If you’re an optimistic Cavs fan you’ve undoubtedly thought about the idea of Lebron James being joined in Cleveland by a player of Dwayne Wade or Chris Bosh’s stature. It’s a possibility that we’ve discussed as the Cavs approach the Summer of 2010, but after watching the Olympics, the Plains Dealer’s Patrick McManamon can’t help but consider the possibility of adding another superstar alongside Lebron James when that summer arrives. Here’s some of what he had to say (click here to read the whole article).
The vision — and it’s not a pipe dream — has James staying and playing on the same team as Dwyane Wade. Or Chris Bosh. Or Josh Howard. Or Amare Stoudamire. Or any of the other big-name NBA guys who can become a free agent in the summer of 2010.
Don’t laugh.
There is only one NBA team positioned to sign two superstars in 2010, and that’s the Cavaliers.
That’s because there’s only one team with a superstar and the cap room to sign another.
Everyone has been focusing on the cap space of the New Jersey Nets or the New York Knicks or Athens, Greece, but the Cavs quietly have manipulated themselves to the point that they have more salary-cap room than anyone for that offseason.
The Cavs have almost $30 million in cap space — and that counts James’ salary, which will go away when he opts out of his final year.
It should be noted that there will be other teams attempting to carve out cap space that could attempt the same thing as the Cavs. But it’s dependent upon them already possessing one of those NBA superstars and being able to open up enough space for an additional max deal. While it’s a rarity that things work out when trying to coordinate two massive signings (i.e. Clippers), this summer certainly brought together some key players in how teams will plan for and spend their money. You have imagine some hypothetical “wouldn’t it be nice to play together” conversations happened.
There is also consideration that must be given to what the Cavs will do with their expiring contracts between now and then. On a team so desperately trying to get a title, it’s going to take a lot of restraint by Danny Ferry not to move any of these attractive expiring deals and instead keep them for the cap relief that would be needed to execute a two-star summer of 2010 like Patrick alludes to in his article.
If any of those deals get moved this year or during the 2009-2010 season, the Cavs would likely be taking back longer contracts in order to upgrade the talent around Lebron. That’s the value in the expiring deal, hence why teams give up better players to accumulate them. It will be a calculated measure of “win now” versus “how big of a splash can the Cavs make in the Summer of 2010″ that determines the roster moves over the next two years.
Just something to dream about in afterglow of American gold.
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Patrick made the same mistake I once did and got called out on by one of our commenters…It’s not as simple as Patrick makes it out to be. You can’t just sign anyone you want and then turn your attention to your Bird Rights players. In the CBA, there’s a clause that says that your free agents actually count against your salary cap until they either sign with you or with someone else. So in the summer of 2010, LeBron’s salary will still be on the Cavs’ books if they try to sign someone else first. The Cavs probably can still make sure they keep enough space to get it done, but it’s nowhere near as simple as he tries to make it sound. He probably should have ran this story by Windhorst before running with it, as I’m sure BW would have cleared up the point.Bottom line is, the Cavs wont have $30 million coming off the books, they will have $30 million minus however much LeBron’s cap charge is worth.
Very true…. He’s still learning the new beat, but the spirit of the piece is appreciated. Loved your piece on blogger roundtable Rock. Check it out here readers:
http://hardwoodparoxysm.blogspot.com/2008/08/nba-blogger-roundtable-role-of-small.html
Thanks Bob, appreciate it.
I find Patrick to be a very interesting writer. He writes a lot of his pieces almost in the same tone as bloggers write, which is kind of cool. I don’t think he’s always super accurate, and I think sometimes he reaches a bit too far, but it’s a different style of writing that you don’t see from a lot of sports writers.