Adam Silver’s Plans Good, Bad for the Cavaliers Future
The Cleveland Cavaliers have made over their roster twice in the span of a few months, taking Adam Silver’s NBA by storm. First was the addition of LeBron James, Kevin Love, Shawn Marion, Mike Miller, James Jones, Joe Harris and Brendan Haywood in the off-season, 7 new players from this off-season on the 15 man roster. Then came the in season trades that netted the Cavs Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert, bringing the total to 10 new players on the 15 man roster. With Anderson Varejao out for the season only Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson and Matthew Dellavedova are active from last year’s team. That is a ton of turnover.
Silver’s state of the league address could have a huge impact on how the Cavs are able to make over their roster in the upcoming seasons as well as how that roster will perform. Silver talked to the media about a number of topics but two stuck out to us that relate to the Cavaliers: schedule changes and salary cap change.
Here is what Silver had to say about the schedule, via ESPN:
"What Silver discussed that is germane to how players and fans will see next season is a move to alter the league’s scheduling practices to greatly reduce the number of situations where teams must play four games in five nights. There was a surge in those situations this season, mostly because Silver responded to players’ requests to extend this All-Star break to a full week.“We’ll come as close as we can to eliminating the 4-in-5 formula, we think we can make a dramatic reduction,” Silver said. “We hear everyone loud and clearly. It’s a function of number of days in the schedule.”"
For the Cavaliers future this is great news. LeBron James, who is expected to be a Cav for the rest of his career, has logged so many minutes that the wear and tear caused him to miss a number of games this year. The Cavs, much like the Miami Heat, will also be a place that many veterans will want to sign for a chance to get a title. It happened this year with Marion, Jones and Miller. The extra days of rest, and the lessened pounding of back to backs, will be very beneficial for a veteran laden team that we expect the Cavs to be for years to come.
That part is the good of Adam Silver’s plan, on the other hand we have the salary cap plans that Silver would like to implement:
"Silver did not have a reaction to the players union vetoing the league’s proposal Friday on the so-called “cap smoothing” issue that involves management on the rise of the salary cap with the new TV deal. It’s complicated — there are numerous forensic accountants involved — and the players have no incentive to make any concessions because the current CBA allows them to just let the money flood in all in one year.It may eventually be of interest to teams who have big salary cap space coming in 2016 such as the New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat, but it could be a year or more before this is settled.“It’s like a lot of things in business, you deal with the situation as it’s presented to you,” Silver said. “I don’t want to act like this is a terrible problem to have. We will live with our deal.”"
We have all heard about the increased TV revenue that would be coming in to the NBA very soon. Most have believed that the league would work to slowly increase the cap, instead of letting the cap expanding rapidly with the new money coming in. The Player’s Association rejected that “smoothing” plan on Friday. Silver’s plan is not as good for the Cavaliers while the PA’s rejection, with LeBron now as the Vice President, could be good for the Cavs.
As it stands now the Cavs are unlikely to have any cap space to work with over the next few years. James, Irving and Love will take up a majority of it. This is even true given the progressive increases that have been expected from the TV money. However, if the money comes all at once (which based on CBA language that is what will happen unless the two sides agree to something), it could put the Cavs in position to pursue a free agent that could add to their core. The possibility also could allow GM David Griffin to be aggressive with Brendan Haywood’s contract in the off-season.
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A big increase could also help the Cavs stay out of the very big repeater tax process for a year at some point. The downside to a big increase is the possibility of some teams being able to overpay for free agents the Cavs might like. Some projections say the Lakers could have $80 million in cap space and the Knicks somewhere near $60. Middling prospects could get major money if those numbers hold.
The Cavs are in a good place no matter what. Silver’s willingness to extend the All Star break will help LeBron, Love and other veterans to heal up for this year’s stretch run, they have a ton of talent at the top of their roster and have enough youth to have their window open for years. If both these issues go the Cavs way it could make things even better for the team, and we are always rooting for that.
What do you think of Adam Silver’s plans and how they could benefit the Cavs?