his new extension.

Altman’s first major move for the Cavaliers was the August 2017 trade that sent Kyrie Irving to Boston in exchange for Isaiah Thomas, Ante Zizic, Jae Crowder, and a future first-round pick that became Collin Sexton. The franchise won 50 games and made it to the NBA Finals that year, but bottomed out in 2018/19 following LeBron James‘ departure.

After being tasked with handling Irving’s trade request and fortifying a contender during his early days as the Cavs’ GM, Altman has shifted to rebuilding mode since July 2018. In addition to drafting Darius Garland with the No. 5 pick this spring, Altman has focused on asset-gathering and player development, bringing in Michigan head coach John Beilein to lead the retooling club. The team has also signed Kevin Love, Larry Nance, and Cedi Osman to extensions during that time.

Altman is the first general manager of the Dan Gilbert era in Cleveland to receive a contract extension from the Cavs’ owner, Wojnarowski observes. Gilbert has owned the Cavs since 2005, with Altman, Griffin, Chris Grant, and Danny Ferry running the front office since then.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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Cavs Won’t Exercise Ante Zizic’s 2020/21 Option

October 30th, 2019 at 3:36pm CST by Luke Adams

The Cavaliers won’t be picking up their 2020/21 option on Ante Zizic‘s rookie scale contract, league sources tell Tim Bontemps of ESPN (Twitter link). The option would have been worth $3,872,215.

[RELATED: Decisions On 2020/21 Rookie Scale Team Options]

If Cleveland had exercised that fourth-year option, it would have put Zizic on track to become eligible for an extension during the 2020 offseason and restricted free agency during the summer of 2021.

Instead, he’ll become an unrestricted free agent next July. Assuming he finishes the season with the Cavs, they’ll be ineligible to offer him a starting salary higher than $3,872,215 on a new contract.

Zizic, 22, was part of the trade package that the Cavaliers received from the Celtics for Kyrie Irving during the summer of 2017. However, his contributions in Cleveland through two years have been modest. In 91 games, he averaged 6.4 PPG and 4.2 RPG in 14.2 minutes per contest. He has yet to make his 2019/20 debut due to a left foot injury.

Zizic, who is now on an expiring contract, has a $2,281,800 cap hit for the 2019/20 season.

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Tristan Thompson Wants To Make All-Defense

October 30th, 2019 at 2:10pm CST by Luke Adams
  • Tristan Thompson, who is in a contract year with the Cavaliers, has never made an All-Defense team, but wants that to change this season, as Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com relays. “I want to guard the best wings and big on every team,” Thompson said. “I want to make their night tough, to gain that respect defensively around the league. [A] goal of mine is to make first team All-Defense. The way you do that is guarding the best players.”
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Rookie Scale Option Decisions Still To Come

October 30th, 2019 at 1:05pm CST by Luke Adams

Thursday, October 31 is the deadline for teams to exercise rookie scale options for the 2020/21 season. These options apply to either the third or fourth year of a rookie scale contract for players who were drafted in the first round. If they’re not exercised, the player becomes an unrestricted free agent the following summer.

These decisions must be made a year in advance, so even though Lonzo Ball has just started his third season, the Pelicans are already required to exercise his fourth-year option for $11MM+.

Most clubs facing these options decisions have already made them. As our tracker shows, of the 58 rookie scale options for 2020/21, 48 have been exercised so far. That leaves just 10 outstanding rookie scale options to be picked up or turned down by the end of the day on Thursday.

Here are the 2020/21 rookie scale options that have yet to be exercised:

Teams only have to take action if they intend to pick up these options. Otherwise, they can simply let the deadline pass without exercising them. That’s reportedly what the Grizzlies intend to do with Jackson; we’ll see if any other teams follow suit.

Players like Bagley, Fox, and Okogie are locks to have their options picked up, but that’s not necessarily the case for everyone on this list. Zizic and Swanigan are among the candidates to potentially join Jackson as unrestricted free agents in 2020.

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Cavaliers Pick Up Collin Sexton’s 2020/21 Option

October 29th, 2019 at 4:47pm CST by ChrisCrouse

The Cavaliers have picked up Collin Sexton‘s third-year option, sources tell Kelsey Russo of The Athletic (Twitter link).

Sexton will make approximately $4.99MM during the 2020/21 season. He has another team option on his contract for the following campaign. Assuming it’s exercised as well, he’ll become eligible for a rookie scale extension during the 2021 offseason.

Cleveland selected Sexton with the No. 8 overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. He started 72 games for the club during his rookie season and has started all three games this year next to 2019 first-rounder Darius Garland.

Sexton isn’t the only Cavaliers player with a rookie scale option for 2020/21. Cleveland will have until Thursday to make a decision on Ante Zizic’s fourth-year option, worth approximately $3.87MM.

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John Henson To Miss 2-4 Weeks

October 27th, 2019 at 4:00pm CST by clarkcrum

Cavaliers center John Henson will be sidelined for approximately two-to-four weeks after suffering a strained right hamstring during Cleveland’s home-opening win over Indiana last night, per an official release from the team.

It’s an unfortunate turn of events for the 28-year-old big man, who dealt with injuries to both his groin and ankle during the preseason and underwent wrist surgery last season. The Cavs were even recently reported to have become somewhat frustrated with Henson’s injury woes, so the timing of this latest setback is not ideal.

Henson, who hadn’t played in a regular-season game in nearly a year, logged just eight minutes on Saturday night.

As Bobby Marks of ESPN notes, Henson has a $500K bonus in his contract that he only earns if he appears in 75 or more games this season. It’s now all but certain that Henson will fail to meet that 75-game mark as a result of this latest injury.

Henson will not travel with the team to Milwaukee and will instead begin a period of treatment and rehabilitation. His return to play will be updated at a later date.

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Cavaliers Notes: Osman, Love, McKinnie

October 26th, 2019 at 6:34pm CST by Arthur Hill

The four-year, $31MM extension that Cedi Osman signed today was always his preference instead of trying his luck in free agency, writes Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com. It’s a team-friendly contract, Fedor notes, starting at $8.75MM and decreasing each year, with a non-guaranteed final season at $6.65MM. Although Osman might have found a better offer on the open market, he likes the security of having a long-term deal in Cleveland.

“I really feel like I’m home,” he said after today’s shootaround. “I just really wanted to stay where I belong. I love being here, I love the organization. I’m just happy here, with the coaches, with the organization, with my teammates, we have a great brotherhood in here. It’s a great opportunity for myself to grow and to learn during those extra four years I’m going to have here. I’m just really happy that I’m going to be here for the long term.”

Osman’s role with the team has expanded since he made the decision to leave Turkey in 2017. His first Cavs team still had LeBron James and was headed to its fourth straight NBA Finals. Osman got into 61 games as a rookie, but only averaged 11 minutes per night and barely saw the court in the postseason. He moved into the starting lineup last year and became a double-figures scorer.

“He’s just the type of young man that works hard every single day in practice, very low maintenance and he’s young and growing as a player,” said coach John Beilein. “That’s been the biggest thing. Takes a business-like approach to his career.”

There’s more out of Cleveland:

  • Getting more shots for Kevin Love will be a priority, Fedor relays in a separate story. The former All-Star shot the ball just nine times in a season-opening loss, and Beilein said it would be “crazy” if he doesn’t have a larger role in the offense. Beilein, who was coaching his first NBA game, apologized to Love afterward for playing him 20 minutes in the first half and has given his assistants the power to make substitutions for tired players.
  • In another piece, Fedor predicts that Love will remain with the Cavaliers throughout the season, even though he’s the team’s most valuable trade asset. Fedor notes that the team’s record was far better with Love in the lineup last season, and the front office has stated that it has no regrets about giving him a four-year, $120MM extension last summer.
  • Beilein and general manager Koby Altman see Alfonzo McKinnie as an asset to the team culture, which is among the reasons Cleveland claimed him off waivers this week, notes Sam Amico of SI.com.
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Cavs Sign Cedi Osman To Four-Year Extension

October 26th, 2019 at 2:30pm CST by clarkcrum

OCTOBER 26, 2:30pm: The Cavaliers have officially signed Osman to his four-year extension, the team announced today in a press release.

OCTOBER 24, 8:59pm: In his full story for Cleveland.com, Fedor details that Osman will earn $8.75MM, $8.05MM, $7.35MM, and $6.65MM (non-guaranteed) over the life of the extension.

OCTOBER 24, 7:48pm: According to Marc Stein of The New York Times, the Cavaliers and forward Cedi Osman have agreed to a four-year, $31MM contract extension, per Osman’s representatives. Brian Windhorst of ESPN adds that the figure is $30.8MM and that the final year of the extension is non-guaranteed.

The extension, which will begin next season, will keep the 24-year-old Macedonian under team control through the 2023/24 season. Four seasons is the longest extension Osman could have received, as veteran contract extensions (besides super-max deals) are limited to five total seasons, counting the years remaining on the current contract.

Osman, who is scheduled to make just over $2.9MM this season in the last year of his current deal, could have earned up to 120% of the estimated average salary in the first year of the extension, or just under $11.5MM. Clearly, he’ll not reach that figure based on the reported value of the deal.

Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com hears that Osman’s salary will decline over the life of the contract and Bobby Marks of ESPN adds that his 2020/21 salary will be $8.6MM. At a decline of 8% per season – the maximum amount allowed under the CBA – Osman’s contract would be worth just under $30.3MM, which is close to the figures reported by Stein and Windhorst.

The Cavaliers will surrender some cap flexibility this upcoming offseason by signing Osman to a deal with a first-year salary about $3.1MM higher than his cap hit would have been, but with so many other potential free agents signing extensions, the Cavs were smart to lock up Osman for the future.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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NBA Teams With Open Roster Spots To Start Season

October 23rd, 2019 at 9:00am CST by Luke Adams

As of Monday’s roster cutdown deadline, no NBA team is carrying more than 17 players in total — 15 on standard contracts and two on two-way deals. However, not every team is making use of all 17 roster spots available to them.

Currently, a third of the league’s 30 teams have at least one open roster spot, either on their regular roster or in their two-way slots.

For most clubs, that decision is financially motivated — teams like the Magic and Nuggets are getting dangerously close to the tax line and prefer to avoid moving even closer by paying an extra player or two. The Thunder and Trail Blazers are already over the tax and won’t want to push their projected bills higher.

For teams like the Heat and Warriors, the decision not to carry a 15th man is dictated by the hard cap — neither club currently has sufficient room under the hard cap for more than 14 players.

Teams’ reasoning for retaining an open two-way spot is less clear. Those players earn very modest salaries and don’t count against the cap, so finances shouldn’t be a factor. Perhaps the teams with two-way openings are still considering their options before G League training camps begin next week, recognizing that any two-way player they sign now is unlikely to actually play for the NBA team this week.

Listed below, with the help of our roster counts breakdown, are the teams that aren’t carrying full rosters.

Teams with an open 15-man roster spot:

  • Atlanta Hawks
  • Cleveland Cavaliers
  • Denver Nuggets
  • Golden State Warriors
  • Miami Heat
  • Oklahoma City Thunder
  • Orlando Magic
    • Note: The Magic have two open roster spots, giving them two weeks to get to the required minimum of 14 players.
  • Portland Trail Blazers

Teams with an open two-way slot:

  • Brooklyn Nets
  • Phoenix Suns
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Cavs Claim Alfonzo McKinnie Off Waivers

October 21st, 2019 at 6:01pm CST by Luke Adams

6:01pm: The claim is official, according to the team’s Twitter feed.

4:13pm: As expected, forward Alfonzo McKinnie didn’t make it through waivers after being cut by the Warriors on Saturday. The Cavaliers, who had second priority in the NBA’s waiver order, have claimed McKinnie, a league source tells Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com (Twitter link).

McKinnie, 27, emerged as a rotation player for Golden State last season, averaging 4.7 PPG and 3.4 RPG with a .487/.356/.563 shooting line in 72 regular season games (13.9 MPG). He also appeared in 22 playoff games for the club.

However, the Warriors were facing a roster crunch this fall due to their hard cap, and had to choose between keeping either McKinnie or Marquese Chriss. The Dubs opted for Chriss, forcing them to waive McKinnie, since he wasn’t eligible to have his contract converted into a two-way deal.

McKinnie’s minimum salary for the 2019/20 season will remain non-guaranteed until January, so the Cavs have the flexibility to audition him for the next couple months before making a decision on whether to fully guarantee his salary.

Cleveland had only been carrying 13 players on standard contracts, so no corresponding move was necessary to make room for McKinnie. The team is now approximately $1.3MM below the tax line, tweets cap expert Albert Nahmad.

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