Why Cavaliers can’t trade for ambitious target Gary Trent Jr.

Why can’t the Cavaliers trade for Gary Trent Jr.?

The first obstacle in trading for Gary Trent Jr. is that he likely won’t be under contract. He has a $18.78 million player option that he is likely to decline to secure a more lucrative and/or longer contract. The Cavs can’t trade for him straight up because he’ll be a free agent.

Trent also isn’t declining that option just to sign for the $12.2 million Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception, so the Cavaliers can’t sign him outright. That means they have to pull off a sign-and-trade, a move that would hard-cap them at the first tax apron.

Functionally, that would mean choosing between Trent and Caris LeVert, unless the Raptors are interested in a double sign-and-trade for LeVert. Assuming not, the Cavs would probably need to let LeVert walk and then hope they can cobble together enough assets and salary to make a deal work.

Let’s say for the moment that Trent signs a three-year, $60 million deal for a $20 million per-season average. That might not be enough for Trent, but we’ll use it as a rough proxy. The Cavs would need to send back Isaac Okoro and either Ricky Rubio or Cedi Osman, plus however many second-round picks the Raptors want. If the Cavs try to play hardball, the Raptors can call their bluff – they need Toronto to cooperate to make a deal happen.

Trent doesn’t solve all of the Cavs’ problems and would be hard-pressed to take on the toughest defensive assignments on the perimeter. The Raptors would also want real value back, not a collection of poor-shooting role players on guaranteed contracts.

This could happen, but there are a number of obstacles in the way that suggest that it won’t. Their “ambitious” trade target is perhaps a bit too ambitious, keeping this potential deal out of reach.