2017 Offseason In Review: Cleveland Cavaliers

Hoops Rumors is breaking down the 2017 offseason for all 30 NBA teams, revisiting the summer’s free agent signings, trades, draft picks, departures, and more. We’ll evaluate each team’s moves from the last several months and look ahead to what the 2017/18 season holds for all 30 franchises. Today, we’re focusing on the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Signings:

• Kyle Korver: Three years, $22.06MM. Third year partially guaranteed ($3.44MM).
• Jose Calderon: One year, minimum salary.
• Jeff Green: One year, minimum salary.
• Derrick Rose: One year, minimum salary.
• Dwyane Wade: One year, minimum salary.
• John Holland: Two-way contract. Two years. $50K guaranteed.

Camp invitees:

• Kendrick Perkins: One year, minimum salary. Exhibit nine. (Waived)
• JaCorey Williams: One year, minimum salary. Summer contract. (Waived)
• Isaac Hamilton: One year, minimum salary. Summer contract. (Waived)

Trades:

• Acquired Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic, the Nets’ 2018 first-round pick, and the Heat’s 2020 second-round pick from the Celtics in exchange for Kyrie Irving.
• Acquired the draft rights to Dimitrios Agravanis and draft rights to Sergiy Gladyr from the Hawks in exchange for Richard Jefferson, Kay Felder, a 2019 second-round pick, the Trail Blazers’ 2020 second-round pick (top-55 protected), and cash.
  • Note: 2019 second-round pick will be the less favorable of the Lakers’ and Timberwolves’ selections.

Draft picks:

• None

Draft-and-stash signings:

• Cedi Osman (2015; No. 31): Signed to three-year, $8.325MM contract.

Departing players:

• Kay Felder
• Kyrie Irving
• Richard Jefferson
• Dahntay Jones
• James Jones
• Edy Tavares (waived)
• Deron Williams
• Derrick Williams

Other offseason news:

• Parted ways with general manager David Griffin.
• Offered president of basketball operations job to Chauncey Billups, who withdrew from consideration.
• Promoted assistant general manager Koby Altman to GM.
• Isaiah Thomas expected to be out until at least late December.
• Kendrick Perkins joins Cavaliers’ G League affiliate.

Salary cap situation:

• Operating over the cap and over the tax line. Carrying approximately $134MM in guaranteed team salary. Projected tax bill of approximately $43MM. Portion of taxpayer mid-level exception ($2,549,143) available.

Check out the Cleveland Cavaliers’ full roster and depth chart at RosterResource.com.

Story of the summer:

The Cavaliers looked thoroughly overpowered by the Warriors in the 2017 NBA Finals, so it’s understandable that their offseason was punctuated by moments of panic and general uncertainty.

It wasn’t long before the Cavs’ plan of making a landmark move to emphatically one-up their Western Conference rival in Golden State quickly gave way to desperate attempts at self-preservation. After missing out on early targets like Jimmy Butler and Paul George, the franchise managed to survive, emerging from a substantial personnel shuffle with an oddly intriguing smorgasbord of assets.

This couldn’t have been the summer that LeBron James hoped for on the heels of Cleveland’s season-ending loss in Oakland last June, but the club handled unforeseen adversity as well as anybody inside or outside of the organization could have hoped.

Will the forced – but nonetheless decent – moves that the team made in 2017 be enough to convince James to re-sign in Cleveland in 2018? Well, that will be the story of next summer.

Key offseason losses:

When Kyrie Irving forced the Cavaliers’ hand into trading him over the course of the summer, the team had little choice but to oblige. Irving’s ability to create offense on the perimeter will be missed heading forward, as will his general presence as an unquestioned superstar talent who drew significant attention from opposing teams. There’s no single player that will make up the loss of Uncle Drew (not even a fully healthy Isaiah Thomas), so the best the Cavs can hope for is success from the backcourt committee they’ve assembled.

While the Cavs didn’t initially intend to part ways with Richard Jefferson this offseason, the opportunity to pick up a recently bought-out Dwyane Wade was too irresistible to pass up considering everything else that transpired over the summer. Fortunately for Cleveland, there are no shortage of valued veterans in the team’s locker room.

The Cavs didn’t exactly get what they hoped for when they brought Deron Williams aboard during buyout season last year, so the 33-year-old’s exit won’t have a major impact. Williams averaged 7.5 points per game for the team in 2016/17 and remains unsigned.

Key offseason additions:

Despite an MVP-caliber campaign and his role in the revitalization of the Celtics as a legitimate contender, Thomas doesn’t move the needle as much as Cavaliers might have hoped. Perhaps it’s the hip injury that could keep him out until Christmas; perhaps it’s the pending free agent’s affinity for measuring his salary in Brink’s trucks. Regardless, it’s hard to be confident in a guard who only transitioned from good to great last season, particularly because of the shoes he’ll need to fill when he gets back on the court.

The Cavaliers haven’t had a particularly physically imposing perimeter defender during their most recent Eastern Conference reign so the addition of Jae Crowder could add a much-needed element to their lineup. If he can provide value checking the likes of Klay Thompson and/or Kevin Durant, he could end up being the most influential component of Cleveland’s offseason haul.

It’s easy to disregard the idea of Derrick Rose as an NBA star these days, but the former MVP had a decent, if weird, lone season with the Knicks last year. The fact that the Cavs were able to lure him on a minimum contract could go down as one of the steals of the summer so long as he’s able to stay on the court. Rose will never again be the prolific threat to penetrate that he was during his heyday, but he finally appears to be trending in the right direction.

After one underwhelming year in Chicago, Wade and the Bulls parted ways, and it didn’t take long for the veteran to team up with James, his former running mate during their time with the Heat. Just what Wade can provide for the Cavs remains to be seen, but he remains capable of moments of greatness, as he showed sporadically last season. While Wade’s contributions in the regular season may be pedestrian, it’s inevitable that he’ll prove dangerous come playoff time.

It’s hard to know quite what to make of Jeff Green, considering the various forms he’s taken with five teams over the past four seasons. Still, in the worst-case scenario, he’s a long, experienced combo forward capable of getting hot intermittently throughout the season. Green is an underrated depth add and yet another massive bargain signed to a minimum contract.

Outlook for 2017/18:

The Cavaliers seem to be in good hands with Koby Altman at the helm (not that they were in necessarily bad hands with outgoing general manager David Griffin). Altman managed to cash in on James’ years of accumulated goodwill in the form of not one, not two, but three presumed rotation pieces signed to team-friendly, veteran’s minimum contracts.

Questions abound for the Cavs this regular season, but there’s no denying that they hastily patched together a veritable firing squad of established talent. On paper, at least. It may take some time for the acquisitions of Thomas, Wade, and Rose to bear fruit, but – in theory – they help make up one of the most prolific supporting casts James has been surrounded with in Cleveland.

If this team gets healthy and gels at the right time, the Cavs will be as scary as ever in 2017/18.

Salary information from Basketball Insiders used in the creation of this post. Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Luke Adams contributed to this post.