jbk1234 wrote:Revenged25 wrote:jbk1234 wrote:
From my perspective, you're on the clock to put together the best team you can before Mobley extends, because once he comes off his rookie deal, it gets a whole lot harder to make moves. I don't mind them surrendering a late first to give a guy a test drive (not a fan of the target or added value surrendered, but whatever). I wouldn't mind them signing Sexton to a team-friendly deal. But they need to be very, very careful not to make moves that remove the possibility of better, unknown options between now and when Mobley comes off his rookie deal.
I mean to keep the most options open the Cavs will 100% either extend Sexton or have him part of a S&T where they can bring back salary that can immediately or soon to be used as an expiring contract in a future trade. Honestly the Cavs are going to be capped out going forward no matter what so they need to keep a certain amount of contracts on the books to facilitate trades. I think that's also part of why they went after LeVert over someone like Powell. Powell has multiple years on his deal that are increasing year after year, so if he ends up regressing in a different role for the Cavs or they realize he's not performing as well as they hoped, then his value will tank and with all the years left on his deal it'll be harder to move. With LeVert even if he doesn't work out as hoped, he'll still end up an expiring contract that they can flip in a trade for a more established player to a team ready to hit the reset button.
The Cavs $38M coming off the books in the summer of 2023, and if they're good enough, they'll have options. The only thing they can't do is go full Knicks and sign a bunch of team-friendly deals that turn out to be untradeable because the other 29 teams have a very different definition of *team-friendly.* This is also why I'm convinced former agents don't make the best GMs.
I don't think the Cavs' potential to actually land free agents is affected that much by how good the team is. I mean, it takes us from "ask Cleveland for an offer so the team I want to go to will make a competitive offer" to "ask Cleveland for an offer so the team I want to go to will make the same offer", but I still see us paying retail price for most free agents and far, far away from the rotation-vets-on-minimum-deals market that teams like the Lakers get. We will have cap space, but I wouldn't be surprised if all we do is re-sign Love and LeVert when we get there.









