The Cavaliers are planning to keep Andre Drummond on the bench as they work on finding a trade destination for the veteran center, according to Adrian Wojnarowsi and Brian Windorst of ESPN. As ESPN’s duo explains, Jarrett Allen is considered the Cavs’ center of the future and the team believes it’s unfair to Drummond to limit his minutes as the transition to Allen takes place.
According to Wojnarowski and Windhorst, general manager Koby Altman discussed the decision with Drummond and his agent, Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports. While Schwartz wouldn’t confirm or deny ESPN’s report, he offered the following statement:
“Whichever direction this goes, Andre is 27, in his prime, and I believe strongly that he has a great deal to add to a team building toward a postseason run.”
Drummond was ruled out of Sunday’s game for “rest” purposes, but sources told Shams Charania of The Athletic that the center sat on Sunday in part due to his recent “attitude and play.” Charania adds that head coach J.B. Bickerstaff has had multiple sit-down discussions with the 27-year-old, who has been frustrated by the Cavaliers’ recent slump.
According to Charania, the Raptors and Cavs are engaging in trade discussions about Drummond. However, a deal could take a while to come together as Toronto and Cleveland navigate through cap-related challenges and the possibility of incorporating other teams, so nothing is imminent.
Wojnarowski tweets that, while Cleveland is gauging the Drummond market, there are no “serious” ongoing talks taking place. Addressing the Raptors possibility specifically, Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca confirms (via Twitter) that Toronto has interest, but says discussions have only been exploratory and notes that matching Drummond’s $28.75MM salary would be difficult.
Other teams, including the Nets and Mavericks, would have interest in Drummond if he’s bought out, sources tell The Athletic. It’s unclear how many clubs besides Toronto would be interested in pursuing the big man via trade.
Cleveland’s obvious preference would be to avoid a buyout, especially since the team remains in the hunt for an Eastern Conference playoff spot and wouldn’t want to essentially hand Drummond to a conference rival for nothing, Charania writes. No buyout discussions have taken place to this point, sources tell ESPN.
Meanwhile, Drummond may not be the only Cavs center who is traded prior to the March 25 deadline. Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com reports that the club has received trade offers for all of its centers, though only Drummond and JaVale McGee are considered available — Allen isn’t going anywhere.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Enes Kanter took Drummond to school last week & the roster in CLE changed forever seemingly? Allen was obvious to take over at some point, but that game exposed Drummond & his lack of speed. (this is not a revelation) Kanter ran circles around him though, and Drummond couldn’t stop it.
Drummond can serve a few teams well, I’m just not sure those teams will be interested in him before, if he does, hit waivers.
Drummond has given zero effort the past few games in an attempt to get traded. He was happy in Cleveland so long as they had a legitimate interest in re-signing him. Drummond has been tremendous this season up to this point. NOnce they started losing that went out the window. Drummond now is looking to be traded to a team, so that team can retain his Bird rights, and be a viable option to re-sign him as a free agent while going over the cap to do it.
Glad you pointed it out. Drummond effort has been embarrassing. Versus the Blazers he opened the game with a layup miss, offensive board, then another layup miss. As all of the other 9 guys ran back down the court, Drummond stood shaking his head facing the stands, and then slowly jog-walked down the court…with basically 47 minutes left to play in the game.
The Cavs weakness have been exposed with Nance and Love out, which show we are nowhere as good as our initial record has shown to be. While our current 7 game losing streak has come against the Bucks x2, the Clipper x2, the Suns, the Blazers, and the Nuggets, and while we could still possibly make a run for the playoff playin games, it is still time to move on from Drummond and continue the rebuild.
The situational change is that Drummond has lost motivation following the losing streak… so, the JR Smith treatment.
His loss is preferable to being a ‘drumming’ source of negativity. A buyout is not much of a setback.
If a title-contending team signs him I think they’ll be rewarded though… he can pass too. Dallas could def use him, but they are lower-ranked! And Boston seems to prefer being small.
Celtics? They have assets and a trade exception
Drummond’s salary doesn’t quite fit into the trade exception, so they’d have to match salary.
Boston has a $28 million trade exemption from the Gordon Hayward trade. What doesn’t fit with Drummond who makes $28.75 million?
I think the trade exemption needs to be more than the salary for it to be allowed to be used
Boston can take back up to $28.6MM using that exception ($28.5MM + $100K).
If a player earns more than that (as is the case with Drummond), the exception is essentially useless for acquiring him, since it can’t be combined with another exception or salary.
Can Drummond rework his contract with the Cavs to take that amount of money off and make the trade valid?
Nope, the only way to reduce his cap hit for this season would be to do a buyout (which, of course, would mean cutting him, not trading him).
Makes sense
28.75 is higher than 28?
that’s what my guy says, he’s pretty stingy.
If he’s bought out, welcome to Brooklyn. If not, I think the Nets could trade for McGee by using one of its exceptions to pay him and sending second round pick(s) to Cleveland
Dallas should trade dwight powell or josh Richardson and james johnson for drummond
Sounds like so far they’re not Drummond up any interest. Wonder who actually makes a move for him knowing the alternative is a buy out. I assume they would be paying a lot less too to a player having a great year.
His salary and impending free agent status limits the pool of interested teams via trade to only 2 or 3.
It’ll be a 3 team trade Drummond to Toronto, Kyle Lowry to somewhere and Cavs to take back picks and expiring deals.
It’ll be interesting to see who is going after Lowry. I think Dallas would make sense for him, as would Orlando
Lol. No way the raptors trade Lowry just to pick up Drummond.
Agreed if they trading Lowry it’ll be for actual assets think 76ers and a package of thybulle shake and maxey, they won’t trading Lowry for half a year of a garbage fire they call Andre Drummond
Lowry to Nuggs for Jamal Murray? Jamal’s from Toronto, fwiw.
As I much as I would love that as a Toronto fan there is no way the Nuggets do that
Dumping Lowry to bring in Drummond makes no sense. The whole point of a trade is to make the team better, not worse.
Apparently Lowry is on the trade market and has listed his house for sale. Drummond is on 28 mil so how else would they trade for him than give up Lowry.
That’s just putting 1 and 1 together to make 2. Obviously the third team getting Lowry would have to give up more compensation but I feel like that’s the most likely situation
Maybe if he lands another deal, the iCarly girl will take him back.
Thinking a third team (or even fourth) may need to get involved to facilitate a trade. The Knicks have cap room, but would probably infringe on the assets the Cavs would be looking for in return.
They don’t have that much room.
It may not be much ($15 million), but the Knicks have the most cap space of any team in the league by far (Charlotte is 2nd at $4 million, everyone else is negative).
link to spotrac.com
OKC has cap space, if they want to use it. But more likely to use their gigantic TPEs. Boston has a big TPE also.
I really think Dallas should make this phone call. We could use his defensive acumen and his rebounding. They’ve needed a traditional C for a while now… KP a an play there but I don’t know if that’s good for his durability long term.
GSW literally has zero players over 6’7″ lol get this guy immediately!!
Why would Knicks get involved ?? We got real plans. Mavs and Raptors can use Drummond the most imo. Both would probably be willing to sign him. Raptors can use Lowry, he’s not coming back. But they would need a third team. I’ve been saying Mavs since KP got hurt. Cavs gave up nothing to get him. So anything back is a win They just might buy him out. Toronto is a good place for him.