Cavs Board

The rumored Maurice Williams trade is picking up steam. This time, it’s the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporting that discussions have taken place involving three different teams:

Bucks guard Mo Williams could be headed to Cleveland as part of a three-team trade, with the Bucks targeting point guard Luke Ridnour of the Oklahoma City franchise, formerly the Seattle SuperSonics.

As for the motivations for each team:

NBA sources confirmed there have been discussions involving the three teams. Cleveland is searching for backcourt help to complement LeBron James, and Williams could fit the bill. But the point guard carries a hefty price tag with five years and $43 million remaining on the $51 million contract Williams signed with the Bucks prior to last season, when he was an unrestricted free agent.

The Cavaliers have been unable to come to a contract agreement with point guard Delonte West, who is a restricted free agent this summer, and he could be part of the deal in a sign-and-trade, according to reports. Or Oklahoma City could receive former Bucks forward Joe Smith, who has an expiring contract and will be paid $4.8 million next season.
The Bucks are interested in Ridnour, according to league sources. The 6-foot-2 guard from Oregon has played five seasons for the SuperSonics since being selected 14th overall in the 2003 draft.

Oklahoma City suddenly has a surplus of point guards with Ridnour, Earl Watson and Russell Westbrook, the fourth overall pick in the June draft.

Well this deal would be a lot more attractive than a Williams for West swap.  While I like Joe Smith and value his offense and midrange game, if he departs, minutes open immediately for J.J. Hickson.  Cavs fans would get to see what they’ve got before entering next summer when they could be losing both Joe Smith and/or Varejao with or without a trade. 

No one would argue that adding Mo Williams is a positive if the Cavaliers are able to retain Delonte West in the process.  Now if both Smith and West would be bundled by the Cavaliers, I’m not that high on this deal, mainly due to Williams’ contract and the lack of backcourt defense the Cavaliers have.   Tarence Kinsey might actually get some run if he and the oft-injured Sasha Pavlovic are the only guards known to play defense left on the roster

The Guys over at Brewhoop.com (an incredible Bucks blog) made some excellent points regarding any possible three team deal. For starters…

Cap-wise it doesn’t work…yet. First thing’s first: the deal would have to be more complicated given that Cleveland would be taking on too much salary in the simple Williams/Ridnour/Smith scenario. Williams is owed $8.353 million next year while Smith makes $4.795 million, so while nothing would stop the Bucks or OKC from sending out more salary than they take back, Cleveland would have to add in more salary to make the deal work. Teams over the salary cap can’t take back salaries in excess of 125% of the salaries going out plus $100,000. That means that for the Cavs to get Williams, they’d have to ship out at least $6.6024 million.

Given that figure, the most likely candidates to be shipped out would be Sasha Pavlovic or Damon Jones, who both make around $4.5 million next year on expiring deals, or in Pavlovic’s case, a non-guaranteed deal that essentially is an expiring deal (think David Wesley).

The Cavs would undoubtedly choose to move Damon Jones given the choice.  The only other players that could be added to make this deal work are a resigned Delonte West, Daniel Gibson (who can’t be traded), or some combination of roster filler guys (Lance Allred, Darnell Jackson, Tarency Kinsey) with J.J. Hickson. Brewhoop, while probably in vein, discussed the possibility of adding J.J. Hickson to the mix, something that no Cavalier fan wants to see if Joe Smith would be departing as well.

First round PF J.J. Hickson is the only obvious piece of value who makes sub-MLE dollars ($1.33 million), but Hickson doesn’t make enough by himself to make the deal work.

However, the Cavs could still use the non-guaranteed minimum deals of Lance Allred and Billy Thomas in addition to Hickson to make the deal work (assuming Allred/Thomas haven’t been cut yet). Hickson signed on July 10, so the Cavs can now trade him immediately, but they’d likely prefer not to trade both Smith and Hickson without getting another big man back. And it’s very possible Cleveland would prefer to keep Hickson given the age of Ben Wallace/Joe Smith and the likelihood that Anderson Varejao (still smarting from the ugly holdout last year) will be gone by next summer at the latest.

Exactly….. well put by an astute Bucks observer.  Would they want Varejao?

Speaking of which, Varejao has always been the Cav who most interests me, but he’s oddly been left out of most rumors thus far. Given he has a no-trade clause until December 5, that might imply he and agent Dan Fegan have already told the Cavs he doesn’t want to be a Buck, or that the Cavs want to keep him for a later deal and don’t feel they need to use him to acqure Mo. Keep in mind Varejao will be an unrestricted free agent next summer and thus will want to get major minutes next year, something he might be nervous about with Bogut/Villanueva on the Bucks’ roster.

While Fegan is certainly not an agent to put anything past, I’m skeptical that the motives for Varejao not being included in rumors are that complex. In all likelihood, both Smith and Varejao are gone after this season since Smith is on his final year and Varejao is upset with the Cavaliers. But the one thing that Mike Brown has made apparent in his time with the Cavs is that he values defense, and for as terrible offensively as Varejao is, and for ineffective as he was at times last year due to injury, he still saw significant crunch time minutes and is a very good defender. Joe Smith, to the dismay of myself and other Cavs fans, probably didn’t get the burn he deserved given his more well-rounded game.

I’d imagine that the Cavs management has resigned themselves to the fact that if Varejao strings together even a respectable year, they will probably lose both guys, and in that scenario, the only thing relevant to the Cavs would be who they feel is more important to win a title now.  Anderson was big in slowing Garnett, and he was definitely valuable in the NBA Finals run of two years ago. I would anticipate the reason for not seeing Varejao’s name in rumors is because it first requires seeking Fegan’s consent prior to December 5th, and because the Cavs management expect him to play a larger role than Smith would this season. 

One last hiccup that could complicate this deal for the Cavs is the resigning of West.

Typical of most RFAs, West has been at odds with Cleveland over a new contract and reportedly wants more than fellow combo guard Daniel Gibson’s five years, $21 million deal. As such, doing any deal involving West would be complex since a new contract would need to be negotiated that satisfies West while also working under the cap. West will likely be a base year compensation player as soon as he signs, though a big three-team trade could probably accomodate the restrictions on trading BYC players.

Drew Gooden had similar such restrictions on him when many Cavs fans were hoping that his resigning would be followed shortly thereafter by his departure via trade. To oversimplify the base year compensation, basically half of West’s first year salary could be counted towards making a trade work, so if he signed for $5 million a season, then his $2.5 million added to Joe Smith’s 4.8 million would exceed the $6.6 million needed to make this trade possible.

So are you curious as to the reactions of the other teams? Well here’s what Brewhoop had to say:

While I can’t speak as well to the Cleveland and OKC perspectives, Bucks fans will no doubt question whether shedding Williams’ salary and poor fit is worth more than…well, Luke Ridnour. Of course, this is all premature given I just said that Bucher’s version of the deal doesn’t actually work. But let’s consider Ridnour’s merits anyway.

Ridnour’s remaining deal (two years at an even $6.5 million each) is palatable, and in the absence of additional salary coming to Milwaukee it provides more breathing room against the luxury tax, which could be of use if the Bucks make further deals this year that add salary. Still, his deal doesn’t do much for the Bucks’ 09/10 luxury tax issues, which would be one of the main appeals of moving Williams for a package of expiring contracts. In the latter scenario the Bucks could at least free up enough dollars to use their MLE next summer, but adding Ridnour’s two-year deal instead brings that into question, depending on what the Bucks do with Charlie Villanueva and Ramon Sessions (both RFA’s next summer, with CV eligible for a $4.62 million qualifying offer).

So now we wait and see what happens.  ESPN is reporting that Cleveland is the one who has stalled the trade, because they’re balking at Williams contract, but if adding Williams is as simple as moving Joe Smith and Damon Jones, it’s something that warrants strong consideration. 

The Cavs would be losing their 4th big man (Smith) and and a guy who won’t see minutes (Jones) for a guy who could turn out to be playing starter’s minutes (along with West/Gibson/Pavlovic) as some sort of hybrid point guard/shooting guard.

Williams has his deficiencies (defense most notably) and getting others involved isn’t his strong suit, but as has been pointed out time and time again, playing with Lebron has lessened the need for a traditional pass first point guard.  Having guys who can create for themselves that move off the ball and knock down open shots is a commodity, and while Williams’ deal isn’t all that favorable, his skill set may be a great complement. 

If the Cavs really think he can add the type of consistency they’ve been lacking from their backcourt when it comes to aggressively looking to score from the perimeter, then it may be a risk worth taking.  However moving both Smith and Jones, would eliminate two flexible trade pieces that may or may not be needed in any deadline deals involving Wally Szczebiak.  They’d still have either Pavlovic or Jones (depending on who they trade), but many Cavs fans are wary of putting all the eggs in the Mo Williams basket, in hopes of something better.

Links: Waiting For Next Year is also talking about the Williams/Ridnour/Smith deal, and if you haven’t read Rock King’s piece on Lebron heading to Europe yet, do yourself a favor and check it out.