Cleveland Cavaliers: Contract impasse with Mo Williams is troubling

Is there an impasse between combo guard Mo Williams and the Cavs?

After a championship winning season, the Cavaliers were riding a high that not many franchises and players get to experience often, if at all.

It was the first championship for the Cleveland Cavaliers after 46 years of playing the game without ever reaching the pinnacle of success.

But during the offseason, scrappy backup point guard Matthew Dellavedova – a restricted free-agent – signed an offer sheet with the Milwaukee Bucks for 4 years and $38.4 million.

The Cavaliers felt the $9.6 million a year was a bit too much to pay for a backup point guard, so instead they negotiated a sign-and-trade with Milwaukee and received a $9.6 million dollar trade exception that could be used up to a year from the date of the trade.

The Bucks agreed to this trade to preserve Dellavedova’s bird rights.

It all sounded like a great idea, as the Cavaliers went ahead and used that trade exception to acquire forward Mike Dunleavy Jr. in a cap-clearing trade from the Chicago Bulls – giving them the cap space to sign disgruntled free-agent Dwayne Wade.

In the meantime, the Cavaliers had traded for Atlanta’s #54 overall pick in the 2016 draft and this pick became Kay Felder a 5-foot-nine point guard out of Oakland University in Michigan.

He has done well since joining the team in the summer league and the NBA preseason.

Strange things began happening during the offseason. First it was rumored that Mo Williams told

Nov 2, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers guard Mo Williams (52) attempts to pass around the defense of Philadelphia 76ers center Jahlil Okafor (8) during the second quarter at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports /

people close to him that he was going to retire. Since he had never told the Cavaliers this, they assumed it was the usual media rumors that the team has dealt with since the return of LeBron James.

If he had made it clear he was going to retire, the team could have waived him prior to August 31st and spread out the $2.2 million that they owed him for this season over three years and thus saving $4.5 million in luxury taxes since the Cavaliers are far over the tax-payer cap.

The team headed to training camp assuming that Williams would play out the last year of his deal – worth $2.2 million – because on September 21, 2016 he had announced that he would return for the season.

One day before training camp started, Mo Williams announced through his agent that he indeed was retiring. This was both shocking and left the team in a bit of a lurch, as they only had Williams and Felder as backup point guards and after Williams “announced” his retirement they were left with just rookie point guard Felder as the backup to Kyrie Irving.

The Cavaliers invited to training camp a number of promising youngsters and D-league stars to fill that roster spot that was supposed to be vacated by Williams.

Here’s where the strangeness begins.

On October 12, 2016 Mo Williams underwent knee surgery to repair bone spurs. After the successful surgery, Williams had a few not so good things to say about the Cavaliers. He claimed the team played him and were unconcerned about his knee, which both parties knew was not 100%.

It took a third opinion to figure out that Mo Williams needed a knee operation to solve the persistent pain he had been experiencing.

Now the Cavs have found out that Mo Williams never filed his retirement paperwork with the league and is currently occupying a roster spot that the Cavaliers need badly. They’ve had to waive young players to get their roster down to 16 players.

Now the Cavaliers are exploring trade options that would open up that extra roster spot, but to trade Mo Williams to a team to take his salary into their cap space, they would need a “sweetener” – which appears to be combo-guard Jordan McRae.

They have also been “listening” to offers for shooting guard Iman Shumpert, but the one team linked to that rumor (Minnesota) appears to be dragging their feet hoping the Cavs will basically give Shumpert away for backup point guard Tyus Jones.

The Cavaliers are down to three options.

1.) Trade Mo Williams/McRae for a good backup point guard, which would free them of Williams deal and his roster spot.

2.) Trade Shumpert (and McRae?) for a good backup point guard such as Ricky Rubio who has become redundant in the back court when Minnesota drafted Kris Dunn with the 5th overall pick in the 2016 draft (they also have Tyus Jones and John Lucas III on roster).

3.) Waive Mo Williams outright, pay him his $2.2 million and pay the resulting luxury tax.

With just two days before the start of the NBA season, the Cavaliers have little time to accomplish the first two options without waiving either guard/forward Dahntay Jones or guard/forward DeAndre Liggins.

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What will the Cavaliers do?

If David Griffin is able to keep his anxiety under check, maybe he waits to get that backup point guard. But with Felder suffering a concussion in practice this week, he may have his hand forced in picking up a viable backup one way or the other.

If Felder clears the concussion protocol by this the regular season opener, the Cavs may waive Jones or Liggins.

A not-so-good point guard situation just turned into an ugly one. Thankfully, James is a capable ball handler.

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