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Cleveland Cavaliers’ Deals Of The Past Are Now Considered Bargains

By Aaron Ferguson

Jan 15, 2016; Houston, TX, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers guard Iman Shumpert (4) during the game against the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 15, 2016; Houston, TX, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers guard Iman Shumpert (4) during the game against the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports /
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Thanks to a rising salary cap, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ past free agency blunders are now considered bargains. What does that mean for the future?

The Cleveland Cavaliers are fortunate to have virtually zero cap space this summer. With the salary cap at an all-time high $94 million, plenty of teams are (over)paying players, simply because they have to.

Owners have to share half of their revenue with players, according to the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement. That means players such as Evan Turner, who agreed to a $70 million deal according to The Vertical‘s Adrian Wojnarowski, and Mike Conley, who will be paid over $30 million annually over five years ($153 million total) according to USA Today‘s Sam Amick, will land some head-scratching deals.

Cavs center Timofey Mozgov went to two straight NBA Finals, including starting all 20 playoff games for the Cavs during the 2015 NBA Playoffs. The rising cap played an advantage to him as he agreed to a four-year, $64 million deal with the Los Angeles Lakers.

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What does that mean for the Cavs going forward? Their previous deals that looked atrocious have turned into valuable assets that will be even more valuable as the cap continues to rise.

Take Iman Shumpert, for example. He is owed $20.3 million in guaranteed money over the next two seasons. That deal doesn’t look as a bad even though he only averaged 5.8 points per game. But Shumpert is on the team for his defense, everybody in the world knows that. While the lack of offensive contributions hurt his trade value, the contract itself isn’t as absurd as it once was.

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How about Tristan Thompson? He’s owed $67.7 million over the next four years as a player that only played 27.7 minutes per game last year. He silenced his critics with a strong performance in the NBA Playoffs, but his numbers weren’t deemed worthy of his contract before the hike in the league’s salary cap. Now, a $15 million deal is solid for a starting center, especially when Mozgov is earning $16 million per year.

Even Kevin Love, who could easily be a superstar on another team, is due $67.9 million over the next three years. If a team is looking for scoring, that’s more than Dwight Howard is set to receive after agreeing to a three-year, $70.5 million deal according to The Vertical‘s Shams Carania. That’s notable because Love is a better, more versatile scorer. If used properly, he could also be a better rebounder, too.

Moving forward with these players on these contracts is a good thing. Teams were told that the salary cap for the 2017-18 season should exceed the $100 million mark, according to ESPN‘s, which means the Cavs contracts will become more valuable as the cap increases.

Love and Thompson could easily become attractive trade targets for teams that desperately need a star forward or a strong rebounding center. If the Cavs get off to a bad start during the 2016-17 season, they could be forced to make a change in an effort to defend their NBA Championship.

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The record-high salary cap gives the Cavs an advantage moving forward. It makes their bad contracts look like bargains, and gives them extra value if they were to trade any of these players. As the rest of free agency unfolds, the pot only gets sweeter for the cap-starved Cavs.