February 5: The Jazz have officially acquired Ball and two second-round picks from the Cavaliers, according to press releases from both teams. Utah also separately completed its deal with Atlanta involving Landale.
“Lonzo Ball was the consummate professional during his time with the Cavaliers, and we’re grateful for his hard work and team-first mentality,” Cavaliers president of basketball operations Koby Altman said in a statement. “We wish him nothing but the best moving forward.”
Oddly, neither the Jazz’s release nor the Cavs’ announcement indicated what exactly Cleveland received from Utah to complete the deal, but RealGM’s official transaction log indicates it was cash.
February 4: The Jazz have agreed to a pair of trades, according to Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter links), who reports that Utah will be acquiring point guard Lonzo Ball and two second-round picks from the Cavaliers and is also sending center Jock Landale to the Hawks in exchange for cash considerations.
The Jazz are making their deal with Cleveland solely for the draft capital and are expected to waive Ball after the trade is complete, Charania adds (via Twitter). Once he clears waivers, he’d be eligible to sign with any team except the Cavs.
The Cavaliers acquired Ball from Chicago last summer in a swap for Isaac Okoro in the hopes that he could provide the team with a reliable replacement for Sixth Man of the Year finalist Ty Jerome, who departed in free agency. However, Ball had a disappointing season in Cleveland, averaging career lows in several categories, including points (4.6) and minutes (20.8) per game, as well as field goal percentage (30.1%) and three-point percentage (27.2%).
With the Cavs making an effort to reduce payroll and perhaps duck below the second tax apron, moving Ball and his $10MM salary made sense, especially after the team acquired guards Dennis Schröder and Keon Ellis from Sacramento over the weekend.
The Cavs will save approximately $65MM as a result of the Ball trade and are now just $3.9MM over the second apron, tweets Yossi Gozlan of The Third Apron. Cleveland may very well keep looking for ways to get out of second-apron territory in order to avoid having its 2033 first-round pick becoming “frozen” for trade purposes this offseason, but the club has already generated massive savings as a result of its recent moves — approximately $115MM in total, per Gozlan (Twitter link).
Utah, meanwhile, still had a significant amount of breathing room below the luxury tax threshold after adding to their payroll in Tuesday’s Jaren Jackson Jr. blockbuster and will take advantage of that flexibility to take on some unwanted salary and acquire the Cavs’ 2028 and 2032 second-round picks in the process, tweets Jake Fischer of The Stein Line. Those were the only second-rounders Cleveland had available to trade.
The Jazz still have a trade exception worth more than $12MM from last summer’s John Collins deal that they’ll use to absorb Ball’s pseudo-expiring contract (he has a $10MM team option for next season that will be automatically declined when he’s waived). That Collins exception was initially worth over $26MM and has since been used to acquire Georges Niang and John Konchar as well.
Landale was one of three role players the Jazz acquired alongside Jackson in Tuesday’s blockbuster with Memphis, but he wasn’t part of Utah’s future frontcourt plans and will now head to Atlanta.
The 30-year-old Australian center was having a career year for the Grizzlies prior to the trade, averaging 11.3 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 1.7 assists in 23.6 minutes per game across 45 outings (25 starts). He was also knocking down 38.0% of a career-high 2.9 three-point tries per game. He’ll provide frontcourt depth for a Hawks team that has been hit hard by injuries up front this season.
The Hawks will have to waive a player in order to make room for Landale, but that shouldn’t be a problem — both Duop Reath and N’Faly Dante are out with season-ending injuries and are candidates to be cut. They’ll be able to take on Landale without sending out any salary of their own since he’s on a minimum-salary contract.
Lonzo gonna get moved again as picks were the prize, not him.
The league will be better when LaMello is also waived too as a pointless player on perpetual losing teams.
Lonzo has options. I haven’t seen him play much this year, but Minnesota, Phoenix, Houston, or New York could use him after he’s bought out.
Ball has been awful. Pass, as a Knicks fan.
No MN does not want that trash can.
Lakers? Reunite with ZO2?
I really hoped Ball could shoot well enough to stick because of his size and play-making and defensive abilities but .300/.270 shooting is untenable.
Cavs off-season from hell comes to an end.
The past 2 years, these monetary races to get below the 2nd apron has been as exciting as the trades …… just gotta love the NBA.
This is what happens when you rig the system to beat a single team. Go warriors!
No
Jazz done well again
In comes Ball (10mil) out goes Landale (10mil) and they give up some cash for some second round picks
Lonzo once brought out would be awesome for the TWolves after they gave up Conley.
Ball can still defend and make plays for others maybe in a winning environment and getting decent minutes he refunds some of his old form
Landale is on a minimum……
Lonzo NBA career is over. He was never that good to begin with. Pretty decent. Passer and could get to the rim. Now that he’s at all these injuries and he can’t get to the rim and he never had a jump shot. He’s pretty much useless and will be out of the NBA after this year. I believe you guys don’t sometimes watch the games or players and you just go out for stats or a player’s name.
For once… I really agree with everything you said.
Or they can bring in a large rock and be better off.
Wow, all these people wanting the Wolves to sign Lonzo are lost, he has been worse than terrible this year.
Ball for Jock
This might be the best trade deadline ever
Lonzo showed so much potential
then he missed 2 whole years with injury
kinda like derick rose in the sense that lonzo never regained his old playing ability
Well, I think no one was expecting him to regain his former abilities including the Cavs. That ship had sailed. It’s a miracle he’s even playing at this point.
That being said, it was sort of reasonable to expect him to eventually shoot the ball better but that hasn’t happened. Curious to see if it ever comes back.
The Cavs got under the 2nd apron last season when they traded for Hunter, why is getting under it this season so important that they gave up their remaining tradeable draft picks?
LBJ will return to the Cavs next year and this will allow them to offer him a nice piece of change.
Lonzo had a team option. Rejecting the team option does the same as trading him now.
I was responding to the Cavs desire to get under the apron, not necessarily the trade of Ball. Plus he was ineffective.
Good backup center pickup for the Hawks in Landale assuming they keep him
Just seems now that the salary cap of the NBA is what’s more important right now to certain teams, the only teams that are trading are cutting salary or acquiring old veteran players they can waive or buy out. Trading in the NBA is how many bad contracts can you take in order to cut payroll, to get in line for the draft or free agency.
Don’t we have to get something back? Even if it’s a protected 2nd…
Cash considerations of $1
Ball had a knee replacement. Odds were against him coming back. He got another 10 mill. How does he get ten mill and Westbrook the minimum 😮👀
Cavs saved big money. Crazy shhh ……
Still can’t believe JJJ was traded for less than Bane or Bridges ……. not sure what that means. Does this mean Jazz won’t be a lottery team pick this yr.
Lonzo got that deal because you can’t trade minimum contracts for any value. He was on the Cavs already due to trade so they got the rights to add more without impacting MLE. Westbrook could not because he only wanted to stay in California. He played for every CA team besides GS and Sac, Kings already maxed out money besides the minimum.
Jazz still tanking as they only keep pick if 1-8 or it goes to OK.
Westbrook has been on minimum for years. Ball is a waste in every sense of the word. Yabusele is getting 6 mill. Its tragic …
Westbrook went to Sacramento and sat Schroder down. And he has three yrs 45 mill.
They gave Dennis the max MLE and were able to use that to get Hunter deal. I am a Russ fan but he already had largest contract in league. He is late 30s so his trade value is not there. If he was getting $10mill he would be used in trade and bought out.
Nobody cares what he had. Are you an owner. Westbrook deserves same respect as any future HOer. Bron worth the max. PG worth the max. Bron worth the max. Westbrook is still productive enough to sit Schroder down. What else matters. This is ball we talking not cap issues lol.
What does Cleveland get in this trade?
Nothing. They got out of Lonzo Ball’s contract and will save 56 M or something as a result. They shouldn’t have had to give up two picks though because there should have been other teams with the cap room to do what Utah did, each one of which would theoretically say “yes” to another team’s offer of one 2nd round pick in exchange for absolutely nothing.
Is there not one other team with the cap room to absorb Ball’s contract that could immediately waive him who would have done this in exchange for just one pick? It’s a free pick. Shouldn’t any and every team with the ability to do what Utah did come in to the Cavs saying
“hey we would take just one pick to do that Lonzo Ball trade and waive move you’re about to overpay Utah to do for you”