Cleveland Cavaliers Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Cavs Sign Sasha Kaun

September 9th, 2015 at 10:05am CST by Chuck Myron

Olympics: Basketball-Men's Preliminary-AUS vs RUS

Courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

10:05am: Windhorst pegs the total value at $2.6MM (Twitter link).

9:42am: The two-year package is worth $2.5MM total, sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com (Twitter link).

SEPTEMBER 9TH, 9:35am: The deal is official, the team announced. Kaun will make $1.2MM this season, as Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote recently.

7:38pm: Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com hears that the second year is not a player option, in contrast to what sources told Windhorst (Twitter link).

6:40pm: The contract gives Kaun a player option for the second year, tweets Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com.

AUGUST 22ND, 4:44pm: Kaun and the Cavs have reached an agreement on a two-year pact, international journalist David Pick reports (via Twitter).

AUGUST 17TH, 4:09pm: Draft-and-stash center Sasha Kaun appears on his way to the Cavaliers for this season, as a source tells Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com that “it’s only a matter of time” before a deal is done. Kaun and the Cavs had reportedly engaged in talks last month, and GM David Griffin confirmed the team’s interest in bringing the big man aboard for this coming season. Griffin pointed to finances as a concern, and while every dollar the Cavs spend this season will likely entail multiple additional dollars going out in tax penalties, Kaun downplayed any financial hurdles. Still, no deal is imminent, and Kaun, who’s in Cleveland this week to house hunt, among other pursuits, is scheduled to leave town Tuesday, and the sides probably won’t have an agreement in place by then, Haynes writes.

The Cavs can offer no more than the $1.276MM sliver of the mid-level exception they have left over after signing Mo Williams to his deal earlier this summer, and that’s much less than the $2.9MM he had been making for Russia’s CSKA Moscow. Using the balance of that exception on Kaun would also make it virtually impossible for Cleveland to offer a market-rate deal to Cedi Osman, whom the Cavs drafted No. 31 overall this year.

The 30-year-old Kaun, who played collegiately at Kansas, was the 56th overall pick in 2008. The Cavs have seemingly been giving thought to bringing him aboard for the season ahead since at least this past March. Cleveland reportedly had talks with the Nets about trading Kaun’s rights to Brooklyn, but it looks like the Cavs won’t be dealing him away. Cleveland has plenty of room on its roster, as Sunday’s apparent deal with Jared Cunningham gives the team contracts or verbal agreements with only 12 players. Re-signing Tristan Thompson remains the focus for the Cavs, Haynes notes.

Do you think Kaun is the right fit for one of the final roster spots on the Cavs? Leave a comment to tell us.

Eastern Notes: Smith, Johnson, Nets

September 8th, 2015 at 10:16pm CST by Eddie Scarito

J.R. Smith‘s two-year contract with the Cavaliers has become fully guaranteed for the 2015/16 season since he remained on Cleveland’s roster through Monday, as is shown by our schedule of salary guarantee dates, a date first reported by Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. The 29-year-old’s pact had an initial partial guarantee of $2MM included at the time of signing. Smith’s unusual deal also includes a $2.15MM partial guarantee on the full $5.4MM value of next year’s salary, which will become fully guaranteed if he is still a member of the Cavs past September 7th, 2016.

Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:

Heat shooting guard Tyler Johnson has been cleared to return to full basketball activities, the team announced (via Twitter). The 23-year-old suffered a broken jaw back in July during Orlando Summer League play. Johnson, 23, will likely need a full training camp in to help him secure a regular season roster spot with the team since Miami has a roster count of 19, including 12 fully guaranteed pacts. The guard’s $845,059 salary for 2015/16 is partially guaranteed for $422,530.
David West ‘s decision to jump ship and sign with the Spurs this offseason was the final push that the Pacers required to hit the reset button and begin a retool of the team, Mark Montieth of NBA.com writes in his mailbag. Indiana has added eight new players to its roster this offseason as a result, including Chase Budinger, Toney Douglas, Monta Ellis, Jordan Hill, Glenn Robinson III, and rookies Myles Turner, Joseph Young, and Rakeem Christmas.
Former Nets majority owner Bruce Ratner’s Forest City Enterprises made a capital call today worth $26.8MM in order to preserve its 20% ownership stake in the team, Mike Mazzeo of ESPN.com relays (Twitter links). Ratner’s group was facing a deadline of today to come up with the funds or have its ownership stake reduced to approximately 8%, Mazzeo notes. Mikhail Prokhorov is in the process of working toward a deal that would give him full ownership of both the team and the Barclays Center.

Three 2016 Max Offers Await Tristan Thompson?

September 8th, 2015 at 12:12pm CST by Chuck Myron

Agent Rich Paul has heard from three teams that are willing to offer a maximum-salary contract to Tristan Thompson next summer if he hits unrestricted free agency, sources tell Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops (Twitter link). Paul reportedly believes he can get a max deal from the Raptors for Thompson, a Toronto native, but it’s unclear if they are one of the three. The Trail Blazers and Sixers are the only teams capable of coming close to what the Cavs have offered this year, so Cleveland would appear to be largely in control of Thompson’s fate for the coming season. However, Paul has said that Thompson, who’s lingered in restricted free agency since July 1st, wouldn’t re-sign with the Cavs next summer if he were to sign his one-year qualifying offer of nearly $6.778MM, which is on the table from the Cavs until the end of this month.

The Cavs and Thompson’s camp have had little communication, if any, of late amid a separation of some $14MM in their respective proposals, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group and the Cleveland Plain Dealer told us last week. Thompson is looking for a five-year max deal, which would be worth $94,343,129, and the Cavs have offered $80MM over five years.

The value of Thompson’s qualifying offer is nearly $10MM less than what he would make on the starting salary of a max deal, but the power forward could nonetheless benefit financially from taking the qualifying offer if max offers from other teams are indeed waiting for him next year. Max salaries go up in accordance with the salary cap, and with the cap set to spike for 2016/17, next summer’s projected maximum for a player with Thompson’s experience is $20.4MM. With 4.5% raises over a four-year contract, the best terms he could get if he doesn’t re-sign with Cleveland, a max deal with a new team next summer would be worth a total of $87.108MM, based on that $20.4MM starting salary projection. Combined with the qualifying offer, Thompson would make almost as much going that route as he would signing a five-year max with Cleveland this year.

Of course, much can change between now and next July, and teams currently willing to pay the max have the right to change their minds based on Thompson’s performance this season as well as their own financial circumstances. Interest at the level of salaries exceeding $20MM seem tenuous at best for a player who came off the bench for most of this past season and scored only 8.5 points per game, despite his pedigree as the No. 4 overall pick in 2011. The Cavs have Kevin Love and Timofey Mozgov at the inside positions, so Thompson would seemingly be in line for a return to the bench after he started in place of an injured Love during the postseason.

Do you think teams will be willing to offer Tristan Thompson the max next summer? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.

Cavaliers To Sign D.J. Stephens

September 8th, 2015 at 10:44am CST by Zachary Links

High-flying swingman D.J. Stephens has agreed to a training camp deal with the Cavaliers, a league source tells Hoops Rumors. Stephens appeared in three contests for the Bucks while on a 10-day contract in 2013/14 and he’ll now look to get back to NBA action with Cleveland in 2015/16.

Last fall, Stephens inked a non-guaranteed minimum-salary camp deal with the Pelicans and was among the team’s final cuts about a week before Halloween. In December, the Keith Kreiter client signed on with Russia’s Zenit St. Petersburg, where he enjoyed a starting role. In 31 games (28 starts) between the VTB United League and Eurocup play, the 24-year-old averaged 7.0 points and 5.1 rebounds while shooting 57.7% from the floor in 22.7 minutes per game. The defensive specialist also tallied 21 steals and 26 blocks over the course of 31 appearances last year.

Stephens went undrafted out of the University of Memphis in 2013, even though his 46-inch vertical leap at the draft combine set an all-time record that still stands, as DraftExpress shows. He never averaged double figures in points during his four years at Memphis, but he used his athleticism on the other end of the floor, winning the Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year award in his senior season. In 2013/14, the strong defender played in 25 combined games with Ilisiakos BC of Greece and Anadolu Efes of Turkey and averaged 8.4 PPG and 7.0 RPG in 23.8 MPG.

The Cavaliers have been carrying 13 fully guaranteed deals, assuming that the team’s pact with draft-and-stash prospect Sasha Kaun is one of them. They also reportedly have a non-guaranteed deal with Jared Cunningham, a camp arrangement with Jerrelle Benimon, and they’re expected to bring Quinn Cook to camp, too. The unresolved restricted free agency of Tristan Thompson casts a broad shadow on the Cavs roster, of course.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Cavs Expected To Bring Quinn Cook To Camp

September 7th, 2015 at 4:23pm CST by Chuck Myron

SEPTEMBER 7TH, 4:23pm: The Cavs are expected to sign Cook for camp, but they’ve yet to finalize a deal, tweets Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders.

11:35am: Cook hasn’t agreed to any deal yet, though the idea of joining the Cavs isn’t off the table, according to Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders (Twitter links). Cleveland has made an offer, but he’s considering it along with offers from others, Kyler also tweets.

AUGUST 18TH, 10:03am: The Cavaliers have agreed to sign undrafted point guard Quinn Cook to a non-guaranteed deal for training camp, reports Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com. He joins Jared Cunningham among those who’ll reportedly join the Cavs for camp, and Cleveland is also apparently likely to sign draft-and-stash center Sasha Kaun. The formal addition of all three would bring the Cavs roster to 14 players, not including Tristan Thompson and J.R. Smith, who linger in free agency.

Cook was a mainstay over four years at Duke and flourished as a senior, averaging 15.3 points, 2.6 assists and 1.2 turnovers in 35.8 minutes per game. He played off the ball this past season next to Tyus Jones, who was this year’s 24th overall pick even though he saw fewer minutes per contest than the undrafted Cook. The seemingly superior upside of Jones, who was a freshman in 2014/15, carries appeal, though Cook is still only 22 years old.

The Jim Tanner client split summer league between the Thunder and the Cavs, averaging 7.9 PPG, 3.3 APG and 1.8 TOPG in 18.5 MPG across nine appearances overall. Cook told Zach Links of Hoops Rumors prior to the draft that he was working to become a better finisher, defender, and shooter off the dribble.

Central Notes: Kaun, Irving, Baynes, Pistons

September 6th, 2015 at 12:56pm CST by Arthur Hill

The first season of Sasha Kaun’s two-year deal with the Cavaliers will be valued at $1.2MM, according to Terry Pluto of The Plain Dealer. That’ll come out of the taxpayer’s mid-level exception, since the rookie minimum is only $525,093. The Cavs had been carrying a $1.276MM portion of the mid-level after signing Mo Williams, so it appears they’re using most of the rest on Kaun. Cleveland believes it’s important to sign the 30-year-old center for two seasons because of uncertainty among its centers and power forwards, Pluto writes. Tristan Thompson remains unsigned and is rumored to be considering a one-year deal. Timofey Mozgov will become an unrestricted free agent next summer and could get an offer in excess of $100MM. Anderson Varejao and Kevin Love are both coming off serious injuries, and the Cavaliers may want to limit their playing time early in the season, so they may need Kaun to contribute right away.

There’s more from the Central Division:

Despite the decent chance that Kyrie Irving is out until January, the Cavs expect he’ll be ready to play before then, Pluto writes in the same story. The star guard, who is recovering from a fractured kneecap suffered during the NBA Finals, can also expect to see a minutes restriction once he returns to action. The signing of Williams allows the team to take some of the strain off Irving.
Aron Baynes could be an important addition for the Pistons as a backup to Andre Drummond, writes David Mayo of MLive. Responding to a question in his mailbag column, Mayo said he expects Baynes, who signed with Detroit as a free agent this summer, to outperform the numbers he put up in San Antonio. Mayo mentions Spencer Dinwiddie, who will be the backup point guard to start the season with Brandon Jennings still recovering from an Achilles injury, as another player who could surprise.
In the same piece, Mayo picks Reggie Bullock and Adonis Thomas as the most likely “on the bubble” players to earn a spot on Detroit’s roster. The Pistons currently have 17 players with fully guaranteed contracts.

Cavaliers To Sign Jerrelle Benimon For Camp

September 6th, 2015 at 11:32am CST by Arthur Hill

Jerrelle Benimon has agreed to a training camp deal with the Cavaliers, tweets Chris Reichert of Upside & Motor. Benimon spent most of last season with the D-League’s Idaho Stampede, where he averaged 19.8 points, 11 rebounds and 4.4 assists in 44 games (Twitter link).

Benimon signed a 10-day contract with the Jazz in March and appeared in two games, going scoreless but collecting three rebounds in three minutes of playing time. After going undrafted last year, he signed with the Nuggets in September, but was waived during training camp.

The signing of Benimon, who played for Cleveland’s summer league team, brings the Cavs’ camp total to 15 players, not counting Tristan Thompson, who is still unsigned. Thirteen have fully guranteed contracts, while Jared Cunningham’s is non-guaranteed.

Eastern Notes: J.R. Smith, Wizards, Contracts

September 3rd, 2015 at 5:30pm CST by Chuck Myron

J.R. Smith‘s new two-year contract with the Cavaliers has an unusual structure that includes partial guarantees for both this season and next, sources tell Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com (Twitter links). This year’s salary, worth $5MM, is guaranteed for only $2MM, and next year’s salary, a player option, has a $2.15MM partial guarantee on the full $5.4MM value, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (All four Twitter links). However, this season’s salary becomes fully guaranteed if the team keeps him through Monday, Pincus adds. That’s almost certain to happen, but the reason that clause is in the contract is so that his 2016/17 salary can become fully guaranteed if he sticks on the roster through the same date next year, in a structure similar to the deal that Kostas Papanikolaou signed with the Rockets last year, Pincus explains. The Cavs formally announced Smith’s signing Wednesday, nearly two weeks after Smith revealed that he would be rejoining the team.

See more from around the Eastern Conference:

Coach Randy Wittman likes the grit that Wizards camp signee Toure’ Murry has shown in the past, but the shooting guard will have to make quite a convincing case for the Wizards to keep him over one of the 15 players on their roster with a fully guaranteed contract, writes J. Michael of CSNMidAtlantic. Jaleel Roberts, the other Wizard with a non-guaranteed deal, won his training camp roster spot more so by his performance at Tim Grgurich’s private camp than through his play with the Wizards summer league squad, Michael hears. Still, Roberts is more likely to make the regular season roster in 2016/17, when the team will ostensibly have greater flexibility, than he is this year, according to Michael.
Kelly Dwyer, Ben Rohrbach and Eric Freeman of Yahoo! Sports weighed in on which 2015 NBA draftee ended up in the best situation to succeed next season. Dwyer chose the Knicks‘ Kristaps Porzingis, while Rohrbach tabbed Justise Winslow of the Heat, and Freeman’s pick was the Nuggets’ Emmanuel Mudiay.
The Cavs had possessed one of the most tradeable contracts in the league in Brendan Haywood‘s non-guaranteed pact, which they had dealt to the Blazers at the end of July. Pincus, in a separate post, ran down some of the most desirable trade chip contracts around the NBA , including Amir Johnson and Jonas Jerebko of the Celtics, the Wizards‘ Kris Humphries and Martell Webster, as well as Ersan Ilyasova‘s deal with the Pistons.

Eddie Scarito contributed to this post.

Cavs Re-Sign J.R. Smith

September 2nd, 2015 at 6:00pm CST by Eddie Scarito

SEPTEMBER 2ND, 6:00pm: The deal is official, the Cavaliers announced.

8:56pm: The deal is for two years and includes a player option for 2016/17, and Smith will earn approximately $5MM this season, Chris Haynes of The Northeast Ohio Media Group tweets.

Courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

AUGUST 20TH, 8:36pm: It appears that unrestricted free agent J.R. Smith is set to re-sign with the Cavaliers, with the player taking to his personal Instagram account to relay the news. It is unclear what the length and terms of Smith’s deal with the team are. The Cavs reportedly wanted Smith back on a modest one-year deal, as Terry Pluto of the Plain Dealer wrote last month, and Smith had been seeking a three-year deal, according to Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group.

Smith wrote, “Happy to say that I am returning to the Cavs! It’s been a long ride this summer but I can say for sure, well worth the wait. When I opted out of my contract, I wanted to understand the landscape of the NBA and where I fit best. The Cavaliers had things they needed to do in order to piece together a championship caliber roster. I ended up deciding that instead of potentially securing a larger deal elsewhere, I wanted to rejoin an incredible organization in pursuit of the ultimate goal, an NBA championship. Thank you to the Cavaliers for making this happen. Can’t wait to get started!

The Cavs are about $4MM above the tax threshold for now, but they still haven’t re-signed Tristan Thompson, a move that they still appear likely to make. A deal around the max for Thompson would mean Smith’s contract would cost the Cavs $3.75 or more in tax penalties for every dollar it’s worth. Smith had declined his one-year, $6.4MM player option for the upcoming season.

Smith, 29, averaged 12.7 points per game and shot 39% from three-point range during the regular season with the Cavs after being acquired from the Knicks. The guard’s career numbers through 11 NBA seasons are 13.2 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 2.3 assists to go along with a slash line of .424/.372/.737.

Central Notes: LeBron, Hibbert, Bulls

September 2nd, 2015 at 3:30pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Cavaliers and Bulls looked like the two clear-cut favorites in the Eastern Conference a year ago, and while the Bulls’ roster is still largely the same, the Cavs zoomed past them in the playoffs and other Eastern Conference contenders appear to have gained ground. The Heat, Wizards, Raptors, Hawks and perhaps even the Bucks, whom Chicago dispatched in the first round this spring, all appear capable of posing a threat and then some to the Bulls this coming season. While we wait for training camps to open later this month to see how it all unfolds, there’s more on the Bulls and Cavs amid the latest from the Central Division:

LeBron James has structured his past two deals with the Cavaliers to give himself a chance to exit every summer, but the Cavs don’t think he’d dare to leave Cleveland a second time, as Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher said recently in a video and as Dan Feldman of ProBasketballTalk notes. That falls in line with a suggestion that Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports made last October, though Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group and the Cleveland Plain Dealer heard in December that James would be prepared to leave the Cavs if he felt it would be the “appropriate business decision.”
The Pacers agreed to trade Roy Hibbert to the Lakers with the caveat that the Lakers would pull out of the deal if they signed a marquee free agent center, Lakers Executive VP of Basketball Operations Jim Buss told Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times. “[Pacers president of basketball operations Larry Bird] was fine with that,” Buss said. “Bird wanted to put the kid into a spotlight like this.” Hibbert praised Bird for having been up front with him, though David West cited the Pacers’ handling of their desire to move on from Hibbert as one of the reasons he opted out.
Sam Smith of NBA.com, writing in a mailbag column, wonders about the lineup choices new Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg will make and looks at whether the season ahead will have as little roster movement for Chicago as the summer did.
We asked for your input on the Pistons roster dilemma as part of Tuesday’s Community Shootaround.