DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum NBA Finals: Avoiding the Sweep

Here's a breakdown I found of team's cap situation. The first number is there actual cap space now, and the second is the cap space they'll have if they renounced the rights to all their current free agents:



I could see him taking a $21M contract with paycut, just to get onto the Rockets. The problem is that Chris Paul is one of those cap holds, and he'd be the main reason he'd want to go play there.

The Sixers at $30 million, makes a ton of sense though.

The Lakers have $60 million if they renounce everyone. That would allow them to sign two max free agents. The idea is that they'll sign Paul George and Lebron. But I don't get how that works for them. They'll have the majority of their money tied up in George, Lebron and Brandon Ingram and Kyle Kuzma. The first three all play SG. Lebron's best "other" position in PF, and that's taken by Kuzma. You'd have Ball at PG, who's been underwhelming, and I can't see Nike being thrilled with Lebron helping indirectly promote the Big Baller Brand. Even if that flys, those 5 and Tyler Ennis would pretty much be their roster. You think they're getting out of the second round of the Western Conference, let alone the Conference Finals? Paul George and Russell Westbrook couldn't even get out of the second round, and that's essentially the same thing you'd get with PG and Lebron.

To much angst caused by this guy. He wont go to San Antonio because his meddling won't fly there. He's the best player but the worst GM. He gets off on all the speculation about himself.

Back to this, as I mentioned before, he can't just outright sign with San Antonio because of the cap situation, and I don't see any way of getting both CP3 and Lebron there ... BUT ... there's a possibility of a sign-and-trade, if Cleveland wishes to facilitate the move to get assets in return, like when he went to Miami. Lebron could sign close to the max and then get traded to SA for Kawhi Leonard and Pau Gasol. We'd at least get Kawhi back in the process, and maybe they add some further draft picks or something else to sweeten the pot for us. Lebron would get his max deal, and get to play with Pops for his last years, which are two things he seems to want, and San Antonio would still be in decent shape for a playoff run as they wouldn't have to gut their roster to make room for Lebron.

I doubt SA is a serious possibility, but from SA's perspective, the whole idea would be to pair Kawhi and Lebron. No way we'd get Kawhi back in a sign and trade.. it'd completely defeat the purpose for both the Lebron and the Spurs.

You're right

It's the NBA though. This is the league where an offensive player can awkwardly launch themselves at a defender while taking a shot, and it's a foul on the defense if there's contact. There's 127 answers (many of them in-depth) on a popular FAQ to clarify rules about the salary cap. Logic and the NBA often don't go together.. as a fan, sometimes you just have to accept that.

I agree. It's like the NBA makes up the rules as they go.

If LBJ leaves, I just hope he respects us this time and doesn't go on national TV. Let us let you depart in peace King, a simple thank you social media post is all I need. I know you bled for this team, I don't need much other than just a tad bit of respect for the city and no national televised event.

+1

I don't want to bash Kyrie because he hit The Shot in 2016 and also wanted to stay in Cleveland before Lebron came back. He was devoted when he probably should have left and help deliver a title to us, so he doesn't owe this town a thing. However...

He's made of glass*, won't play D and if we forced him to stay after the trade demand, he would have sat out, played with half effort or ripped this team apart from within, neither of which would have been good for a team trying to get back to the Finals, let alone beat the Warriors.

It was a great run but it had to end.

*Kyrie roughly plays 76% of every season, lower if you count all the postseason games he would have missed in 2015 + the whole Celtics run this year. You're not going to build a dynasty around a player that misses that much time (and doesn't play defense).

Not really. Kawhi and the Spurs are having major internal issues right now. He basically sat out all year for them when the team said he could of been playing half the season. He may have burned his bridges with them and the rumor is that they could be looking to trade him.

Even with all that drama, they still made the playoffs without him. Replace his DNP with Lebron and where would the Spurs finished last year? What would Lebron be like with a real coach behind him?

The Spurs don't have the cap room to get Lebron in, but a sign-and-trade for Kawhi, might be enough to entice the Cavs to do a deal. Replacing a disgruntled Kawhi with Lebron might be enough to make the Spurs a contender again. While it wouldn't be a landslide victory for either team, it does at least lean towards a win-win solution.

Or:

- Lebron opts in .... then Cleveland trades him to Boston for Al Horford and 1st round pick (we can always flip Horford in another deal for assets) and whatever else works. James would love to play with Tatum, Smart, Brown, Irving, Hayward, and STEVENS

- We trade Love for any assets possible

- Draft the best young talent possible

- Attract LBJ to come back and play with his son in 5 years

Lebron opts in.

we keep love.

we trade the #8 and a bunch of losers to charlotte for Kemba

Who's left after the discarding of the losers?...

kemba was the deadline trade i was hoping for. He's better than anything we got in the trade

give them the number 8, some cap filler, George hill and get Walker and Batum

winners.

Not to mention SA is in a situation they probably need to blow it up anyways..majority of their dynasty is gone or retired or should be. Because of Pop they still compete, but they aren't realistically beating houston or GS with or without lebron

They just better keep Nance Jr. He hustled and tried to make things happen while everybody else stood around.

If Danny Green and/or Rudy Gay opt out it becomes more realistic.

The Lakers seem like the most realistic landing spot of all the potential landing spots. They already have enough cap space for two max salaries and they could trade some of their young guys (Ingram, Ball, and/or Kuzma) along with Deng's contract for another pretty good veteran.

A Lakers team with LeBron, Paul George, and Kawhi Leonard is not very far fetched.

I agree Peen.. I'd like him to stay, I think he will go.. either way, he needs to man up and tell the FO as soon as possible so they can plan accordingly.. he doesn't have to know WHERE he's going to tell the FO it looks like he's leaving...

Whether the Cavs are retooling to try to build around LeBron.. or.. are they trying to dump big contracts, tank, and start over for a run in a couple years.. those are big choices and if he holds out to the last possible moment with his "indecision" it could set the Cavs back an entire year in whichever they choose to do..

And I will say this, if he is going to stay.. sign a damn 3 year deal so any FAs we go after have a comfort level that he is going to stay.. if he stays and signs another 1-1.. it will tick me off too.

A team with three Small Forwards and nothing else?

LeBron hates Dan Gilbert. He is definitely going to try and screw him one last time if he can.

He will definitely sign a 1-and-1 if he signs back with the Cavs.

*IF* he signs with us, it would actually be in his best interest to sign a 5 year deal for the max. There's was some sort of stipulation in the CBA that if a player reached age 36 within their contract, that they weren't eligible for the max possible deal. Lebron and the Players Union just got that negotiated up to 38 years, so now he can technically sign the 5 year deal and get max money. If he signs with us, it's $41M a year for 5 years (Over $200M total). With another team, it would be $38M a year for four years ($152M total). In the later case he would would end his contract at age 37 and likely not get a very big payday after that. With the Cavs, he could play until he's 38, making the most money in NBA history.

If he hated him that much, why come back to begin with?

He's going to sign a 1 year contract no matter where he goes imo. Mav has said that LeBron's Nike contract is worth more than a billion dollars, so playing in the NBA isn't his primary cash cow anymore. He's made it pretty clear that winning NBA Championships is the only thing that matters to him and signing 1 year contracts is the best way to do that. I would be surprised if this is the last team LeBron will be on.

Because it was the best decision at the time.

I don't actually know if LeBron hates Dan Gilbert, but I've heard/read many respected people say their relationship is icy at best.

Also, both other times LeBron left a place the teams were blindsided.

Except that Nike isn't paying Lebron a billion dollars to lose. Lebron has a vested interest in winning. The Cavs are in a bad spot. We overpaid for a lot of these roleplayers and it's going to be difficult to offload them on somebody else. Some miracle will have to happen to turn this team around and keep Lebron.

The fans will understand, as long as Lebron is respectful about leaving, and Lebron knows this.

I think he is gone. I think he goes to Houston.

Just my opinion but whoring yourself out in one year increments to win a championship only tarnishes anything else he does in the game. There's some challenge to signing one year with GSW and winning a title? Not really impressed by that.

Yeah, that's my point. I don't want LeBron back in Cleveland for at least another 3 or 4 years. We once again have a chance to build a dynasty. Let's not blow it like we did this last time.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that LeBron should do this.

I completely want LeBron to whore himself out on 1 year deals.

not going to happen

If the Cavs sign and trade LeBron to the Spurs for Kawhi this off-season then I promise to never post about basketball on this site again.

I don't really see how re-signing with the Cavs is compatible with screwing Gilbert over, even if it's just a one year deal.

If he wants to screw over Gilbert, all Lebron would have to do is exit gracefully. Thank the fans for all their support, etc. Be tactful, don't do any ridiculous 'The Decision' type deals.

Carefully leak to the press, through anonymous sources, that he really wanted to commit to Cleveland but disagreed with some moves (Irving trade) and couldn't see eye to eye with ownership.

Let the post-Lebron reality set in. It may take some time.. we'll see what kind of team Dan Gilbert, Koby Altman, and Tyronn Lue can put together.

If they rebuild, I don't want Lue part of the equation. He has no ability to develop players. I could see a guy like Jackson getting another shot.

Mark Jackson is just a fat Tyronn Lue.

not even...you ask any of the warrior players or steve kerr himself...he'll tell you their development, especially on defense was because of Jackson

what if he decides that Boston is the best, for a few reasons:

1. They have good young talent: Brown, Tatum, Smart, Rozier, Larkin
2. They have good veteran presence: Hayward, Horford, Morris
3. They have great legacy
4. They are in the East
5. They have a great young coach
6. He can screw Kyrie over because they'll probably trade him to acquire Lebron

He can't really "decide" any one team works for him and just go there. Unless he wants to leave millions upon millions on the table. Remember two major things: He's eligible to make $38M a year from a team not named the Cavs, and a team cannot give that to him unless they are $38 million under the cap.

So Lebron can only get on a team and get paid one of three ways:

1) The team just signs up him to $38M/yr outright. Only the Lakers and Bulls can do that. The Cavs have Bird-rights and could sign him to $41M/yr for 5 years if they really want to.

2) The team is close enough to $38M that Lebron can threaten to sign there for less (like say $30M a year) and the Cavs are faced with losing him for nothing or doing a sign-and-trade to get something back. The closer Lebron gets to the veteran minimum, the more likely the Cavs can just say, "Forget it, just make that low salary" and he's stuck at that salary.

This is essentially what he did with Miami. He was willing to take something like $5M a year less than the max, because Miami had the room to do it. The Cavs were willing to sign Lebron to the near-max then trade him to Miami for a couple assets rather than telling him to just deal with a pay-cut. If Lebron wants to play for the Celtics, they would either have to miraculously clear $25M-$45M in cap space through trades with other teams just to get Lebron to a reasonable contract number or Lebron would have to take the vet minimum. Unless ...

3) The team he wants to sign with is willing to do a decent sign-and-trade deal that the Cavs are also willing to do. Which becomes a little more tricky, because unless that team has some cap space, the salaries getting traded would have to match up.

That's why I bring up the Kawhi trade. If the Spurs were able some sort of deal which swapped Kawhi and maybe a few other assets for Lebron, maybe the Cavs take that. The Celtics are in the same boat. Maybe they could offer Kyrie and Al Horford in a deal that would give the Cavs some assets back in place of Lebron. But again, the Cavs aren't required to do any such deal. If Lebron really wants to go to Boston or San Antonio, and they can't work out a comparable deal with the Cavs, then Lebron is basically looking at signing a vet minimum.

Now I am rooting for a sign and trade with the Celtics with Kyrie back on the Cavs, lol.

Haha, that would be incredibly ackward but I'd love to have Kyrie back.

I don't want Kyrie. He is an ass who dissed Cle. I want a team that can beat Boston into the ground. At full strength.