Report: J.R Smith, Kyle Korver on trade block

The Cleveland Cavaliers want to trade J.R. Smith or Kyle Korver but there aren’t many potential suitors that can offer what they want.

According to cleveland.com’s Joe Vardon (h/t Ashish Mathur of Amico Hoops), the Cleveland Cavaliers would like to ease their salary burden by trading either J.R. Smith or Kyle Korver.

Smith, a vibrant but mercurial three-and-D player at this stage of his career, is owed $14.7 million this season. Korver, a savvy sharpshooter lacking lateral agility, is owed $7.5 million.

According to Vardon, the Cavs would like a first-round pick in exchange for Korver, the 15-year NBA veteran who has made the fourth-most threes of all-time and boasts a career three-point percentage of 43.1.

That’s one of the primary reasons that the reported trade that would result in Korver heading to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for point guard Jerryd Bayless wouldn’t work for the Cavs. It offered no cap relief.

Sacramento-bound snipers?

Looking around the league, there’s only team below the cap that could absorb Korver or Smith’s salary salary into their own without issue and that’s the Sacramento Kings ($11 million below the cap).

The Kings have a bevy of young wings on their roster — Buddy Hield, Bogdan Bogdanovic and Justin Jackson — whose development is a priority.

However, there’s no reason that a player like Korver or Smith wouldn’t be able to play a valuable role in Sacramento.

Besides being a tremendous outside threat, Korver is a solid team defender with surprisingly quick hands.

Despite Smith’s less-than-stellar moments, he can be a great three-point threat and on-ball defender when locked in.

Korver and Smith would certainly prefer playing for a championship-contender at this stage in their careers but both are professional enough to be mentors for the locker room.

A return to Chicago?

The Chicago Bulls ($8.9 million) are the only team with a trade exception large enough to absorb Korver’s salary. The Bulls look like a darkhorse playoff-contender on paper and adding a player like Korver could only put them over the hump.

His on-court contributions and the value he adds as a de facto shooting coach in the Bulls’ streaky shooting corps could be well worth a first-round pick for the Bulls if they’re serious about being competitive.

That said, if the Cavs can’t move Korver or Smith, they’ll probably be stuck with a logjam at shooting guard all season.

That they’re looking to make these trades now, when both players have partially guaranteed contracts that will pay them under $4 million each in guaranteed money if they’re waived in the offseason, shows just how swiftly they want to get their salary off their books though.

Between the logjam at shooting guard and their financial commitments to Korver and Smith this season, the Cavs could end up moving one or the other for less than what they initially requested in a trade.

Korver would likely have more trade value than Smith, so he’s more likely to be moved.

To that point, trading a 37-year-old Korver or an inconsistent Smith to a team like the Kings or Bulls for a couple of second-round picks wouldn’t be terrible idea, though they wouldn’t be ideal deals.

*All stats gathered from www.basketball-reference.com